I know it’s a bit of an unpopular opinion, but having spent many of my pre-Kubota tractor operating hours on old machines with all safeties removed (if they ever had any) and then spending about 33 years dealing with agricultural accidents as a part of my career, I kind of like the safety switches on both my L and T. I have lost count of how many old men (yes, it was always old men) who started a CUT sized tractor that had no operational safeties, or those safeties were being bypassed, from the ground and ran over themselves when the tractor started in gear. Not hundreds, but more than a dozen I dealt with in three decades. If you have less than a couple inches between you and the rear tire and it starts in gear it jumps forward shockingly quickly. Then one of two things happen: 1) It knocks you down but doesn’t immediately pin you; 2) It knocks you down and has one of your feet pinned by the time you hit the ground. I’ve seen scenario 2 with just a lower leg crush involving men and women with a wide variety of ages. The “started at the feet and rolled out everything head to toe” crowd was always old men. I guess the old guys couldn’t roll out of the way quick enough after they got knocked down. I don’t know why no old women other than maybe they age out of messing with tractors.
I start mine from the ground from the right side, where I can reach over and start it without standing in front of the rear tire. From the left side, I at least stand on the step. My arm isn’t long enough to reach the key switch from the left side without being in front of the rear wheel if I’m standing on the ground.
For the reasons stated by
@GreensvilleJay, I also dislike the seat switch on the L, which leaves me sometimes wanting it and sometimes not. Thus I have an intermittent override on the L’s seat switch to allow for temporary over ride to allow operating while standing, which is a quite useful thing to do in some situations. Using forks for precise things near the ground, like picking up a pallet, would be quite difficult if you couldn’t stand up while slowly driving forward.
I like all the safeties on the T. The “can’t reverse with blades engaged” is mildly irritating but they built in an override and you only have to engage it once per every time you engage the blades, not every time you back up, so I can live with that one.
As with many things, YMMV.
