Tractor Safety Revisited

The house renter decided to take his toddler for a ride down the road.

Somehow the toddler hit the hydraulic lever going down the gravel road at about 15 mile an hour and the bale tines dug right in.

Kid was hurt pretty bad and the father hurt also when he hit the steering wheel.

Tore the loader off the tractor and other damage to the tune of $22,000.

And the house renter doesn't feel he owes a dime for the damage.

Gary

I was running a 977-L cat on a jobsite years ago and the super on the site had asked where I leave the key, and I said well on these they are all the same, I left the master switch key where he could find it, but told him be real careful, he wanted to take his kid for a ride on a saturday. I said I don't know anything if something goes wrong and again said be real careful, he was I left the site well graded and when I came in on monday, it did not look like he spent much time fooling around, but you never know someones ability and mind for safety.

We had a guy taking our tractor down the road to get beer, dear ole dad away from the place, no clue, same jerk, he hired and I fired, the liability of it being on the road if something happened, we'd lose the place over it I'm sure.

I can't imagine how twisted this incident will get in court. It's one thing if you have permission or the owner knows you are competent, but taking a child out with you, going road speed, boy that is just plain stupid.

I had just borrowed a late model rental hoe off work hours and weekends from a subcontractor who was working on the powerline easement, their insurance too, saved the guy quite a bit by taking the fill from the hole they drilled for a tower. But I'm not stranger to these machines, even let the rental house knoow I had it, only moved it, they were across the road, when traffice was low, early morning or at night for safety, kept it greased and the cab cleaned, fueled up and same when I returned it.

Attractive nuisance or not, people like that cause needless injury and ruin it for others, say when you might need to borrow something in a pinch, yeah everyone is an operator, I kick everyone off our equipment at the farm, can't trust them, but that is all they want to do is sit in the seat, not a lot of tractor work, still try and sit in the seat though, attractive pain in the A$$ !