ROPS and what can happen

[traildust]

I created this thread after posting this on another one. It was way off topic and really needs to be on it's own.

Seeing tractors with out ROPS gives my the willies. Yes I am one of those guys that is pretty safety conscious and will examin all options to reduce risks. While we can not eliminate all risks, we can certainly take steps to reduce them. Sort of a "risk management" assessment.

This is were ROPS comes in. Not all tractors were produced with them and some that were not can have factory ones adapted to them. While, unfortunately some others can't.

Luckely Kubota takes a really good stand on this issue and if your tractor can be fitted then they will sell them to you at a reduced price.

Here is Kubota's link for and explination

Here is a link to see if your tractor can be have Kubota ROPS fitted to your tractor.

Member handyman has used this program and in his post he was quoted $148 plus shipping to a dealer of his choice.

I love having my insurance right above my head. Besides when it comes to the tractor drivers life, what would a person realy believe to be affordable? A long time ago I found this link ,I suggest every tractr driver read it. The article will tug at your heart strings, it's very sad. Unfortunately this happens time and time again every year.

I'm sorry to bring such a somber tone to this thread but it really needs to be addressed.

If you are ever going to do a job and you begin to think "What are the chances I can get hurt doing it this way?" Well, you better find another way to do it.

Also: If you do the job right, you will get to do it again!

Scott

 

[Eric McCarthy]

I'd hate to come off sounding like a jackass but the teenager would still be alive today if he just used his head and thought things threw. A friend of mine has an old Ford 801 tractor that looks similar to that 8n and is a tank at 40hp. We went to pull his stuck Ford F250 pick-up out of the woods and we almost did the same thing. The front end of my buddy's 801 came off the ground pretty high but I stopped right away, the front end slammed on the ground and we turned the tractor around and pulled from the front so all the weight of the tractor was at the back and PRESTO! the pickup comes out the mud. More then likely the teenager in this story has used a tractor many times before and in this case he got to impatient and did all the wrong things which cost him his life. I don't have a ROPS on my B6100 which it would have to be custom made since I'm 6ft4 and I'm sure my head would sit above the top post. I just know from experience not to stick my tractor anywhere theres a threat of an over turn.

 

[traildust]

I'd hate to come off sounding like a jackass but the teenager would still be alive today if he just used his head and thought things threw. A friend of mine has an old Ford 801 tractor that looks similar to that 8n and is a tank at 40hp. We went to pull his stuck Ford F250 pick-up out of the woods and we almost did the same thing. The front end of my buddy's 801 came off the ground pretty high but I stopped right away, the front end slammed on the ground and we turned the tractor around and pulled from the front so all the weight of the tractor was at the back and PRESTO! the pickup comes out the mud. More then likely the teenager in this story has used a tractor many times before and in this case he got to impatient and did all the wrong things which cost him his life. I don't have a ROPS on my B6100 which it would have to be custom made since I'm 6ft4 and I'm sure my head would sit above the top post. I just know from experience not to stick my tractor anywhere theres a threat of an over turn.

Hi Eric,
No, you're not being a jackass. Ironically though, your discription of that kid pretty much sums up all cock strong teenage boys. Even looking back at my teenage years I'm surprised I made it through alive. I was always right and everybody else was always wrong.
I just googeled and here is another one of a 56 year old man.

I know you grew up on tractors and have learned many life leasons on them. Tractors run in your blood. I respect you and your vast knowledge of tractors and all things associated with them. You know your tractors limits and I have everybit of faith in you. You know when to push it and when to back off.

Soctt

 

[Eric McCarthy]

I appreciate your comments and don't get me wrong I've pushed mine to the limits and beyond and have broken and torn up more then I care to admit to! LOL But it does boil down to just common sense. Yeah we were all pig headed and stubborn punk teenagers, and its truly amazing we all got away with what we did. As the old saying goes "shit happens'', you cant predict anything to go right or wrong but having an eye and knowing when to say when means the difference between life or death. It's no different when I drive a fully loaded or even over loaded big rig 18 wheeler down the highway weighing over 80-90,000lbs, basically a 70mph bomb, One wrong move or a blink of the eye at the wrong time can be dangerous, I might walk away but I have the potential to take out others.

 

[traildust]

I appreciate your comments and don't get me wrong I've pushed mine to the limits and beyond and have broken and torn up more then I care to admit to! LOL But it does boil down to just common sense. Yeah we were all pig headed and stubborn punk teenagers, and its truly amazing we all got away with what we did. As the old saying goes "shit happens'', you cant predict anything to go right or wrong but having an eye and knowing when to say when means the difference between life or death. It's no different when I drive a fully loaded or even over loaded big rig 18 wheeler down the highway weighing over 80-90,000lbs, basically a 70mph bomb, One wrong move or a blink of the eye at the wrong time can be dangerous, I might walk away but I have the potential to take out others.

Eric,
Very well said, I like that. You are right on the money!

Scott

 

[handyman]

Traildust the cost of the rops for my b7100 is 268 for rops shiping,taxes and installing it. The kubota dealer called this morning.I will have it put on but if anything needs welding I will insist I do that myself. The rops itself is 148 dollars they said to get the safety discount they will have to install it. Thought I would let you and others know all the details.handy

 

[traildust]

Traildust the cost of the rops for my b7100 is 268 for rops shiping,taxes and installing it. The kubota dealer called this morning.I will have it put on but if anything needs welding I will insist I do that myself. The rops itself is 148 dollars they said to get the safety discount they will have to install it. Thought I would let you and others know all the details.handy

Hi there Handy, thanks for clearing that up. At least with the dealer doing the install, if anything happens then it's there liability.

Scott

 

[Greg]

Traildust, not to belittle your post on safety in any way shape or form, but....

My opinion is a bit different. Some may call it reckless, selfish or even in extreme cases suicidal.

Do I really need a ROPS? Sure if my tractor had one when I bought it, I would leave it on, that's a no brainer. But do I need to go out and get one? This is completely not necessary.

Where do we draw the line? Do you use your tractor with a helmet? Why not? Do we install ROPS on our ATV's? Why not? How about wearing a helmet in the car? Perhaps we could spare injury and deaths from slip and fall accidents by wearing helmets when we walk around town? We do things every day in our lives that could easily go wrong and end up in injury or worse.

I ski. I ski bigtime, back woods, cliffs, helicopter, big air, big big air and drop offs. I skydive. I have a lot of jumps from an airplane, maybe 850 of them. I ride a motorcycle, I ride a quad. I often do dumb things doing any of the above. Basically, what I do is live life. I enjoy life. Sometimes it's the risks in life that make life itself so enjoyable.

Let's be real here, Kubota doesn't care about our safety, they care about covering their butts. It's business, that's all it is. We waste so much energy and natural resources trying to make everything so safe, that it's disgusting. It's just another end of gross over consumerism. Come on, one idiot allows their baby to climb in to a 5 gallon bucket of wall joint compound, and now everybody must print a warning that babies can drown in a bucket?

ROPS on my old Kubota? is not going to happen.

 

[traildust]

Traildust, not to belittle your post on safety in any way shape or form, but....

My opinion is a bit different. Some may call it reckless, selfish or even in extreme cases suicidal.

Do I really need a ROPS? Sure if my tractor had one when I bought it, I would leave it on, that's a no brainer. But do I need to go out and get one? This is completely not necessary.

Where do we draw the line? Do you use your tractor with a helmet? Why not? Do we install ROPS on our ATV's? Why not? How about wearing a helmet in the car? Perhaps we could spare injury and deaths from slip and fall accidents by wearing helmets when we walk around town? We do things every day in our lives that could easily go wrong and end up in injury or worse.

I ski. I ski bigtime, back woods, cliffs, helicopter, big air, big big air and drop offs. I skydive. I have a lot of jumps from an airplane, maybe 850 of them. I ride a motorcycle, I ride a quad. I often do dumb things doing any of the above. Basically, what I do is live life. I enjoy life. Sometimes it's the risks in life that make life itself so enjoyable.

Let's be real here, Kubota doesn't care about our safety, they care about covering their butts. It's business, that's all it is. We waste so much energy and natural resources trying to make everything so safe, that it's disgusting. It's just another end of gross over consumerism. Come on, one idiot allows their baby to climb in to a 5 gallon bucket of wall joint compound, and now everybody must print a warning that babies can drown in a bucket?

ROPS on my old Kubota? is not going to happen.

Hey Greg,
I don't see how an individual expressing there views could be considered belittling. By all means my post wasn't intended to cattle herd people into the ROPS program, nor to necessarily scare anyone.
You are correct that everyday people are taking risks, both acceptable and unacceptable. The defining limits of either one is clearly going to be different for each person.

I am addicted to what my wife calls extreme hiking. I have been for years. But what she calls extreme, I'm still looking for harder mountains to climb and deeper canyons to climb back out of. I hate to do anything less than a dark to dark hike, it just bugs me if it will take less than 12 hours. If the distance is less than 12 miles I want some serious shit to go through to make it worth it. Almost all of my hikes are solo for two reasons but mainly just one. Going solo allows me to push myself as hard as I want up a scree slope or to just bag one more peak before turning around. Knowing that I'm already pushing fatigue and each step is becoming a struggle. Just one at a time also pushing back in my mind that I may have ten miles to get back out.
The other reason my hiking buddies don't go most of the time is because of my first reason.

Did you ever see the movie Seven Years in Tibet? There was a line in there in reference to the peoples travels.
"The more difficult the journey, the greater depth of purification"
That runs through my head and keeps me pushing.

One time I arrived back to the trail head beat and couldn't believe I squeezed my live through that one. It kicked my ass. Guess who was there? Two sheriffs and the start up of a SAR team. Yup, I missed my deadline with my wife. If she doesn't here from me then she starts making calls. I missed it by six hours.

Greg, we all have limits with everything and everything has it's limits. I'm still looking for my limits in the mountains. Maybe I think I haven't found them because I keep coming out.

You know what people are going to say the day I don't come out? "What a dumb ass, what the hell was he doing that for anyway?"
"They should charge his family for all the cost if pulling his body out!"

My defining limits of acceptable and unacceptable are obviously slewed from most everybody else.

That's what I love about this country! We can pretty much do what ever we want. You can jump out of airplanes and I can get lost in the mountains and be chewed on by a mountain lion. We can both die and there will always be another parachute or hiker behind us.

All the safety labels and warnings and silly laws, maybe even ridiculous suggestions: It's all white noise to me becouse in the end I'm getting done what makes me feel good deep inside. If stupid people want to stick there head in a bucket, by all means how many buckets would you like sir?

Oh and for the record, yes I do indeed where a helmet driving a car and walking around town. I mean, come, isn't that a given

 

[nkcblue]

Interesting comments for sure. I work around a bunch of young guys who are all 10 foot tall and bullet proof, still really sad about the young man. I had an old Ford tractor and live on really hilly piece of land and the ROPS on the Kubota was one of the big motivating factors to finally break loose with the money. Feels good to strap on the seat belt and not worry as much about the terrain.

 

[traildust]

Interesting comments for sure. I work around a bunch of young guys who are all 10 foot tall and bullet proof, still really sad about the young man. I had an old Ford tractor and live on really hilly piece of land and the ROPS on the Kubota was one of the big motivating factors to finally break loose with the money. Feels good to strap on the seat belt and not worry as much about the terrain.

Hi nkcblue, your statement of young guys who are ten feet tall and bullet proof sounds like the definition of the word youth.

I have a few areas that have slopes but not as a majority. Grading a rut along the side of a dirt road for drainage I have gotten really light on one side. The tractor alllllmost wanted to layover but I was able to stop it. Pucker factor was in affect

Scott

 

[skeets]

Yeah wish I was 10 feet tall and bullet proof again,, them years left me a long time back, and when I look back seeing the ways I put myself in harms way simply for the thrill of it, it makes me think.. ROPS amd seat belts do save lives, though I have run a lot of years with out them, still you never know whats around the next bend,,,sometime ya aint time to say ahhhh sh** Just MHO you understand
Peace
Skeets

 

[nkcblue]

You guys know it, oh to be 10 foot tall and bullet proof again. But those days are long gone for me too. I agree about those ditches, I was mowing along the road and the grass was pretty tall, and a front wheel slipped over the edge..... whooohooo that was darn scary. Put that baby in SLOW reverse and it crawled out of trouble, but it was close!!

 

[SockPuppet]

I put the ROPS on my B8200 @ a cost of $175 and the dealer was not required to install it.

I wear a seatbelt when I'm driving a car, been doing it for so long it feels strange to not have it on. Having the ROPS on the tractor just seems like good sense to me and I'm already trained to wear the belt.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that others may use the machine that aren't as safety conscious as most of us are. I have a wife and daughter that may at some point drive the tractor. Having them belted in with the ROPS will make me feel a lot better.

Besides, it gives me a good place to mount a canopy and some cool lights.

 

[traildust]

I put the ROPS on my B8200 @ a cost of $175 and the dealer was not required to install it.

I wear a seatbelt when I'm driving a car, been doing it for so long it feels strange to not have it on. Having the ROPS on the tractor just seems like good sense to me and I'm already trained to wear the belt.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that others may use the machine that aren't as safety conscious as most of us are. I have a wife and daughter that may at some point drive the tractor. Having them belted in with the ROPS will make me feel a lot better.

Besides, it gives me a good place to mount a canopy and some cool lights.

Thanks for the post SockPuppet, very nicely put. I think about the wife and kids on the tractor as well as me for them.

I had a friend that told me the dumbest thing he every heard of was when people say they would be glad to die doing what they love. Well what about the ones they love left behind, your still dead.

Although he was referring to the way he says I take it to far roaming the mountains. But the saying could also apply to everything, like that lady who was killed by the killer whale she was training.

ROPS aren't for everybody and everybody can make there own choices and that is a good thing.

And ya, those ROPS are the best place to make any ugly light look really cool

Scott

 

[ValveJob]

I created this thread after posting this on another one. It was way off topic and really needs to be on it's own.

Seeing tractors with out ROPS gives my the willies. Yes I am one of those guys that is pretty safety conscious and will examin all options to reduce risks. While we can not eliminate all risks, we can certainly take steps to reduce them. Sort of a "risk management" assessment.....
Scott

A good friend of mine has an old ford farm tractor with no ROP's. We were sharing cost and use at our adjoining land. He wanted to add a seat belt. I didn't really think it was a big deal...untill I got to using the tractor on very hilly land.

We didn't get the seat belt on before he had to take his tractor home and I got mine with ROPs.

I have rappelled and climbed rope for 20 years and one thing I carried over from that is, "Always tie a knot in the end of your rope (keeps you from rappeling off a short rope-and it happens)." Even if you know the rope is twice as long as the pit is deep. It's a habbit to get into. So after the scare of rolling over from my own experience on hills I always put that seat belt on. It works for me. I am lucky to live this long so I don't want to screw it up now.

On an interesting side note: I learned from Kubota that if you don't have ROPs then don't use a seat belt. After thinking about it, it makes sense to me. We were going to screw up putting that seat belt on without ROPs. I can see them finding me now, rolled over squished up against a tree or rock.

Tom

 

[ptwyz]

This has got to be the B E S T thread on this forum to date!

Congrats to all who have participated

I am very new to the tractor scene, and this is great reading from my perspective.

Thank you traildust for starting this thread

And thank you all who added your perspectives and thoughts

 

[traildust]

This has got to be the B E S T thread on this forum to date!

Congrats to all who have participated

I am very new to the tractor scene, and this is great reading from my perspective.

Thank you traildust for starting this thread

And thank you all who added your perspectives and thoughts

Thanks bro, that was pretty cool of you to say

Damn, for a while after I posted this thread I had a feeling that I'd much rather be dodging cars running across the freeway

Scott

 

[Butch]

I had a B2150 4WD w/FEL. I had a raised bucket FILLED with rock ready to roll the bucket to dump. I was on reasonably level ground on the back 40 along an old fence row.

That's when all hell broke lose. I was dead nuts sitting still... not moving an inch when the right front wheel abruptly caved in a groundhog tunnel. The wheel dropped only 10 or so inches however it was enough that the momentum caused the tractor to begin to roll.

Even though I felt it start to shift and my hand was on the control lever... I could not get the bucket down fast enough to recover.

I had a ROPS and was not wearing a seatbelt. I bailed out opposite side of the roll as the tractor passed through 45 degrees and approaching the ground very quickly.

Here s the report...

No damage to the tractor

Me being the comsumate Dumba*^# I am at times... jumped into a tree and broke the small bone in my wrist.

The worst of this was when I popped up to see if anyone saw this smooth move and headed for the house to get a chain, my truck, and son to get me back on all 4's.

Unfortunately that's when my wife saw me walking towards the shop...she was in an upstairs bedroom some 500 feet away and yelled out the window at the top of her lungs.... BUTCH!....BUTCH! ,,,,IS THE TRACTOR SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE THAT?

Now the world knew about it... me, my son and about 10 of my closest neighbors righted the tractor. You all will not believe the ribbing I got.

As for the broken bone... it was the smallest bone in the wrist with limited blood flow so at best it would take at least 6+ weels to heal with my arm in a cast from the armpit to the tip of my fingers. At the end of the six weeks me and my son removed the cast with a Dreml tool... the doc was on vacation.

Unfortunately the bone did not heal properly and I ended up in surgery getting a screw... not in a fun sense.

All because of a groundhog....

Butch

 

[traildust]

I had a B2150 4WD w/FEL. I had a raised bucket FILLED with rock ready to roll the bucket to dump. I was on reasonably level ground on the back 40 along an old fence row.

That's when all hell broke lose. I was dead nuts sitting still... not moving an inch when the right front wheel abruptly caved in a groundhog tunnel. The wheel dropped only 10 or so inches however it was enough that the momentum caused the tractor to begin to roll.

Even though I felt it start to shift and my hand was on the control lever... I could not get the bucket down fast enough to recover.

I had a ROPS and was not wearing a seatbelt. I bailed out opposite side of the roll as the tractor passed through 45 degrees and approaching the ground very quickly.

Here s the report...

No damage to the tractor

Me being the comsumate Dumba*^# I am at times... jumped into a tree and broke the small bone in my wrist.

The worst of this was when I popped up to see if anyone saw this smooth move and headed for the house to get a chain, my truck, and son to get me back on all 4's.

Unfortunately that's when my wife saw me walking towards the shop...she was in an upstairs bedroom some 500 feet away and yelled out the window at the top of her lungs.... BUTCH!....BUTCH! ,,,,IS THE TRACTOR SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE THAT?

Now the world knew about it... me, my son and about 10 of my closest neighbors righted the tractor. You all will not believe the ribbing I got.

As for the broken bone... it was the smallest bone in the wrist with limited blood flow so at best it would take at least 6+ weels to heal with my arm in a cast from the armpit to the tip of my fingers. At the end of the six weeks me and my son removed the cast with a Dreml tool... the doc was on vacation.

Unfortunately the bone did not heal properly and I ended up in surgery getting a screw... not in a fun sense.

All because of a groundhog....

Butch

LOL's Butch! Of course I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing with you

Really though, you were able to put a humorous twist to a story that could have ended much worse. Lucky when you did bale you made it ok.
I was told in a safety class for forklifts that the normal person will try to put his feet out on the side of the roll to try and stop it. That's why they put stickers on them showing a person sticking his foot out during a roll and a red line through the sticker.
I'm glad to see your not a normal person

A mans wife will always be there for him. Mostly to inform everybody else when you just screwed the pooch!

And you got screwed HA HA!

Scott