Beware of stupid drivers when moving equipment

I had two incidents yesterday when moving my combine. The first was when a small pickup pulled right out in front of me and narrowly missing my corn head. The second was when an UPS driver was coming to a T road and I stopped to let him stop or go ahead of me. Instead he pulls out in front of me. Had he used his signals I would have known his intention. Perhaps both of theses dummies only saw the flashing lights on one side and thought I was going to turn. In any event be careful for other drivers.

I don't even know where to start. I've even written letters to the local paper about this. I painted "Extreme danger blind left turns" all the way up and down the back of the chopper boxes. Tried to make a left turn into a field only to have 4 cars tear around me at 55 mph when I was 3/4 the way across the centerline. I've had uncoming cars go in the ditch to avoid headons with idiots passing me when they couldn't see around,cars drive right under the combine head,you name it. People are stupid,plain and simple.

Then you have the combine operators who drive right down the middle of the road, totally oblivious to the five cars stacked up behind them, even though you can see mirrors on both sides of the cab.

Or the combine operators who force oncoming cars into the ditch, even though they have room to pull over. BTDT too many times to count.

This thread so far is a textbook case of the pot calling the kettle black.

The first one on the road has the right away so just sit back and be patient goose. I have almost been hit to many times by people in a rush and recently we had a head on here from a teenager blowing past a tractor. It killed him and the driver of the other car and sent a 4 year old to the hospital. Waiting behind a piece of farm machinery will not get you killed but passing it puts both the operator and the driver of the car in jeopardy. When I driving and getting close to were I want to turn I will hog the middle of the road so no one passes me because I am looking out for # 1 and that is me so run yourself in to the ditch and slam your steering wheel cause I do not give 2 !@#$'s

Goose I don"t know what to tell you but if you come to Kansas in my area you can be courtious by choice or by force.

How much does a combine pay in road tax?

Like I said, this is a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black.

I never said we couldn't all co-exist.

Goose, whats your deal. This is our way of making money just like whatever yours is. Ya so we move down the road a lot slower than cars, but theyre big machines and theres really not a whole lot of room to move over. I dont get what youre b*tching about?

Hey Goose, The message here is to be careful of stupid drivers. People who don't use their turn signals are just plain dicourteous and are a danger to others. We kill more people on our highways than we do sending of to the Iraq war. You don't have to drive a combine to realize that.

Most every spring and fall some one here in the local news coverage area gets killed drive'n like a dumb a** around farm equipment. I guess they all get killed after they have bred cause if Darwin was on to somthing this should have been bred out of society.

And to Goose, I know it's a two way street when it comes to farm equipment and cars. We have had an invasion around me the last ten years from the next county over by BTOs. Some are ok some are pricks. Even the biggest of pricks will not run over your car if you are setting still I have found. When I meet any one now on the road I will get over as far as I can and stop and look at them. I have been put in the ditch too many times and have not been run over yet. None of my stuff is that big but when I do go down the road on farm equipment I do appriceate it when some one gets over and stops on a one lane road. It is much less nerve racking to get around some one stoped than it is to try to get over with them come'n at me at 60 mph.

Dave

You like to eat dont you?

Several years ago when I was building our house, I had just received a delivery from a large lumber retailer. The guy came with a long flat bed tractor/trailer. He was backing out onto our NARROW gravel county road. I was standing on the road to act as a guard. Along comes a compact car flying as fast as he could blowing his horn, trying to get past the trailer before it took up the whole road. BARELY missed a collision! I had signalled the truck driver to stop. He did. Afterward I discovered that he had not seen my signal, but had stopped for a different reason. He was unaware of the car until he saw it fly by the end of his trailer. What a moron in the car! That was almost as bright as trying to beat the train at the crossing!

Christopher

I've got to the point that if I am on the autobahn pulling a trailer (going slower) I ride the center line, same as if I am on normal roads with the tractor or ATV. Otherwise, some idiot will croud you off the road trying to pass between you and oncoming traffic. Had a good friend of the family killed for trying to be courteous while driving a tracter. Rode the shoulder as much as possible and got wiped out because he had to get on the road to cross a bridge. Driver of the truck could have been a goose relative......

Roads were put in as farm to market roads before cars were on them. Except for interstate roads they still are.

This goes the same way as most yuppies think.

Move out to the country to get away from the city then when they get several yuppies in the same area they want a country oder ban.

As far as I'm aware, the only thing that has right of way over implements of husbandry (agriculture for the slow ones) are pedestrians in the state of Wisconsin. I've had plenty of close calls, even when I'm sigaling with my arm for a left turn and the vehicle behind me can see me. I'd rather have to make a left turn in heavy traffic than no traffic with a wagon behind me. Reason being, I have to stop to turn, and cars behind know I'm doing something.

I'm moving farther out into the country on a smaller road, and I'm fully aware that I'll be dealing with more tractors and combines than I do currently where our farm is located.

Get over or get off the road.

Donovan from Wisconsin

I know what Goose is talking about.
Guys on farm equipment need to be courteous if they expect it in return.
Around here we have both types.
And I've run my share of equipment on the road, farm and construction, so I know it from both sides.

I never said I was complaining. I've farmed and I've driven my share of assorted machinery on public roads, combines included. It's a two way street, we need to respect each other.

It's just when some BTO calls all other drivers stupid morons and acts like all other drivers have no business being on the road when HE chooses to be there that gets my dander up.

I never figured this thread would get this crazy, I think the weather is lousy and nobody can be out harvesting so they sit around and take it out on each other. I'll go away now.

Goose, I've spent many countless hours driving a combine down the road, and part of what you say is true. Driving a combine down a road is a much larger responsibility than most combiners realize. Some farmers have no business driving a combine down the road cause they don't know where the combine is on the road, looking down from the cab.

As far as the long line of cars goes, sometimes it's better for the combine operator to not let them around because he might be on an unsafe spot on the road, meaning approaching a hill or intersection where the impatient cars will be going around him and heading straight into a disaster. Some combine operators don't let the cars around just because they are bigger and therefore more important so I'm not totally sticking up for the farmer. Gotta go. Jim

I've had one close call -- as a driver.

Tractor in front of me was pulling a chopper and wagon. Couldn't see the operator, or the cab of the tractor for that matter due to the width of the equipment behind him.

He slows, pulls to the right on a straight stretch of state highway.

It's across from a restaurant parking lot, and the pavement for that lot is seamless with a road that comes out there. I don't drive that stretch every day, so it's easy to not realize there's road.

As I start to pass, he starts to make a left turn.

In hindsight, I can understand his actions -- he slowed and he pulled to the right in order to make the turn given how the intersection was setup. My actions, IMHO, were also reasonable -- someone slowing and pulling to the edge of the right shoulder along a straight stretch of road normally is someone letting traffic pass.

Perhaps some of this is requirements for things like turn signals that are grossly inadequate for today's volume of traffic. Just because something was engineering appropriate 50 years ago doesn't mean it still is.

Many of the roads around me -- interstates included -- don't need new roads or widening as much as they need (or recently needed until fixed) improvements like sight lines, straightening curves, and turning lanes simply for the reason that there's more traffic and more chances of conflicts. I think a lot of ag equipment I've seen is similar in that they need to update them because there's an increasing risk of conflicts simply due to more traffic traveling longer distances on better quality (i.e. higher speed) roads.

I think if you're going to operate any equipment on the road, it needs to have working hazard lights that outline the width of the machine and they need to be ON when the machine is on the road. My step sons lost their grandfather when he collided with an 8850 JD with duals on a bridge. The tractor was taking up all of a 2 lane bridge. The tractor had hazard lights on the roof of the cab and head lights only on the grille. It was dark and Richard probably never saw the LF wheels on the tractor before he hit them. The impact broke the axle housing completely off. The wheels ended up in the river. Had the tractor had lights showing it's width, that accident may not have occurred.
If your lights don't work, think about what you would do if the machine was destroyed or damaged because someone ran into it because they misjudged it's size. A few minutes spent making sure lights work is time well spent.
I know it can be inconvienient, but dropping the head off the combine and pulling it behind is the smart thing to do.

I am on the road a decent amount with equipment and I go to quite a few accident scenes as a volunteer fireman. Our area is sparsely populated but heavily farmed and wrecks between cars and farm equipment are few and far between, but I see the same reckless behavior on the part of some drivers around accident scenes and equipment on the road. Some people just won't slow down, no matter what the situation is. As an equipment operator, you just have to use your best judgment and take nothing for granted on the other driver's part.

In this state, nearly every square inch of land is subject to real estate taxes. This includes the roads and road right of ways. The landowners, usually farmers, pay real estate taxes on the land to the center of the roadway. In fact, the landowners essentially own the roads. The right of way is basically only an easement across their land. These property taxes have been paid on this unusable land for many generations. The tax rate here for the roadway is the same as productive land is. I personally pay for a mile and a half long x 66 ft. wide strip of roadway every year. That's 12 acres of unproductive land, not growing a crop, that I pay tax on each and every year. Plus the income lost from the acres if it was crop land like the rest of it is. Kinda blows your little pittance paid in road tax out of the water doesn't it? And some landowners have way more roadway on their properties than I do. And, in this grain country, the farmers intermittently use the roads MAYBE 60 days in a calendar year.

I was driving a 4430 and had my left turn signal on to turn into a driveway, and halfway into the turn, THREE CARS go to pass me! I mean, did you not notice me slowing down, moving over, and turning!?

While driving the old AC WD out on the main road from farm to farm, I had a dump truck pass me on a blind no passing S-Curve with the corn up...

My big ole tractor is 5ft wide. Riding the center line like I do to keep myself and oncoming traffic safe, I had a guy pass me on the right between me and the shoulder. Got pretty expensive for him cause the little plastic posts that stick up on the sides of the roads are about 200 bucks a pop plus the crew of 4 guys with a whole bunch of necessary equipment to put them back in place. He took out two and ended up down a little bank and in a farmers field that was real wet. I saw that he was OK and just smiled and waved. Figure he was out about 2k before the day was over.

Dave

down here people are completely crazy. I HATE taking the tractor out on the road. If i'm standing beside the road, cars will continue going 50+ MPH (its a 2 lane road 45 MPH) and even cross eachother right infront of me. I was pulling a van one day (we both had flashers on, I turn mine off to signal a left hand turn) and a car goes flying around me, i almost sent the car into the ditch, ended up breaking the chain (6k lb chain) so i had to pull off and push the van up into the drive way. Now down at our farm, we are out on a side road, with only 2 neighbors, so road driving is not a problem at all. I'm just waiting for the day a car goes crashing through our fence, and all of the animals get out and i have to flip a car off our land with the backhoe, and get DPS along with animal control out to get our animals back in. I will not be a happy person.

I agree it goes both ways.

We had a guy working for us who, no matter what he was running, if it was over 6 feet wide he was dead center down the road. He might almost get halfway into his lane for oncoming traffic. He was worthless.

Here is another question though, for anyone that just has to be ahead of the tractor/combine/whatever. If you are about to cross the street and an elephant is running down the middle of it, are you going to wait for it to pass or hope that it slows down or goes around you?

Same way to think about screwing around with someone in a much larger vehicle.

Try driving a truck if you think it's bad on equipment.

I was doing 60-65 in the rain down to Clarksburg last week, cars were all doing 50 in the right lane because they couldn't see through the tire spray of the guy they were tailgating, I hit the far left lane to go by a couple in the middle lane, and the back one almost drives right into the side of me, to get out of my way or something, I don't know.