Agricultural hazards

On two occasions in the past few days I have been almost driven off the road by vast agricultural vehicles.  One evening on the way back from Sudbury, I met a giant grey tractor head on.  It was going much too fast around a bend on the single track road that leads from the Melford Bypass to Newmans Green.  Then, this morning in Monks Eleigh, a tractor and trailer were travelling at enormous speed through the village driving me up onto the pavement.  I couldn't help wondering if it was the same farmer who ploughed through a resident's fence close to the same spot,  a few weeks ago.

At harvest time it is inevitable that farmers will be out and about more on the roads, and living in a rural area we must expect them to be going about their business.  However, there is no excuse for bad driving, and  I do really worry about the enormous size, not just of the combine harvesters, but, increasingly, the giant tractors that loom up out of the gloom in the early evening, lights blazing, bringing down overhanging branches and generally terrorising innocent motorists.

I read on the Rural Services Network website that in Cheshire 23 people have been injured in incidents involving agricultural vehicles in the last year.  In addition detailed studies by the Department of Transport have shown that fatal accidents are four times more likely on rural roads than on urban roads.  This is a shocking statistic but not surprising.

I have long felt that it would not be a bad idea to have a 40 mph speed limit on all rural roads, and at this time of the year I feel more convinced that this would be right.