Now, I've nothing against farmers - in fact I grew up in a rural village and my family were mostly farm labourers, but I do have a beef (pardon the pun) with these large conglomerates that go around buying up small farms, ending up with parcels of land scattered far and near between which they seem to spend most of their time shuttling heavy plant over public roads. Especially now, at harvest time, they're constantly back and forth past us spreading straw everywhere they go. Today I happened to notice a combine spool disappearing past the window and when I went out later to work in the front garden I noticed a line of dirt and dust along the footpath. It seems the combine was so big it had to run along the path to give room for traffic from the other direction. Next thing I knew there was a lad with a petrol-powered leaf blower making his way along blowing the dirt and dust off the path - into our drive and over our cars. Needless to say I stopped him for a word about it. His response was "what am I supposed to do with it?" I told him to blow it onto the road.

This use of public roads by agricultural machinery has become increasingly common in recent decades with tractors running for long distances. I've had instances where I've followed one for almost 10 miles in a queue of traffic with no chance to overtake. They're supposed to pull over periodically to let the traffic go but these days the b@stards never do. They're also supposed to clean the dirt off their wheels before going on the road but I've had my windscreen splattered when following too close and in wet weather the roads become a mudbath.

IMO this is predominantly a consequence of small family farms being bought up by these big agri-businesses and I can only see it getting worse as family farms become financially unviable due to the new inheritance tax rules.

No farms, no food. Any idea what a combine costs?

I'm with Alan Partridge on this one

The best one recently was two tractors following each other around a roundabout, I'm behind them. No problem, I'll overtake them on the short section of dual carriageway as we exit the roundabout. No, at that point the second tractor decided to overtake the first tractor using the whole length of the dual carriageway to do so. I then follow them both for around 10 miles before I am able to get past them.

Yes we need farmers, yes they need to drive big vehicles on the road but it would be appreciated if they didn't hog the whole road and occasionally pull into a layby to let the traffic queue which has built up behind them make some progress.

14 hours ago, anon said:

No farms, no food. Any idea what a combine costs

That is totally irrelevant to the points I was making.

as @mjt is a bit confused

 

I have never got 'partridge', I'm afraid time has not helped...

42 minutes ago, mjt said:

That is totally irrelevant to the points I was making.

Get over it.

43 minutes ago, anon said:

Get over it.

You take no prisoners, life must be interesting from that pedestal you view the rest of us mortals on... 🤣

53 minutes ago, anon said:

Get over it.

That's more "The Office" than Partridge