|
zooeyhall: My dad and I had combined farming careers totaling close to 60 years with roughly 20 different tractors. Only 3 of those tractors were ever fitted with ROPS. We often had 6 or 8 employees. One thing we did enjoy all those many years, is we never had a lost time accident. My dad probably taught 35 young folks how to safely drive and work tractors. We were not some little half acre doing 50 hours of tractor work per year. In 1978 we had 5 tractors each clock up over 1,000 hours for the year. We were running 9 tractors, 4 trucks and a combine in 78. One thing I've noticed in the past 25 years is the cavalier attitude of young folks in the work place. Not just farming, but rather everywhere. They seem to think workplace safety laws will not allow them to be hurt, regardless of their actions. Most also have a cavalier attitude for the safety of folks working around them. Couple this with the fact some folks are now buying old tractors thinking the tractor will make a less expensive ATV. Guess again, who do they think they're kidding. Just reading YT discussion everyday one realizes a certain percentage of the crowd are running old Farmalls without ballast, in road gear in an off road situation. No question, some of them will be killed and at a lot higher rate than the North American Farmer ever was. I remember the first farm tractor ROPS that came to my hometown. I asked the senior member of that family farm how he liked the ROPS after 6 months use. He said, "It has allowed the young folks on our farm to live more dangerously. They get on that tractor and have no respect for the safety of themselves or others." Interesting, half that generation he was speaking about are now deceased.
|
