Road accidents, young tractor drivers and driver licencing

There's a lot of sense written in his thread.

• A lot of contractor machines are leased in and therefore the same "care" isn't given to them as if they were owned
• Having the ability to turn 16 and then be allowed operate agri machines in all their configuration on public roads is total madness in this day and age. The laws need to be updated to keep pace with the change and modernisation of equipment
• Getting young lads in to drive keeps costs down. Very few mature lads are willing to work every hour of the day for a week and then twiddle their thumbs. That sort of employment is not suitable for more mature people with responssibilities, but is ideal for young lads. I asked a local lad for a few hours driving in the evenings and the pay was €12 an hour. That isn't the pay to encourage anyone to do the job.
• There should be staged licencing requirements based on age. Ideally it would be done on experience but that would be impossible to police
• The young drivers in the outfits around me are often lads from the local town out to do something for he summer. Not a huge amount of farmers sons on the job.

The local big contrator to me mainly has tractors that max out at 40km/h. He has some faster ones that only lads who are full time employed with him get to drive. Last week he was flat out going all day and night getting silage in. On Sunday they were drawing up past our house. Ya'd nearly know the age profile of the driver based on the sound of the tractor coming in the distance. The more experienced lads would be slowing down for turns and bumps whereas the younger lads were flat out the whole time, even up to the junction at the main road where ya'd here the brakes screeching trying to stop. One part of the rroad narrows where a footpath starts past our place and myself and the father were coming down in int he car and a young lad coming flying up. Instead of slowing before the road narrows to allow us all pass he pulled out past the footpath to take over the road. I could see my fathers grips tighten on the wheel as he seen an opportunity to deliver a valuable lesson to the chap! We stopped, the tractor stopped and we got a gesture to back up. That didn't go down well. Out the father popped and over to the door which he opened and read the riot act to the poor chap and his female passenger who was recording it. Long story short, the tractor was told to back up and to be a more courteous operator. Which, he did but was fuming. Each time after a car was coming down the road we could see him slowing up. Good lad.

I agree tractor licence age increase to 18

Also one on a tractor, I passed a few with 2, 3 and 4 on them some adults with kids

Meanwhile you have Americans putting up videos of their children on tic tok operating or trying to operate farm machinery and excavators from the age of 4 up to 6, seems to be a competition for them. Is it any wonder they have 100 children a year dying in farm accidents and 27k injured.

21 in the last 10 years but that wasn’t the point I was making.

There’s 135k farms in Ireland and 2m in the US which is 14 times greater than Ireland so to put an estimate on it the equivalent in Ireland is 14x 2-1= 29.4 so 29 v 100 deaths is a big difference.

Something a bit like a CPC that we HGV & BUS drivers do or like a site ticket might be in order for road driving.

Some of the accidents you see on those are stomach churning and would put you thinking about the weight etc.

I know, - we all hate doing them,

BUT,

The fact that there ISN'T a test at the end of the day sometimes leads to good straight frank discussions on aspects of driving which a good instructor willl let run on, and everybody actually learns something.

Looking back over this thread, what I see the possible actions that are needed to deal with this situation

1. Driver training. while you can pick up a learner permit with just the theory test, it could be looked at to have 6 practical safety sessions having to be completed before even being allowed apply for a W learner permit
2. Limit speed and weight of Vehicles being driven by someone on a W learner permit to 30Kmh and 8ton gross load.
3. Move the age to 17 or 18 for application of W learner permit
4. Could some of the High speed 50Kmh training be tied in to green cert training to allow
5. No passengers if you are on a learner permit. Look at the Motorbikes. On a Learner you are not allowed a pillion passenger
6. Finally the Crux. Remove the automatic entitlement of full W licence when you get a B licence. Maybe you can get the W licence when you complete the BE test ( trailer) or truck licence

Look back at hurling over past 20 years, helmets are now compulsory, How did this happen, it started with making it standard in juvenile age groups and working it up over a few years.

HSA disavowed the comments of that particular inspector telling cyclists to stay off the road.

The private company tenders for the business to the RSA periodically. They don't choose the content of the questions, that's down to the RSA. If you reckon it's a money making venture, jump in on the next tender yourself and you'll be on the pigs back.

The fact that they're avoidable is a good reason to stop calling them 'accidents'. They're crashes or collisions. Gardai, RSA and others moved away from accident terminology 20-30 years ago, for good reasons. It's designed to let drivers off the hook for their bad choices.

I've coached two people through the theory test in the last two years. You're absolutely right to say most mature drivers would fail, though that says more about the casual attitude to operating lethal machinery by most mature drivers than it does about the test.

A lot of it is indeed a memory test, and some of it is fairly random, looking for statistics quoted in a random report 'Post Crash Report' iirc (which I could never manage to find). It is far from perfect, but it absolutely does require new drivers to have a decent grounding in the rules of the road.

The content of the test has nothing to do with the contractor that administers it. The content is down to the RSA.

I've a 15 year old lad here, not a hope in hell would I let him drive a tractor wether in the yard , a big field or on the road. I've 2 who've done the theory test , daughter passed first go and other lad got it on 3rd attempt

Absolutely agree, and while I can only get a 3 year or 1 year licence now, subject to a GP's opinion, a bit of a test wouldn't go amiss for some of the aul wans/fellas round here. In fairness the main problem is them driving very slowly (generally for quite short distances) which can lead to issues with people who are impatient and rushing about, so its kind of 50/50 how much of a liability they are.

Current backlog for theory test in Dublin is less than three weeks.

It would certainly need ramping up, with considerable resources, but would pay for itself in a couple of years.

Was just thinking there. We have l and n plates for in experienced drivers, how about an E plate for elderly drivers. My dad is nearly 80 and his driving is shocking

So let’s start with regular theory retesting.

Just a question on a situation i came across during the week and would like to hear others thought on it.I was rowing grass for a long time customer last week when the other Contractor who does his baling arrived in with his his case puma 170 and fusion baler with his 12 year old son in the passenger seat.After an hour when I was finishing rowing the other contractor came over for a chat and let the young lad bale away for 15 minutes while he left the tractor to come over to me...Only after I realised what really happened and how it could have caused a major accident..would you ring the customer and tell him what's going on in his field next time if it happens again?

neighbour lets his son do alot of baling... hes 11/12... he is warned to within an inch of his life not to leave tractor if a problem occurs with baler...

Part of training to is to supervise from a distance. Let them get comfortable on the seat on thoer own while your close enough to stop a dangerous situation but far enough away that you aren't leaning over thier shoulder.

I never said anything about modelling a licensing system so I don’t know where you’re getting that from, I just stated a simple fact that some lads understand machinery and some don’t, regardless of age.

I see the "I hate all farmers because big tractors, derp derp, eu grants, something something something climate change, basically I'm unhappy with my own life and jealous of people who own anything" person/people have arrived...

The thread will now go well from here on I'd imagine.