General Chat

Over here we have tractors that can do 100 kph.

Yee Gawds and little fishes is this quee ever going to move? been stuck init for two all days now. Is that a pub across the fields?

It is amazing how many people seem to have a problem with us country folk & our tractors! Yet whenever one of our village properties comes onto the market 'townies' are fighting each other to make it their weekend retreat! If you do not like the countryside stay in the towns & stick to A roads! Leave us yokels to our country lanes.

Was in Settle in Yorkshire a few years back it once was a real town now just a middle class slum.
Not that vibrent Dales market town I remember at all

LOOKS AS THOUGH THE TRACTOR HAS MOVED ON TO OTHER THREADS
he says shouting

And what about the smell when they spray the fields
Omg stinks for days lol
can't be healthy
Jenxx

Depends what they are spraying. Chemicals are all vigorously tested, and yes some of them do smell, but so does perfume and that is a bi product of chemical warfare.
Slurry smells, but that is organic farming.

Rosalind

If half the household cleaning fluids were not smothered in perfume they would stink too, they are just a mixture of chemicals after all.

Mind you, as much as it stinks, I would rather smeall slurry than chemical pesticedes and fertilisers. Or even petrol and diesel fumes.

As for mud being on the road, yes it is a hazard, but it clearly states in the highway code that drivers should be aware of slow moving farm vehicles, horses, pedestrians, cyclists and mud on the road when driving on country lanes. So in reality it is up to the driver to just drive with due care and not go rushing down country lanes being caught out by hazards like that.

So once again the onus is on the driver to be sensible, drive carefully and be prepared for such things, stop bemoaning that the roads are not in the condition you would like them to be and just get on with it.

There is a very busy B road running through our village to one other which is expanding far too fast. The people who live along this road are always well represented at the parish meetings to complain about the traffic.All bar two people along the road have bought their houses and moved in within the last thirty years.
The other two houses belong to a brother and sister who have grown up there over the last seventy odd years. They don't complain.

Similarly, the people who bought houses with cesspits and then complained about the inconvenience then went on to complain about the mess that was made when main drainage was installed.

I think they want to live in the Archers.

Farmers and tractor drivers can be fined for leaving mud on the road. It happened to one near where we used to stay in Wales.

Google found this advice to farmers for me -

Farm vehicles - mud on the road

Background
Mud on the road resulting from working farm vehicles has been an issue for some time. In future a number of factors will combine to make it an even bigger problem:

• changes in farming (fewer, larger businesses operating vehicles covering greater distances, changes in cropping patterns, growth in contracting sector)

• weather patterns (climate change leading to wetter autumns and winters)

• rural road use (more vehicles travelling further distances at greater speeds)

The Law
Farmers and vehicle operators who deposit mud on the road are potentially liable for a range of offences. This guidance note is not a complete statement of the law or of your possible liabilities.

Criminal Law
A range of powers is available to the police and Highways Department, primarily under the Highways Act 1980, the Road Traffic Act 1988 and the Norfolk County Council Byelaw no 27.

Highways Act 1980 Section 137 “If a person, without lawful authority or excuse, in any way wilfully obstructs the free passage along a highway he is guilty of an offence”. Highways Act 1980 Section 148 “If without lawful authority or excuse a person deposits anything whatsoever on a highway to the interruption of any user of the highway he is guilty of an offence”.

What you SHOULD do
• Be prepared to hire in equipment – check availability in advance.

• Keep to your own farm roads and minor roads whenever possible

• Keep to low speeds – especially when travelling short distance – to help retain mud on the vehicle.

• Be prepared to keep a written record of your decisions on whether or not to deploy signs and/or to clean the road.

What you MUST do
• Do everything possible to prevent mud being deposited on the road. This includes cleaning mud from vehicles, as far as practicable, before they are taken onto the road. The fact that cleaning mud off tractors and attachments is commercially inconvenient may not be a defence in law.

Gwynne

You know what? I would love to be able to move out to the country again, I miss the sounds of the country. That is with or without the cesspit. Just to be able to hear the birds singing in the morning uninterrupted by a siren rushing past of the no 16 bus.

In the city its true I can feel the wind on my face, but its a wind full of smut, diesel and petrol fumes and heaven knows what else.

I miss being able to look up at the stars without peering through orange light pollution. I miss the proper silence, no traffic noise, not even in the distance. Only the sounds of nature to keep me company.

So what if there's a bit of mud on the road?

Good point Gwynne, but what about builders,they are equally guilty of making a right mess of the roads on their sites while earth-moving. Its not just the farmers.

Mud from the tractors is not always on country lanes
The main road from cardigan to aberystwyth
have tractors traveling 4 or 5 miles on it so not just a couple of mins
last year cars got sprayed with slurry when the spray came over the hedges onto the main road
I still say pull over Please
Jenxx

I think the same applies to builders, Teresa, I just happened upon a site with advice for farmers.

Jen, that's the road where a farmer was fined. On the hill near the turn off for New Quay.

The tractors along there are a nightmare, sometimes the council ones travel miles in convoy to dump grass clippings. There are plenty of places where they could pull in as well.

Bad manners as well as a potential danger to other road users.

Gwynne

As in every section of society, there are always the minority who let everyone down. But in the main, most are considerate and in fact put up with a lot of flack from impatient car drivers. To be fair, you can't tar them all with the same brush..

Hi Gwynne I live at llanarth was that the new quay
turn off you mean
Jenxx

I only tar those with lack of consideration for other roads users whatever they are driving.

There are a lot of tractors around here as well, it's farming country, but I'm afraid the ones who live near us not among the most considerate.

Gwynne

Hi Jen, no it's the one just past Synod's Inn on the way to Cardi.

We used to have a static caravan at Tresaith.

Gwynne

Know it well Gwynne

jenxx

Why this farmer bashing?
The country side will not look like it does if everything is brought in from abroad just so you can maintain a nice clean quiet countryside. Your food coming from other countries may contain banned chemicals/drugs which are not banned in the country of production, and methods of production cannot be checked like they can in Britain.
In an ideal world the ground would be dry to allow farmers to move on and off land without mud on their wheels coming off on the road and they would have enough laybys to pull into to allow you to pass. What is 4 or 5 miles, nothing these days.

Rosalind