Meanwhile on the Roads...

drivers have a god given right to do at least 120 on the motorway, and no fog, torrential rain or any other bad road conditions are going to stop them, and no I'm not going to put my lights on, it runs the battery down.

I think it's both a good and bad thing to ban tractors..

The ones I see on the M50 are usually quite large tractors with licence plates on so move at a reasonable speed, so you may get them going from exit to exit on the M50 which means that they're not slowing up traffic on smaller local roads for the sake of travelling to their destination via a few KM on the motorway.

I was always wondering why Truck companies didnt buy a field (or some other classic Irish solution) in an attempt to justify having a tractor and use green diesel.

The JCB Fasttrac in the 90s did bridge the gap between tractor and truck with many modern tractors having more in common with trucks than tractors from pre 2000.

Power, speed and size are way up.

A whole rethink on tractors in relation to licensing and regulations are needed. A 16 yr old with no official training of any kind being left loose on our road network in utterly bananas. That's before you look at their working hours especially late April to mid summer.

I ride primarily unused or little used country roads/lanes and dealing with tractors is the main risk issue me or any of the lads encounter. On a 4m wide road a 20T plus tractor trailer unit at 60km/h driven by a legal child on Til Tok or local head banger isn't a lot of fun.

We'll wait until we have a Meath school bus crash like event before we act of course.

No gra for the IRHA either for all the reasons above, but he does make valid points about tractors. They're effectively enormous solid lumps of metal capable of high speeds that will do an awful lot of damage to anything they hit (and yer man is being rather disingenuous in insinuating that trucks are any safer).

The attitude to who can drive tractors hasn't evolved either. When I was growing up my dad had a Massey Ferguson 135 which would have been upper middle range in size in the day. Simpler times and all that there was an attitude that the young lads on the farm could drive them which was largely ignored (about the same time they gave thousands of driving licenses out). You look at one of those in a Patrick's Day parade alongside a modern monster and it looks like a Dinky toy with a top speed a fraction of those. The attitude to who is acceptably as a driver doesn't seem to have evolved much though.

(And no, there should be no place for them on motorways)

135 was small even in the 70s/80s;it came with a 3 cylinder perkins engine. (the 35 was a 4 cyclinder and a pure piece of sh1t to start)

Only thing smaller even in the 70's was the Ferguson 20; they started on petrol and then switched to TVO.

MF 165/David Brown 990/Ford4600 would have been middle size or that used by many farmers.

Must be something in the water there. Just wear this the next time with a John Deere baseball cap and drinking coffee out of your Marty Moone mug

I mentioned green diesel earlier; but when stopped in a service station somewhere near the westmeath/offlay border on an audax in 2018 a Polish or Baltic states gentleman was filling his car with agri diesel. Only the blowins on bikes batted an eyelid.

There's a witness to that posting in this thread!

I've seen similar showing off being done at classic car shows and charity cycles. Men playing to their strengths isn't a new thing

"A transport operator must download data from the card at least every 28 days and from the vehicle unit at least every 90 days. The data should be kept for inspection by enforcement officers for at least one year from the date of downloading. 

To download data from the vehicle unit and driver card, an operator will need a download device and a company card. "

https://www.rsa.ie/services/professional-drivers/tachographs-information/tachograph-equipment#:~:text=Downloading%20data,device%20and%20a%20company%20card.

No idea but most driver's I know are terrified of non compliance.

As an example in 2015 we were driving home to the south east from Malin head on a bus after doing Mizen to Malin. The driver's route and stop was entirely designed around the driving regulation for PSV

Driving almost 20 years, and I’ve been dipped 6 times.

No coincidence that those 6 times happened within the 4 year period when I had to regularly visit Louth for work, and all 6 occurrences were in or around Drogheda.

Ha funny enough i've a site in Dundalk. Only place I see customs dipping regularly these days.

Back in 2004 or 2005 I worked down in Abbeyfeale. Very regular down there too.

Regular occurrence around marts too.

Anyway have the Hauliers got a new president lately? Few statements from them on safety in the last while. Better off sorting their own members. Some of the worst offenders on the roads for phone usage and tailgaiting.