Agricultural machinery is now too big for rural roads

We have a problem that is specific to life in the countryside – ever larger tractors and associated machinery on country lanes. 

I appreciate that living in the country brings privileges, especially under Covid-19 lockdown, when we have been able to walk out of our garden and not meet many, if any, people.  However, when we, our dogs, the verges and roadside walls are threatened by high speed tractors and trailers weighing tons, there is a time to speak out.  Our lane was built for traffic that consisted of a horse and cart and many rural roads across the UK are just the same.  The mechanisation revolution in agriculture that started around the Second World War still continues.  With ever fewer people working on farms, the technological answer has been to develop larger and larger and ever more powerful machinery.  The larger the tractor, the less time it takes to work a field.  This brings time efficiency, but at what cost?  More and more stock farmers around us use contractors for silaging and muck spreading.  I dare say many arable farmers elsewhere use contractors for tillage, sowing and harvesting. Contractors work as fast as they can, to be as cost effective as they can.  You will never see a contractor in a small tractor – only the biggest, fastest and most powerful will do. 

So, what is the problem?  Apart from threatening the lives of walkers, riders and other road users with the speed of travel, such large machinery damages the road verges and undermines roadside walls.  Tractors and trailers are so long now that they no longer can easily turn at junctions, and into tracks and gateways.  The roadside walls in our hamlet are always being rebuilt because machinery has knocked the walls down.  During wet weather and notably in the winter, the verges are wet and the tractors progressively erode them, bringing mud into the road.  This is a problem for other road users and walkers.

The speed tractors travel on the lanes is also a huge concern.  A car can only pass these tractors at points such as gateways.  The amount of black tyre skid marks along our lane is incredible. 

Some double lines nearly 10 m long!  Amazing that we have had so few accidents, especially as the tractor drivers inevitably are on their mobile phones while they drive at these speeds (we hardly ever see any police here).  Seeing one of these tractors resting on the top of a car, with one set of wheels up the hedge, was quite something a few years ago!  Fortunately, no injuries. 

Is this a case of farming saying to the rest of us, we do what we like, because we can?  Is this just a lack of responsibility and cowboy behaviour from agribusiness?  Either way, there is a problem here that has yet to be properly addressed.  Rural infrastructure is being damaged and lives are being threatened on public roads that are not designed for these vehicles.  Farming and farm contractors need to get their act together.  Consider also that farm tractors pay NO road tax, if the maximum distance travelled on the road is less than a mile and between fields on the same farm.  Farm contractors should tax their tractors, but do they really?  If not, then such vehicles are not even contributing to the damage they cause to the Queen’s highway!!!  One cannot help but feel that some people are putting two fingers up to rural residents.