I was almost killed at lunchtime.....left work for the 15 min journey home through the twisty nottinghamshire country lanes, 2 mins into the trip come over the brow of a steep hill and come face to face (literally yards away!) with a huge hay bailing tractor on my(!) side of the road over taking a forking cyclist. The tractor had those large pitch fork type spikes sticking out in front of it...The driver smiled as he saw the absolute terror in my eyes.....

needless to say the brakes heated up, the Toyos dug in, the abs kicked in and I almost filled my shorts....

I was only doing 40 at the time as well!

So after the heart had come down from 500bpm, what had I learnt from this?
1.maybe 40 is too fast on these country lanes, believe me it doesnt feel fast until you need to stop
2.(some) tractor drivers have never heard of road safety
3.expect the unexpected

Neil - still alive and kickin

www.scoobyworld.co.uk

 

Driving home last night behind 2 cars that I thought were very close together.
Then I noticed the Rover 800 was towing a Clio (short gap so presumabky stiff tow bar).
Then said Rover overtook slow-ish Fiesta, then overtook tractor.
I got in front but it was doing about 60 behind me.
WTF!!

 

Think about it the other way round.Ying & Yang.

Supose it was you that had to negotiate the fecking cyclist.You would have been the wrong side then or would you at 40ish have slowed to -2 wobbly mph and then followed him/her up & over the brow round the next 3 blind bends,then nailed it on the next straight.It's hard not to think "if I get by quick,it will be safer".It never is though.
Cresting a brow blind has to be done at a speed that you can brake from allowing for worst case scenario.As in... caravan on its side with blown tyre...deer having a nap...two/three rabbits bonking(as they do)Makes a lovely fur radiator muff!If you dont stop in time

Mark

 

Eric I know what you mean BUT I'm dont drive an 8' wide tractor though - surely anyone stupid enough to overtake a cyclist on a brow of a hill in one of these beasts needs locking up!

Neil

 

It wasn't necessarily the tractor drivers fault... I bet the cyclist saw him moving out to overtake and decided to accelerate... like many car drivers do.

 

What's Moray got against cyclists?

 

Bet there's a post on TractorNet now "I made this guy in an Scoobreally **** his shorts"

 

Kamakazi cyclist.Is no one safe?I shall have to keep a close eye on me Grandma & get her some re-hab at the first sign of trouble.

Neil,it can't have helped much when Wurzel smiled.Didn't have 666 on his reg. did he?

Mark

 

suprised how quickly the Toyo's locked up and the ABS cut in....

BTW my point here is that the tractor driver could have waited until he could see what was coming (i.e. over the brow of the hill) b4 venturing onto my side of the road and endangering my life....

 

Well said mate, you should not be overtaking a snail let alone a bike on the brow of any hill.

Especially as he was probably a local farmer type, he should know that the lane is barely big enough for 2 vehicles, let alone an 8 foot tractor on the wrong side of the feckin road.

 

Shouldn't be overtaking anything on a brow if theirs not enough room left for whatever is coming the other way to pass safely

 

Should be driving slowly enough to stop comfortably within the distance that you can see. OK, In this case the tractor was probably at fault, but what if you had hit him and stopped on the spot. The next guy coming over the hill at the same speed would hit you. Who would be at fault then?

 

FB, the fact that Neil was able to stop sorta implies that he was driving in such a manner to be able to stop in the distance he could see

neil, sounds terrifying! Good job you could stop, and good job no-one (and nothing) was hurt!

 

Ciark - key word was comfortably.

Almost filled my shorts implied he wasn't comfortable with the distance available.

p.s. Not being holier than thou with the first post Neil. Any accident occuring as above would not be considered your fault, but your car would still be bent

 

Fast Bloke

"Should be driving slowly enough to stop comfortably within the distance that you can see" - yes couldnt agree more, and to be quite honest if it was a car on my side of the road I could have easily avoided it (comfortably) BUT a bloody great tractor (kinda unexpected!) with killer spikes on the front is a little more difficult at any speed...