Tractors on main roads !!?

Why don’t they just manufacture tractors with faster engines? I mean what’s the issue?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29660929

a modern tractor does a fairly decent speed these days, they have got a lot faster over the last few years.

they dont pay road tax either…or tax on diesel

Oi, we’ve got two. I’ll ask my BIL to drive extra slowly if you like 😆

You do know they only travel a couple of miles from the farm? Chill out and wait for it to turn off. Life’s to short to stress about a bloke with a tractor.

they dont pay road tax either…

Nobody does.. 🙄

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RBMCwj8UBs 😀

personally, i’d rather that 3 tonne plus lumps of iron utilising oversized tyres as their only form of suspension stick to below 30mph… but then I’ve actually driven one. Watching cars nip past, closer to the wheels than the thing can randomly wander because of road undulations, made me glad it wasnt my day job…

The tractors are always absolutely hooning down the roads near us. Maybe tractor drivers just enjoy a more relaxed Last of the Summer Wine approach to driving round your neck of the woods

Was this slow tractor stuck behind a cyclist maybe? Probably two bloody cyclists riding abreast.

or tax on diesel

depends on mileage from farm and percentage of road use, gets a bit complicated. C and E love busting people for this.

JCB Fast Trac now they fly

there was one of these coming the other way when I was out the other day;

a) it was shifting a bit
and
b) they’re really rather wide.

Quite enjoy overtaking them on the road bike

No suspension means no damping means a challenging drive at higher speeds where you’d develop SHR with the right road surface and pogo your way to a change of underwear. I grew up on a farm and hated driving tractors on the road.

See also: “Cyclists on main roads!!?? Why don’t they use the cycle path…”

Roads are for everyone – learn to share.

You want food? You get Tractors and Lorries. Tough.

Caravans on the other hand… 😈

JCB fast track is now fast enough to be allowed on motorways. I discovered this looking through the Bruder catalogue “for presents for the kids”.

Anyway, it’s not going to cost you huge amounts of time. I suggest targeting your rage at caravan towers.

caravan towers

Because no one likes hi rise caravans?

Oh I’m not red in the face angry over it and I always take extra time going to work to allow for the set up of temp traffic lights. Grrr.
I was just wondering if there was a reason that they can’t go faster and it seems that there is legislation.
The chap this morning eventually pulled over to allow traffic past when he looked behind him and there was 2 miles of cars going back full of commuters cursing him. Very thoughtful of him, would have been even more thoughtful if he hadn’t bothered until after 9am *ducks to avoid further flaming*

personally, i’d rather that 3 tonne plus lumps of iron utilising oversized tyres as their only form of suspension stick to below 30mph…

This is about tractors, not fat bikes…boom boom!

DrP

Weren’t driving into Chester down the Witchurch road were you? As I came out of the park and ride, there was an old Ford 9000, (very slow) causing quite a queue.

Woman in a crappy little car gave him the full beans on the horn as she overtook then cut him up just before the traffic lights, which she then had to stop at with the tractor beside her. Stared resolutely ahead, ignoring any attempt from the tractorist to engage her in conversation. 😆

I did wonder what was so important that he had to travel at peak rush hour though considering he was trailering an old Romany wooden caravan.

I use to drive a tractor on the council max speed was 20mph which is more than plenty around an urban area especially with a rear mounted set of gangmowers attached. Where I currently work i use to drive a a big John Deer which had a rear mounted flail with a combined weight of nine and half ton. The tractor was capable of just under 30 mph which unless it was an absolute smooth road you wouldn’t want to do as the front would start bouncing around and that was with a load of weight on the front. The only time I did do 30 mph was in an exact same demo tractor but it had an air sprung front axel. Good thing in big tractor like that even lorries gave way.

Biggest problem was impatient **** in cars who would nearly cause an accident overtaking only to turn off hundred metres down the road.

Oh and the tractors did have VED as do our 360 excavators currently do. Now they are fun taking down the road 😀

given the hours farmers work, that peak rush hour was probably his mid morning tea break, or lunch.

no chance of overtaking me when I was driving my MF. lanes were so narrow, that even a bike would be in the ditch.
but a car would do 31, and a tractor 28, so the car absolutely *must* get in front.

Followed one for about 5 miles recently. Though to be fair, he did eventually pull into a layby to let the queue past. If they’re limited to 25mph he was also breaking the speed limit (though I guess that probably depends on exact classification).

Noticed near us that a lot of farmers are buying new trailers so they can take livestock to the (local) market using their tractors, rather than needing a livestock lorry.

And some of the big tractors go quick than 25mph – upto 80kmh it seems:

http://agriculture.jcb.co.uk/Products/Machines/Agricultural-Tractors.aspx

Given that this is a cycling forum, this had better be a troll…..

I quite like commuting when the tractors and heavy plant are about, generally at this time of year due to the harvest and day light hours. We have a nice steep hill that, if timed right, I can get up to 30mph on the road bike and sit in the wake of said tractor. Genuinely, I really enjoy the fact that commuters have to slow down to 30-40mph because the tractors are generally too wide to overtake on our commuting route. Much better than being buzzed by cars driving at 60+mph. (The tractors round us generally only go 1-2 miles, but given the number of commuters who make poor/crazy overtaking maneuvers just to get ahead one or two cars, it doesn’t surprise me that these drivers think they are being ‘held up’ when in reality they will be losing 2 or 3 minutes before they hit the back of the same queue of cars going into town.)

Why don’t they just manufacture tractors with faster engines? I mean what’s the issue?

I suspect it’s a trade off between speed (which a tractor doesn’t really need) and pulling power (which a tractor needs lots of).

I understand why tractors need to be on the road, and that’s fine.

I understand why tractors can’t go very fast, and that’s fine too.

What I don’t understand is why they can’t pull over occasionally to release the tailback when the queue of traffic behind them reaches back to the North Sea. I’m certain some do it on purpose because they can, just to wind up townies.

It’s not all tractor drivers, of course. It’s probably a minority even; whenever I’ve been stuck behind one locally they usually go out of their way to tuck over / wave you past when it’s safe to do so. Further away from home though, I’ve been stuck behind some right bastards some times.

What I don’t understand is why they can’t pull over occasionally to release the tailback when the queue of traffic behind them reaches back to the North Sea

Good point, and can we also make it a law that if you aren’t driving at the speed limit then you’ve to pull over and let me past? Around here all the Oldies think 40mph is an appropriate speed in a NSL 😉

What I don’t understand is why they can’t pull over occasionally to release the tailback when the queue of traffic behind them reaches back to the North Sea

A lot of the time there isn’t a good place to pull over, as said these things are fairly big and especially if you are towing something. The countryside isn’t full of big laybys to pop into, gateways are not big enough some times and the verge isn’t always suitable.

I was just wondering if there was a reason that they can’t go faster

Have you tried driving something the shape of a brick, the weight of a boat, on tyres that may ‘wander’ a tad when pushed, connected to a loose trailer of indeterminate loading balance…. 😯

I would rather they were slow and my carrots/beef/cereal made it to the shop….

Anyway, it’s not going to cost you huge amounts of time. I suggest targeting your rage at caravan towers.

Rage all you like. You won’t get where you are heading to any faster and we’ll both still be stuck behind the same HGV but if it makes you feel any better rage away.

As for the tractor drivers, the audacity of it! Imagine country folk using country roads for country business, how very dare they! Don’t they know country roads are only there to get urban dwellers from one built up area to another?

This is a pretty good reason why not to let them.

If I had got here 10 seconds sooner I would have been dead.

Tractor was going too fast. Steered too sharply around the corner. Trailer jack knifed and literaly flew in to the air. Towing hook snapped and the tractor did a full role.

Luckily the driver only broke his back. When I first got to the cab I thought he was dead.

+ besides why are cyclist allowed to go so slow on roads….and why do they not stop to let people past???

At least a tractor is going about their job… probably trying to get it done as fast as possible too, so they can get on with other farming business

Unlike say …. a road bike chain gang… that is only out there for sh1ts and giggles 😯

unless they are professional cyclists, who are just trying to make a living and get home to go about their lives..

what if the tractor driver is enjoying him/herself?

I see a couple of tractors a day and believe me they go like the clappers up and down the hills and twisty lanes near me.Scares the sh*t out of me when they have the big forked prongs on the front and some sort of spiked threshing attachment on the rear.The drivers barely look old enough to have a license and half the time are chatting to a teenage girl or a young kid in the cab with them 😯

I’m seeing more giant, fast-moving tractors with scary big wheels recently while out on road bikes with our cycling club. On more than one occasion, they appeared to be deliberately trying to take us cyclists out.

Maybe we should all get motors on our bikes to make us go faster and be less of an inconvenience for people…
Anyone here moaning about slow tractors during the harvest should probably consider living and working in a town or city. Or you could stop moaning.