Almost ran over a car today

[spacemanspiff]

I was driving my m5-111 down the road today to go get my root grapple. A tiny Chevy car got behind me. I figured he would pass in the small downhill straight away, but they didn't. About 3/4 the way down I turn on the left turn signal so I can turn off at the bottom of the hill. Just as I am turning the wheel, I see this tiny car almost even with the back tire. I had to stop in the road to keep from hitting this person. He must have been drunk, because since when does a left turn signal mean pass at the start of a curve and the fact that he held up his beer to wave.

Part of me wishes I would have crushed this car, but that would have probably broke the tractor. MY front tire seemed as tall as the car. What makes people do such stupid things?

Sorry for the rant, I had to tell it to somebody.

 

[highcountrybarry]

Bad time of the year to crush people. Glad your reflexes are pretty good and it worked out. ;-)


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[D2Cat]

When you're operating a tractor on a public road you better be aware of vehicles behind you, or even a distance behind you, and vehicles coming towards you. You also have to be in a defensive mode, anticipating any possible move they may make. When making left hand turns it's often times better to pull off the road way before the turn and force them to pass in a clear spot just to eliminate those situations.

You can be right according to the law. You can also be dead right.

Big tractors don't give you immunity to foolish drivers. Be thankful you're OK.

 

[skeets]

Stupid people are every where, and no we aint allowed to squish em!!
Glad you didnt squish him, that would have ruined your Christmas with paper work

 

[Tooljunkie]

http://www.paulmcintosh.net/audio/SUV_hifi.m3u
Friend of mine wrote a song. somewhat relevant.

 

[BAP]

People will do stupid things to pass slow moving equipment on the road wether they are drunk or sober. That's why if you are going to run your tractor on the road, make sure you have a visible SMV sign, your flashers on, and check with your insurance agent that you actually have insurance that will cover you if you get in an accident on the road.

 

[CaveCreekRay]

In college, I was driving my girlfriend home in Chicago after spending the night at my parents over Christmas break. It was icy and snowy and I was taking it easy on the 4-leaf near her home in Downers Grove. With a quarter of the cloverleaf left, I see a car coming the opposite direction on the merging ramp I was about to enter. It was a brown Cadillac going about 70-80mph. Had we been 30 seconds ahead of where we were, I likely wouldn't be here. I know the Caddy driver probably didn't make it home in one piece.

Alcohol... deadly enough without adding ice.

 

[Howling]

He probably need the straight road to open his beer.

Recently I almost hit one passing me as I turned left in to my own driveway. Slowing, turn signal on, double yellow line, plenty of room on the right.

Have been passed at approaching a stop sign. Seeing more people that treat stop signs and red lights as an advisory to slow down.

There are a lot of stupid drivers out there. As car safety gets better more survive to do stupid things again.

 

[sheepfarmer]

The most scary piece of freeway insanity happened to me the other day...I was behind a semi, we were both doing about 68 in the right hand lane, one available lane to the left. A pickup zoomed past me on the right using the merge lane from an on ramp, to also pass the semi on the right, at the same time another pickup pulling a utility trailer passed me on the left then cut in front of me to go around the semi on the right using the rapidly disappearing merge lane and shoulder. His trailer just barely cleared my front bumper because I slammed on my brakes. They must have been doing about 90. The only thing I can think of is they were racing. As my dad used to say"hell ain't half full..." just so'long as they don't take me with them.

 

[spacemanspiff]

When you're operating a tractor on a public road you better be aware of vehicles behind you, or even a distance behind you, and vehicles coming towards you. You also have to be in a defensive mode, anticipating any possible move they may make. When making left hand turns it's often times better to pull off the road way before the turn and force them to pass in a clear spot just to eliminate those situations.

You can be right according to the law. You can also be dead right.

Big tractors don't give you immunity to foolish drivers. Be thankful you're OK.

Most people around here are used to tractors on the road. When I was a teenager, I was given the task of flagging traffic. Most folks ignored me a drove on past, except this one poor guy. We were back filling a hole beside the road and the backhoe crushed his hood. We had signs out and he ignored the flagger so it was his fault.

The most puzzling part of my near wreck was the fact that I used the blinker. I guess to them that meant pass me? Me going 25MPH when most can only go 10 may have been what that threw them off.

 

[Tooljunkie]

The bridge near my hous is quite narrow. Try driving a combine across without a pilot vehicle. Its as big as a house and have to argue with driver to back off. So be it, im bigger than you, climb back in and put it in d. The moment the black smoke started they knew i was serious.

 

[olthumpa]

Almost only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades. (also atomic weapons but we won't go there)
Get back out there and finish the job!

We seem to be on an exponential curve of stupidity when it comes to the way people are driving, if you want to call it driving.

 

[bxray]

Here is a guy who had a little to much egg nog and decided to complain to this guy working on a track hoe.
The operator stopped him and called 911!

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/12/24/cops-impaired-driver-nabbed-by-excavator.html

Ray

 

[pendoreille]

Non tractor rant: I was in the Puget Sound area of Washington a few weeks back. What a mess. Normal midday traffic took me 2 1/2 hours to go 40 miles.
20 mph to 0, 20 to 0 20 to 0 the whole way. People run red lights...people anticipate red lights and stop at green lights. 8 lanes, someone breaks for no reason and that causes grid lock 10 miles back. At some point in time, in the near future, you will get on the freeway and never ever be able to get off. It will just quit moving forever! I don't see an answer, you can't build enough lanes.

Maybe and that is a big maybe would be to take the human element out of the equation and do the self driving car thing..... and put a tractor recognition subroutine in the thing!

Happy to be back in the country where I can drive to town and sometimes not see a car till I get there!

 

[scdeerslayer]

That's why one of the first things I bought to add to my tractor were mirrors. I only drive about 1.5 miles on the pavement but it's a fairly busy road. Sometimes on weekend mornings I may only be passed by 1 or 2 cars but a lot of times I'll get passed by more than a dozen over that stretch.

The one place that worries me is the left turn onto my road on the way back. It's right after the beginning of a stretch of passing area. Nothing has happened there but I worry someone is going to try to pass me when I go to make that left. I keep track of the cars behind me in the mirrors and check over my shoulder before the turn.

There was one time when someone almost hit another vehicle head on while passing me.