Fell of tractor, run over by the mower.

[David_G]

I am sure glad I has ROPS and a seat belt on when I turned my BX23 on its side.

No belt I may have been under the ROPS.
No ROPS, the girl would have rolled all the way over with me underneath.

And for those who say they will jump off.... Forget it... I did not have time to think about it let alone jump.

 

[pitt_md]

I hate stories like this. Growing up on a farm I knew to many people killed or dismembered by farm equipment. Of the people that I personally knew who died working on the farm none of them were short on brains. They just got in a hurry or were over tired when things caught up with them. We need to slow down and make sure we do things right.

 

[patrick_g]

For every person whose life was saved or injuries significantly reduced by being "thrown free" of the accident or "jumping clear" there are thousands who were killed or suffered much worse injury BECAUSE they were ejected from the vehicle.

I don't want to wear a seat belt because:

I might crash and burn and not be able to get out of the seat belt.

I want to be thrown clear of the accident.

I want to be able to jump clear of the equipment.

...and on and on and on.

B A L D E R D A S H

There are good statistics on traffic accidents as well as farm and industrial accidents involving tractors and other self propelled equipment. The odds favor seatbelts, and ROPS or cabs by a terrific margin.

The G forces are often tremendous in a "situation" and you are not going to be able to control the position of your arms or body much less manage the coordination to jump under those conditions. Most thoughts of jumping free are ill formed wishful thinking expressed by the unknowing.

You'd be as well served to hope for intervention by extraterrestrial space aliens!!!

Typically a ROPS equipped tractor with the ROPS in the UP position does not roll over 180 degrees or more but instead is prevented from rolling past 90 degrees by the ROPS.

If you are wearing the seat belt it is very unlikely that you will ever be ejected from your tractor and be run over my an implement.

I know that some people don't believe anything I said but lets give them a chance to MAKE THEIR CASE.

Please, anyone, find documented cases (not just hearsay) where a person wearing a seat belt with a properly configured ROPS was injured in a situation where not having a ROPS or not wearing a seat belt was likely to have reduced or elliminated their injuries. We can then compare the number of times that happened to the stats on injuries without seatbelt and or ROPS.

I am not too concerned with the results of the above challenge showing seatbelts and ROPS to be a bad idea.

Needless injuries and deaths can be avoided with ROPS and seatbelt use.

Pat

 

[N80]

I'd say about 50% of the time I climb off my tractor under normal every day circumstances I stumble on something, or my cloths catch on something etc. That's with the tractor sitting still, level and usually off.

Knowing that, there is no way I'm ever going to jump or be thrown clear of that thing if it rolls. 0% chance.

ROPS stays up. Seatbelt stays on. Operator presecence switches functioning properly. I think these three simple devices are fanatastic and I wouldn't have a late model tractor without them.

 

[riptides]

I tried to jump clear of my Farmall during a roll over.

It only cost me an eye.

I tried to get off my B7800, it has only cost me my shorts.

I'd rather get off something, than jump off something.

 

[Charlesaf3]

what patrick and N80 said. I'm no gymnast to jump off a rolling tractor a) successfully, and b) in the right direction where I won't land on the ground and the tractor on me. And with due respect, I wouldn't expect most people on TBN to place highly in gymnastics competitions.

And reading stuff like this is good, reminds me why I shouldn't disable the kill switches when they annoy me.

As per above, I seem to regularly catch on something when I get off my tractor standing still, let alone with it rolling.

 

[patrick_g]

No, I don't put my little kid in a child seat. Those are not safe. In case of an accident I will hold onto, cradle in my arms, and otherwise protect my baby.

Yeah sure! A baby weighing 20 lbs can not be held onto in the typical car crash where the average G force is shown statistically to be about 50 G's. That would be 1000 pounds for the baby plus the increased weight of the parents hands and arms.

NOT BLOODY LIKELY

I'm a pretty sturdy fellow but I weigh 250 pounds. How many G's could I sustain and be able to make an accurate jump from a gyrating platform. Some days I have trouble with just 1 G. At only 10 G's I weigh 2500 lbs and am not likely to be doing anything but obeying Newton's laws of motion. Even a minor event only generating 4 G's makes me weigh 1000 pounds and last time I checked that was difficult for me to hold up and maneuver.

Show me someone who routinely benches a couple tons and we'll rethink jumping clear (but not a lot.)

Pat

 

[N80]

I was in a rollover accident about 18 years ago. Multiple rolls at highway speed. Two things stayed inside the vehicle. Me and my rifle. Both of us were belted. Everything else in the cab of the truck went out the windows. Everything. Coats, boots, binoculars, trash, contents of glove box, contents of center console, everything.

No human strength can resist that sort of force. I had a broken collar bone and pulmonary contusions (bruised lungs, coughing up blood....yes, it scared me a little). My gun did not have a scratch. I'd have been dead without the seat belt.

A friend of mine was a highway patrolman. He's seen it all. He says it is not uncommon to see a grown man thrown out the driver door window.

 

[patrick_g]

Ditto, George. 1963, 6-8 full revolutions rolling over and over down the freeway in a VW bug. (Witnesses disagreed on number of revolutions and I wasn't counting.) Totaled the bug. I popped off my seatbelt and got out in time to collect one of my hubcaps that was still going winga, winga, winga like a spinning coin on a table top. Pretty much cleaned the bug out like it had been vacuumed by a detailer. Even if somehow I was miraculously tossed out and not run over by my own car, what about the other 4-5 lanes of traffic doing 70+?

Luckily I was an early adopter/user of seatbelts. I used to install them in cars not equipped and encouraged everyone to use them. The '62 1/2 VW bug has cross lap and shoulder harness stock from Wolfsburg.

Pat

 

[300UGUY]

I knew this family, this happened a couple miles from my home. It was a 1958 or 59 International 240 tractor. No ROPS, no seat belt, no seat switch. I don't think many tractors of that age have ROPS or seatbelts, etc.