On Friday I got a phone call from my husband, he'd been coming home with our eldest son when he rounded a bend and found a huge piece of 'U' shaped metal that had fallen off a tractor smack in the middle of the road.
Due to on coming traffic he couldn't swerve to avoid it so he hit it smack on.
As a result it killed the gearbox, the gear linkages and worst of all it punctured the petrol tank with a hole he can get his hand into.
As a result, the fire brigade had to attend to swill away the oil from the gearbox and the best part of a full 18 gallon tank of petrol away from the road.
So as a result of some a-hole farmers negligence in maintaining his vehicle properly, one of our cars is completely written off, the police had to waste 3 hours of their time making sure the car wasn't hit from behind, the fire brigade spent over an hour and a half swilling away the mess and we're going to lose our no claims discount because we're making a claim on the insurance.
I've since found out that tractors and trailers don't even need to have an MOT! All they need is suitable tyres and insurance to be able to drive on the roads.
How stupid is that?
Oh! And to add to this, the two vehicles traveling behind my husband not only got sprayed with petrol, but they also hit this lump of metal with their wheels and burst tyres.
All because someone driving a tractor couldn't be bothered to make sure that his vehicle was in a safe and roadworthy condition without bits falling off of it.
The police can't do anything because it would be almost impossible to trace where this piece of metal came from unless they went around every single tractor in the area. But they don't have the time or resources to do this.
What's with some people and why are they such selfish drivers?
Those of us who drive legally on the road all pay our insurance premiums, we all service and maintain our vehicles, we all pay our road tax so we're entitled to travel on the roads.
But some morons appear to think that they own the roads and give not a single thought to other peoples use of the roads.
What if my husband and eldest son had been on one of the bikes and they had hit this tractor part?
What if it had caused a spark and ignited the fuel pouring out of the petrol tank?
What if hitting it had of killed someone?
I have to admit the police office who attended was great, he helped us load the car onto a car transporter we have, (one of those trailer ones), and followed us home to make sure nothing untoward happened, (like the car catching fire or spilling what little petrol it had left in the tank over the road), and he was more interested in everyone being alright rather than looking for a "crime" to investigate. He even followed us out of his patrol area more or less in his own time as he was going off duty.
Everyone at the scene of the accident was very annoyed that something like that chunk of metal could fall off a tractor without it being noticed or that a tractor was in such a poor condition that such a piece of metal could fall off it in the first place.
Perhaps it's about time that even tractors were the subject of an MOT every year though that's unlikely to happen given the government is considering every two years MOT's for vehicles.
