Kubota Death

[mbsil]

I was in a local restaurant Saturday and heard a highway patrolman describing a fatal accident that occured 2 miles from my house.

A volunteer firefighter in his early 20s was driving his Kubota down the shoulder of State Hwy 6 between a fence building location and his house when a college student veered onto the shoulder (reason unknown) and struck the tractor from the rear at high speed.

The auger was driven into the back of the seat and broke all the tractor driver's ribs before ejecting him 75 feet into the highway. He died at the scene, which was within view of his home.

The highway patrolman was recommending that people always use a "chase" truck to escort the tractor between sites, but this guy was transitioning the tractor maybe a thousand yards from the fencing site to the house. Not sure a chase truck would be practical in THIS instance.

I had seen the guy in the last couple of weeks as he was building the fence. Makes you stop and think.

When I get ready to mount lights on top of my ROPS I think I'm gonna add a second set of turn lamps/hazard flashers up top as well to increase visibility.

Pray for his family. Be safe and vaya con Dios!

 

[RoyJackson]

"When I get ready to mount lights on top of my ROPS I think I'm gonna add a second set of turn lamps/hazard flashers up top as well to increase visibility."

What a tragedy!!!!

Boy, I don't know if all the extra lights would have helped in this case. Unless that tractor was around a blind curve, the driver should have seen it. Maybe the tractor operator didn't have his lights on (but as a fire fighter, I bet he did). But I'll wager there was liquor or other intoxicant involved.

I think I'm going to add a strobe type light on a seperate circuit (the kind with a magnetic base, or rig up some temporary clamp set up). They are about as visible and attention getting as any thing you'll find.

Another thing, I'm sure the SMV triangle was blocked by the post digger (mine is mounted on the driver's seat back...I'm pretty sure most Kubota's are too). A spare SMV triangle mounted to the implement may have prevented the accident.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

I'd be highly suspicious of intoxicants too being the reason for the crash.

I was hit one time in my truck as I sat by the side of the road putting my truck between my father fixing a flat on his truck and traffic. She wasn't drunk, just tired and drifted over. It totaled her car and dinged the truck.

I had six tail lights and a rotating beacon and still got hit.

If you're thinking about something to make sure you're seen get creative with the positioning of the lights. Suppose your lights are in a place where flashers would be on a truck or car. The eye catches the flash. The brain registers it as normal and should be going with the rate of traffic and dismisses it. By the time it all cycles back to focus on you and your tractor it's too late.

The trickest thing I've seen is you can get the strobe blubs that fit in your marking lights like the emergency vehicles have. I installed them in a pickup and it was really neat. The set had options on the flash sequences.

The installation involved drilling holes in the factory light housings. I put the strobes in front parking lights and in the rear back up lights. I set the sequence to double flash on opposite corners. It caught the eye and held it let me tell you.

The reason I suspect was two fold. One of course was because the type of lights usually involved emergency vehicles and this was a construction company pick up. The other was that the flash was coming from an unusual position on the vehicle so the mind took notice.

Here in norte tejas in some towns they're installing street lights that have a strobe flashing intermittently in the red sequence of the traffic lights. I think it's a terrific idea.

The set I installed in the pick up cost over four hundred dollars plus installation. So that's exhorbitant unless you're going to be using them daily.

An economical system but if used properly adequate would be to put some lights high. Then have a toggle switch on the dash or wherever. But between the on off switch and the light itself have a two pole flasher installed. They take female spade terminals you can buy anywhere and it's simple in and out. The wire from the switch on one side and the wire to the light on the other.

Even better in my mind would be to use a different flasher for each light. The reason is the lights will get out of sequence. That in itself is unusual enough to get a double take. The second take might be the one that saves your from being hit.

We have to ever vigilant against being like the driver who's driving in the fog without lights. It isn't enough that we can see everyone else.

 

[Soundguy]

First, a moment of silence for the deceased tractor user..............

A second sad story, but not quite as bad. Today 6-18-2002, On my wat to work I was listening to a local radio station report on a woman and her young daughter that wer riding on a tractor. The young daughter fell off, and lost some fingers. No city or state was listed, but i believe it was somewhere here in florida.

<font color=red>Here in norte tejas in some towns they're installing street lights that have a strobe flashing intermittently in the red sequence of the traffic lights. I think it's a terrific idea.

<font color=black>In Ocala, Florida, we have the strobe filament behind the red buld, or red led stop lights.. just started using them recently.

One thing I did when driving my tractor down to my other property a couple miles from my house ( before i had a trailer ). I would take my tractor down to disc my property, and I had a really really old disc. I painted it flourescent pink, with that road marking paint. It looked like a flaming elephant behind my tractor.. but I think it did the trick. I also relocated the SMV triangle to one of my fenders so that transported impliments didn't block it. I'm considering puttinh an amber strobe up on top of the cannopy... could even run it when transporting it on the trailer as added safety.

Here's a question for the LEO / DOT types in the know out there.

If I remember correctly, a tractor -can- be driven on the road for a limited number of miles per year ( not interstates, etc ).

Is this correct, or am I remembering wrong?
Seems to me there are alot of drivers out on the road that HATE tractors to be on it. Where I live, it is still fairly agricultural, and at least once a week, you will see a farmer making a short trip down the road on his tractor. Lots of these areas have curbs, or the right of way is littered with signs, etc, and there is no way the tractor can be on the green.. they have to be on the road.... you would think that people would be a bit tolerant of this.. but instead, I've seen people zoom around them, yelling at them, throwing trash and bottles at them , etc... not only a terrible way to treat someone.. but probably illegal too.. and dangerous for the tractor operator. Opinions / ideas?

Soundguy

 

[EdKing]

<font color=blue>If I remember correctly, a tractor -can- be driven on the road for a limited number of miles per year ( not interstates, etc ).</font color=blue>

If I'm not mistaken, here in Pa, as long as you have the SMV, you can drive them on the road as needed. If you have a vehicle (usually older trucks and homemade trailers) registered as "farm use" you can drive in a 50 mile radius of your property. As I have my quad registered as farm use and have a SMV sign attached, I can even ride it on the roads. Around where I live, a predominately agriculturial area, it is quite common to see tractors on the road. You just wait for a safe area to pass and go around them. When I drive my tractor on the road, I keep glancing behind me, and if I see a car apraoching I pull over and let them pass.

 

[RoyJackson]

"you would think that people would be a bit tolerant of this.. but instead, I've seen people zoom around them, yelling at them, throwing trash and bottles at them , etc... not only a terrible way to treat someone.. but probably illegal too.. and dangerous for the tractor operator."


Yeah, I've heard of the BS in southern York County, PA too.

What brought at least some of this crap on is the influx of suburbanites from the Baltimore area. They move up here for the lower tax rates and the "Country Ambience" as the realtors call it. I guess they don't realize part of the ambience is sharing the road with farm equipment (think tractors can slow ya down? Get behind a gang of contract combines!! You aren't gonna pass them...2 or 3 or 4 in a row...those combines are as wide as the roads, sometimes). They also don't realize that some farmers use manure for fertilizer (Yep, us Yuppies LOVE that organically grown stuff...but them farms sure do smell bad!!!). If you think manure is bad...get around a pig farm sometime...WOW!!!!

I was born in the Baltimore area. I moved to PA in 1987. Really became a hick too (love them bib overalls!!! If you haven't got a pair yet...try 'em. Carharts are the best (heaviest) when working around brush).

 

[Boondox]

Not sure lights are the answer. When I was in grad school we did a study that found intoxicated and exhausted drivers had a tendency to "wander" toward red and amber lights. About a year later police agencies in California switched from all red to a mix of red and blue lights, partly for that reason.

Was this college kid drunk or tired? God, what a waste!

Pete

 

[livincountry]

We had a farmer get hit from behind by a drunk driver. It was after dark and the farmer had to move his rig on the road from a field to his home. The driver mentioned to the police that he slowed down because he entered a "school zone", just then he hit the implement pulled by the tractor. The "school zone" was actually the yellow flashers on the tractor. This was a BIG John Deere pulling a swing up set of chisels. No one was seriously hurt. Sad.

 

[Soundguy]

In an area not far from our house, down a road that is in a heavy ag area, there is a big homemade bill-board on the side of the road that states something to the effect:" If you don't like flies, don't move to or near agricultural property! "

I stopped and asked a local about the origin of the sign, and apparently a few years back, some people bought some land near there ( A-1 ) and always harrassed the local farmers about the flies, etc.. I believe they eventually got the people to move...

<font color=red>What brought at least some of this crap on is the influx of suburbanites from the Baltimore area. They move up here for the lower tax rates and the "Country Ambience" as the realtors call it. I guess they don't realize part of the ambience is sharing the road with farm equipment

<font color=black>I'll have to check my label, but carharts sounds very familiar.

<font color=blue>"Really became a hick too (love them bib overalls!!! If you haven't got a pair yet...try 'em. Carharts are the best (heaviest) when working around brush). "

Soundguy

 

[MarkV]

We went to Scotland this spring on vacation and all the tractors seemed to have yellow rotating lights on top of their cabs. Most of the tractors were larger 4 wheel drive units with a FEL and cab to deal with their weather. It was kind of fun to see tractors on the main interstates. Got to love a country like that.

MarkV