Are farmers above the law

I was run off the road and injured by an employee of one of the biggest farmers in the country, his vehicle was over 4m wide and he had no escort.

I was told by an employee of NFU Mutual that they were more concerned with keeping him sweet as his continued business was worth an awful lot to them. They dragged out my claim for nearly three years because of this.

There’s a sign in the lanes near me reading ‘narrow lanes, wide load, your call’. Personally, on the bike I always pull over and usually get a thank you.

2.04 to see how not to drive country lanes.

Our new local ‘super dairy’ in Bala thinks it’s fine to put electric fences across country lanes to direct their massive herds of cattle in their grazing – which then leave inches deep shit across the roads. Not a person seems able to touch them because the bloke who runs the farm is the local squire. Phoned the council about it as it’s a real hazard – but I is just a serf dude.

Aye, one local farmer who’s land borders a long distance walking path seems to think one length of barbed wire strung between 10m apart posts is sufficient to keep in his Highland cattle.

The path is absolutely destroyed, and has been for a few years now, local council not interested.

Tosser.

I’m usually happy to squeeze past other drivers in our narrow Deb’n country lanes, but if I see a tractor I’ll always do my best to stay out of their way, usually with a big thumbs up. Not worth the risk IMO.

Everyone seems to rub along quite nicely around these parts (apart from when you town folk come down in the summer and have no idea about reversing or country roads in general 😆 )

live in a rural area , know quite a few farmers personally. don’t even get me started on what i see and think about them.

usually with a big thumbs up

😀

Really?!

The country code of farmers suggests “raising the index finger of the right hand approximately three inches off the steering wheel” as the accepted method for acknowledging another driver. You can add a nod of the head for extra affect if you like.

First world problem methinks.

Although I do live on a single-track road

An Audi estate on every drive, immaculate patios (for bike photos) and wood-burner smoke emanating from every chimney?

Those big tractors, they only have headlights in the middle.

Every other vehicle on the road has headlights at the extremities.

You can’t tell how wide they are at night until they are on you.

We must be really lucky with the farmers round here based on all the comments above.

Bad driving is bad driving, regardless of the vehicle. But mud, shit and thorns are part of being in the country. Adjust your speed and/or route to suit the conditions. If you can’t deal with it, ride the velodrome maybe?

I disagree with drive to suit the conditions, any other industry would be hauled up for mud on road hand painted signs you can’t read as they are splattered. The verges chomped to bits and pot holes that wreck anyone elses vehicles.
I suppose their argument is the £1 orange warburtons loaf would be more and milk twice the price

It’s much better in the towns!

re. people saying it’s OK cos they are only doing 20…

Those limited to 20 will not drive very well on roads – there’s good reason that they’re limited to 20 and on lumpy roads you can see the amount they bounce about. With the weight behind them, there’s plenty to go wrong at that speed.

And the speed limit is a limit, not an appropriate speed for all vehicles around all features on the road.

Slightly OT, but this thread reminded me of being 24, cycling through The Pyrenees with my mates. We hit a 20 mile on-road section and caught up with a tractor buzzing along at a decent speed.

Like a ****, I attached a bungee to my bars, cycled as close as I dared to the tractor and hooked the other end onto the rear arm. How I rejoiced as I got towed along, two feet away from a lethal spikey bit of metal.

A passing driver gesticulated at the tractor and the annoyed farmer started to raise the machinery lifting my front wheel in the air. Managed to unhook myself seconds before disaster. Took it a bit easy for the rest of the day…

I’m from a farming family in a farming village. Same as anything really, there’s good uns and bad uns. The good uns follow (most of) the rules and inconvenience their neighbours as little as possible. The bad uns tend to have the attitude that they’ve lived here all their life, they can do what they want and to hell with the ‘newcomers’ who complain when they’ve only lived in the village for the last 25 years. My dad is somewhere in the middle of this continuum – oh and he voted to leave the EU, but hates DEFRA (or whatever they are called these days) at least as much as the EU!

As an aside:

I suppose their argument is the £1 orange warburtons loaf would be more and milk twice the price

If milk was twice the price, then producing it in this country would be sustainable, instead of loss-making for most small producers….

The verges chomped to bits and pot holes that wreck anyone elses vehicles.

You live anywhere near Penkridge? I can assure you that “other industries” can gleefully destroy verges at frankly breath-taking speeds in huge tipper trucks, and not get into trouble.

Fields full of forty years of knackered machinery, Peugoets with weeds growing through the bonnet and rusted containers/artic trailers is what does my head in. Now I know the countryside is a working environment but none of that stuff will ever be used for work. If there was a grant available it’d be gone in seconds.

I would have though Mud in the road would be less of a problem since Les Gray died…