To some extent I can accept mud etc. on country roads, that's what happens when you have to go on and off fields. But I cant accept that diesel spills are part and parcel of country life. Its blatant negligence as it is preventable. If it wasn't through sheer good luck I could be in the same position as AirCon
This time of year is especially dangerous where I live because of the huge harvesters which are being moved to different fields. They are almost twice the width of the average car and take up most of the road - hard to believe it is legal to move them without a warning vehicle ahead.
As a farmer and regular tractor driver I doubt the spillage was from a tractor as 99% of tractors have fuel tanks that fill from high up and from the top to prevent water and other contaminants entering the tank. I've never seen a tractor fuel tank spill or overflow from going round a corner even when filled right to the top. Fuel spillages tend to come from tanks that are side filled. Many farmers have to work within weather windows and we all know the weather in this country is unpredictable and generally shit and crops and harvests have to be taken when the crop is ready and that is not necessarily when the weather is favourable leading to wet ground conditions in the fields and unfortunately this leads to mud on the road. Most farmers farmers try to keep this to a minimum and clean up afterwards but it's fair to say some don't. Not that I really care but some comments on here are unfair. Farmers work long and hard hours under difficult conditions and have to meet unreasonable deadlines to get food off the fields and on to the supermarket shelves at little profit for the benefit of us all. It's unfair to say all farmers are loaded. This is not the case, some may be asset rich but are usually cash poor, being constantly squeezed by the supermarkets to produce cheap food for YOU. The continuation of food production in this country is not guaranteed in the future and we only have five days food security at present. So whether you love us or hate us you'll be screwed without us and you'll have to resort to planting fruit and veg in your window box and keeping a pigs and chickens at the bottom of your garden.
None of this excuses the guy who blasted past me in his four wheel drive behemoth while I was waiting at a red light. If that light had changed before he got past me I would not have been toast, I would have been jam!
I'm with you here, sounds like an idiot. You get idiots in all professions. It was the generalising 'all farmers' comments I was grumbling about. Glad you're ok
BIG M, the reason I mentioned farmers in this case is that I am 99% sure that the spillage came from a vehicle leaving a farmyard. Picture the scene, riding along a country road for about 10 miles, with no problems when you pass a farm entrance. 100 yards later is a sharp right over a railway line with a large diesel slick covering the whole road, which gradually lessens over the next 300 yards. If it had been a car or lorry it would have been leaking for some time. And while we were digging the bike out of the bridge parapet, we were passed several times by farm vehicles in both directions obviously working crops. I know a few farmers and vehicle maintenance is not at the top of their agenda especially at this time of year
Like everything in life there are some good farmers and there are others that don't give a damn I lived in the country sharing a track road to my property with a farmer Never met anyone as tight as him to maintain the said track Then proceeded to rent out his fields to a potato farmer who ploughed up all the surroundind area and covered the track with mud and ripped down the edges as it wasn't wide enough for all the machinery and ruined a lifetimes repair by my uncle In all the years my uncle was there and I visited as a little girl till we moved there it had been grazing land only as it flooded and the grass soaked it up It floods even worse now since it was ploughed Will find some pics They didn't care a muddy field we had to fight to get hard core to put down to make it accessible None of the local farmers cleaned up the mud they left on the road either especially the potato grower The roads were lethal When you have four by fours why would you care
:Stop: .....To be fair...you only have to look at garage forecourts to see it's not just farmers :Woot:
I'm genuinely sorry to hear about your accident, it's never nice to hear someone has trashed their bike and been hurt. I hope you're ok. Obviously you know more than I do about what happened and its not beyond possibility that there was a problem with a tractor that caused a spillage. As both a farmer and a biker I see things from both sides. Harvest and silage time are difficult times of year. For some farmers twelve months of work culminates in just a few weeks and the amount of money the farm generates and the livelihood of the farmer depends on what happens in those few weeks and there's also the British weather to contend with. It all adds up to a very stressful time. It's not fair for some to say farmers don't care, most do but when there's several hundred acres of wheat to cut and the sky is black keeping the road spotless isn't a priority, however there's no excuses for causing dangerous conditions. We generally put signs up to warn traffic and then clean up as we go. Even with a road sweeper it's difficult to remove all the mud completely as it tends to get ground into the Tarmac and takes time to wash away when it rains. It is a pain and I moan when I ride through mud on the road, mainly because it shits my bike up. When we're out on our bikes we tend to focus on what's happening on the road, other traffic, road conditions and any other threats, but it's worth just glancing over the fence or hedge every now and then to see what's going on in the fields. If you see some sort of field operation going on then be aware that the machines could be coming out onto the road and may not be able to see you or leaving mud. Even if the field looks freshly cut still be aware. Use your nose, if you can smell manure there's a chance it's being spread somewhere so again expect tractors. Even as a farmer coming across a tractor when on my bike makes me the most nervous as what they are going to do is unpredictable. Non of us would overtake when we could see a right hand junction up ahead but a tractor can turn right at anytime into a field with a concealed opening.
Big M, I was one who said farmers don't care, because in my experience, they don't. It's not a generalisation, it's my experience. I have never seen a farmer cleaning a road or using road signs. We all appreciate farming, we know timeframes need to be met, but a little consideration with signs might help warn people. I am surrounded by farms, I knew that when I decided to live there. But that's not a reason not to take due care for road conditions. To be fair, some farms hard-core the field entrances. Oh and they drive along my grass verge which pisses me off. On a positive note, cyclists are more annoying .
I do think the least that could be done is to put signs up to warn other road users if bringing mud out onto the road can't be helped. The problem is the mud sits in the tyre tread and then flicks out when the tractor pulls onto the road and speeds up. Definitely with you with the cyclists. We have a lot of professional cyclists round here who see a tractor as something to race. Personally I'm glad I'm on the tractor and in charge of who gets squashed!.
As cyclist who shares narrow roads with tractors I always give way and often stop completely. They are trying to earn a living and are bigger than me, whereas I am just out for an enjoyable bike ride. I usually get a wave by way of acknowledgement.
save our roads. eat a farmer. i think it's called riding to the conditions. you would have to be a very inexperienced rider not to expect mud on the road near farms and fields especially around harvest time. still gets on me tits tho. it's the soft verges that lorries kick on to the road that pisses me off. and horse shit and cyclists and tourists and unmarked police cars and pretty much every thing today.
I find there are two sorts of cyclist. The ones that ride for enjoyment and to get out in the fresh air and keep fit, but also understand they have to share the country lanes with tractors etc and acknowledge that they are larger and dangerous so slow or stop to let them past which is much appreciated. Then there are the professional cyclists who when they see a tractor coming speed up and use it as something to pace themselves against and won't let the tractor past. This is both dangerous and frustrating as at some point we get to a hill and cyclist slows down and has a tractor resting on their arse. At this point I have to admit I then start making the cyclist work
There is a certain amount of irony when a tractor driver moans about being stuck behind slower traffic that doesn't consider the faster vehicles behind them!
