Human error. Lets help others deal with the pain of their mistakes by listing our.

[pat32rf]

The latch handles are left up, unlatched so I don't have to climb down, just lift the 3pth under the hitch and go. I always have a tongue heavy situation so it works, but that latch sticking up is the first thing to get caught by the bucket when clearing snow, the place where a piece of firewood falls, etc...
I have even been known to back one trailer into another, breaking off the latch handle of the rear trailer with the bumper of the first one...

 

[Dr_Zinj]

Ok I'll join in. I made the mistake last spring of lifting a boulder that was probably above the tractor's capabilities in order to move it off a trail on some land I owned. As I drove forward to move it off the trail, the front left tire ran up a bank and the tractor rolled on its side. I didn't react fast enough to drop the bucket, which may have stopped the roll. Thankfully it all happened very slowly and I had time to hop off and out of the way. ROPS do work.

I hope you hopped of and out of the way AFTER tractor stopped moving and you unlatched your safety belt. Otherwise, that would have been TWO mistakes.

Human errors always seem more emotionally devastating to people who take the most time to be careful. You can spend 50 years of watching, training, being careful, and in a split second of distraction for any reason, can have it all fall in the crapper. Our only consolation is that we usually live longer, in one piece, and can often minimize the damage compared to those who go through life with their heads stuck where the sun doesn't shine.

 

[dfkrug]

Guess the only people that don't make mistakes are the people that don't do anything.

Ain't that the truth. The trick is to make it thru your bullet-proof years without irreparable
body damage. AND learning from your mistakes and the mistakes of others.

 

[Garandman]

"Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement."
Will Rogers

 

[Ted Summey]

I've had three that come to mind right now.....yes there ARE others.

1. I was cutting a dado the length of a 20" white pine shelving board for some sort of box I was building. The board road up on top of the blade and kicked back. Thankfully, my fingers were well away from the blade but the board hit me in ribs on my right side. When it did, it split with one half being a sharpe wedge shape. The sharpe end stuck in my wrist about 1 1/2". It took about 8 stitches to put me back together. I use a hold down finger board clamped to the fence now days.

2. Clearing underbrush in some planted pines, I was cutting a 2" sprout of some sort with a chainsaw. It pinched and the saw kicked. It would have been okay but I was holding the chainsaw with the bar up cutting left to right versus the bar down cutting right to left. When it kicked it bit my shin......that one took a lot of stitches and ruined a very good set of coveralls. I wear chaps now.

3. Cleaning the manure out of our feed barn with a skid steer was an annual or semi annual event prior to getting tractors with loaders. I was hurrying to get the job done with the rented machine and I hit the corner of the foundation on the back of the barn. It didn't fall but I knocked about 8 or ten blocks out of the wall. The repair is far stronger than the original. We don't work so fast around here now.

 

[expedoman55]

Ok I'll join in. I made the mistake last spring of lifting a boulder that was probably above the tractor's capabilities in order to move it off a trail on some land I owned. As I drove forward to move it off the trail, the front left tire ran up a bank and the tractor rolled on its side. I didn't react fast enough to drop the bucket, which may have stopped the roll. Thankfully it all happened very slowly and I had time to hop off and out of the way. ROPS do work.

First problem I see isnt the mistake itself it is that the tractor is WAY TO CLEAN!!!!

 

[expedoman55]

So I have done my share for sure.. Like failing to latch the trailer hitch ball on the truck and go down the road and it pops off and skids nicely to the side hooked to the saftey chains.. those chains are for idiots like me.. Good thing it was empty

 

[expedoman55]

So in upstate NY we have had an unusual amount of snow this year. Before it however a lot of MUD.. I put down some OSB boards in the fall to facilitate getting into the back of my daughters house with a car so she could get in her house as she broke her leg and could not do stairs.. Well winter came and so did snow.. Dummy forgot to remove OSB boards.. using blower the other day I turned the snow blower on my boomer into a chipper.. well kinda.. a couple a shear pins later I was able to use it again.. Note to ya'll don't try this at home.. As my dear dad used to say use the right tool for right job LOL

 

[kneedeep]

My mistake is reading this thread! :confused2:

 

[Looking4new]

About 20 years ago, I was sitting in a campground sucking back a few beers. I was on the second 24 and had a half a bottle of rye to go (shot of rye with a beer chaser) and sharpening my hatchet at the same time....I got the hatchet razor sharp, shaved some hair off my arm to make sure it was sharp.(A dull hatchet will make a bigger mess IF something happens.) I decided to split some wood for the fire and was now very drunk (read this as hammered) and sitting on the seat of a picnic table with my left elbow on my left knee and the hatchet blade buried part way into a chunk of cedar. I whacked the head of the hatchet with another piece of wood with my right hand (I am right handed) and be dammed if the head of the hatchet went through the first piece like a hot knife through butter. My arm pivoted on my elbow and the hatchet carried on down in an arc and buried itself into my left foot. Only three stitches later on the Sunday and a whole lot of grief from the hospital staff that insisted I should have come in on the Saturday. That little mishap cost me a week off work (no compensation) and a bunch of pain.
Moral of the story? DO NOT split wood in bare feet.