Agri Vehicles Insurance from Greenlands

Author Topic: Road hog?  (Read 4008 times)

SallyintNorth

  • Joined Feb 2011
  • Cornwall
  • Rarely short of an opinion but I mean well
    • Trelay Cohousing Community
Road hog?
« on: April 17, 2011, 12:11:14 am »
Well, here's a story.

Yesterday I walked five ewes and their seven lambs from the 'nursery paddock' up the lane to the field on the hilltop.  Young collie Dot helping.  It's about 650 yards along a very rural B-road.  BH was in the field already fixing a gap in the fence (or dyke as we call them up here) so I knew he would have left the gate propped open for me.

There's a T junction just down the hill, then it's straight but up-and-down twice to get to the field gate.  I carry a crook, which I wave above my head when I hear traffic coming so they get an indication that there's something ahead before they see the sheep.

Sometimes people do have to brake hard, but it's very rare that there is any problem; it's very rural and apart from this one stretch mainly fairly bendy, so by-and-large no-one drives too fast where visibility is short.

We passed a few cars, of which the last was a black compact 4x4 type.  The driver did have to brake hard, and as I came past her she had wound down her window so I approached to thank her for stopping.  She said that you couldn't see the sheep over the brow of the road, with which I agreed and said that was why you had to drive at an appropriate speed.  (Not implying she hadn't been - she had been able to stop easily, so her speed was not excessive.)  She said we should have someone in front to warn oncoming drivers.

Well, two things.  Firstly, yes I suppose she is strictly correct, we should have a person in front slowing the traffic.  It really isn't always feasible - am I a bad person for thinking that anyone driving through farmland should and would be driving in the expectation that livestock, or wide and slow agricultural machinery, might be around the next corner?

Secondly, I am 99% certain that the driver of the black car was Jayne, who with her hubby Ray won A Farmer's Life for Me.

(I do wish that the sheep I had been moving had been 2010 lambed - then my topic title would be even more apt.   :D  Oh, or if I was moving pigs, I suppose!)
Don't listen to the money men - they know the price of everything and the value of nothing

Live in a cohousing community with small farm for our own use.  Dairy cows (rearing their own calves for beef), pigs, sheep for meat and fleece, ducks and hens for eggs, veg and fruit growing

Fleecewife

  • Joined May 2010
  • South Lanarkshire
    • ScotHebs
Re: Road hog?
« Reply #1 on: April 17, 2011, 01:50:07 am »
I wonder if it really was her  8)

We live on a very rural unclassified road but we take our life in our hands every time we cross it.  Cars approach so fast that they have no chance of stopping if we or our animals are in the road.  There have been countless accidents great and small here.  The road runs right through the middle of our smallholding, so we do have to run sheep across every now and then but it takes 4 people to do it, all wearing high-viz vests - one in front to run with the bucket (to be chased by the sheep  :D), one behind to make sure the last ones go across, and one person in each direction to stop traffic (bend one way, blind summit the other).  Quite a palaver and it means borrowing neighbours to help, so as often as not now we stick them in the trailer to move them just a few yards- ludicrous.

Ten years ago people round here walked their sheep a couple of miles by road regularly, but now we don't see anyone walking them.  Occasionally cattle are moved that way down on the main road but they have about 6 people on quads with dogs doing that manouevre as it's the main Peebles to Glasgow road.  Funnily enough I really miss getting held up by flocks of sheep.  As to whether you are a bad person - hardly  :D :D  But drivers seem to expect that they shouldn't have to slow down at all, whether it's for sheep, cattle, people, another car on a narrow road, cats, dogs, poultry - all is as nothing to the car driver in a hurry  ??? >:(
"Let's not talk about what we can do, but do what we can"

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daddymatty82

  • Joined Aug 2010
  • swindon
Re: Road hog?
« Reply #2 on: April 17, 2011, 09:26:53 am »
moving any livestock on any road unless its a dead end and the road is dead is always a hazard years ago you would only get  farm hands and locals up and down the road and all would know you be moving beasts on such and such day at certain time as everyone  knew there neighbours. Now how many people down that road that you see driving at higher speeds do you know? i help move sheep and cows for a friend as one field is exactly 1 mile few others are close like across the road. when there is any moving on a road there is usally about 5/6 of us 1 or 2 landys for cows or 1 landy for sheep. farmer keeps the pace at front if there is no gates to block up theres about 2-3 of us at front and 3 at back with landy at back to slow traffic. front one of the 3 is either at the fields gate slowing drivers. i do believe in karma and only had aggression once barged his way in his rangerover sport through the cows. which he learnt the hard way that was a mistake when he met joe the british blue who was having a bad day. but main thing i would suggest is unless you got a road block use more than one person even if its 1 sheep

doganjo

  • Joined Aug 2012
  • Clackmannanshire
  • Qui? Moi?
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    • Facebook
Re: Road hog?
« Reply #3 on: April 17, 2011, 09:49:15 am »
Could you put up road signs 'Sheep crossing - please wait here 10 minutes' just before you move the sheep, then remove them after, with a thank you to any motorists there? 

I think it's a sign of the times - no-one has time for anyone these days.  Even when I was working, and regularly had to travel across country to get to the office, I was often held up by farm vehicles, sheep, or cattle being moved.  I just stopped and waited, then explained to my boss when I got in and worked through some of my lunch hour to make up the time.  Never had any hassle from any of my bosses, but I doubt it would be accepted now - they all want every penny of work out of you.
Always have been, always will be, a WYSIWYG - black is black, white is white - no grey in my life! But I'm mellowing in my old age

Sylvia

  • Joined Aug 2009
Re: Road hog?
« Reply #4 on: April 17, 2011, 11:03:44 am »
I drive along our lanes always expecting something to come around the next bend. Not only livestock but walkers, horse riders, children on bicycles though mostly I meet (I don't wish to offend! :) :)) up-country folk in their 4x4s driving as though they have X-ray vision. Why they need 4x4s is beyond me, it seems to be a "Londoner" thing.
Sorry, I dare say I have offended folk :(

plumseverywhere

  • Joined Apr 2013
  • Worcestershire
    • Its Baaath Time
    • Facebook
Re: Road hog?
« Reply #5 on: April 17, 2011, 04:03:28 pm »
I drive along our lanes always expecting something to come around the next bend. Not only livestock but walkers, horse riders, children on bicycles though mostly I meet (I don't wish to offend! :) :)) up-country folk in their 4x4s driving as though they have X-ray vision. Why they need 4x4s is beyond me, it seems to be a "Londoner" thing.
Sorry, I dare say I have offended folk :(
;D  I'm a londoner who's quit the rat race for a worcestershire smallholding. I would love a 4x4 for practical reasons now we have livestock but alas, the life of a soap maker does not allow - yet  ;)  what gets me is the mums on school run in 4x4's who've probably never off roaded more than going up a curb to park the thing LOL. there were a few at our old school with their really fancy ones, always spotlessly clean and used only to take junior to school  ::)  jealous?me? yeah a bit haha!
Smallholding in Worcestershire, making goats milk soap for www.itsbaaathtime.com and mum to 4 girls,  goats, sheep, chickens, dog, cat and garden snails...

thestephens

  • Joined Mar 2011
  • aberdeenshire
Re: Road hog?
« Reply #6 on: April 17, 2011, 08:41:59 pm »
not just animals, i have often been put ahead of my husbands combine to stop the traffic at appropriate places so he could get past safely, but no, a woman isnt going to stop drivers, ::) they look as though i have two heads, drive on then wonder how they are going to pass this great big hulk of a thing in their shiny cars!

Sylvia

  • Joined Aug 2009
Re: Road hog?
« Reply #7 on: April 17, 2011, 09:13:08 pm »
AND swear at you as though you have no right to be there! >:(

ballingall

  • Joined Sep 2008
  • Avonbridge, Falkirk
Re: Road hog?
« Reply #8 on: April 17, 2011, 11:00:28 pm »
I know what you are saying SallyintheNorth- and it is difficult when you need to move them along/across the road.

However- I have a contrasting story of a silly farmer. I was on my way to work one morning at about 7:30, and I drive past a few farms on the way before I get towards a main road. Coming around a bend I found a farmer putting out his dairy herd after they had been milked. The farmhouse/yard is on the opposite side of the road from a lot of his fields. I was horrified though to see what they were doing, a husband and wife team, who had their very small child in a buggy with them. The wife was on one side of the road (more to keep the cattle going across than to warn cars), the husband was bringing up the rear of the cattle. And the baby in the buggy? Parked in the middle of the road on the other side of the cattle from it's mum.

All it would have taken would have been one cow getting spooked and charging, and that child could have been killed! Never mind if a car had come round the corner too fast to stop.


Couldn't believe it


Beth

SallyintNorth

  • Joined Feb 2011
  • Cornwall
  • Rarely short of an opinion but I mean well
    • Trelay Cohousing Community
Re: Road hog?
« Reply #9 on: April 19, 2011, 02:21:12 am »
Thanks for all your comments, folks.  I have to say we do more usually have the both of us moving animals on the road but sometimes it just can't be managed.  And if we can nab 3rd, 4th, 5th & 6th hands we do so - but I could start a whole other thread about getting help...  My favourite way is me in hi-viz on Fell Pony at back with collie, BH in front on quad with hazards going. 

I do like your idea of temporary warning signs, Annie.  I expect if I try it some jobsworth will tell us they're illegal but I may just give it a go anyway.  I think most motorists would appreciate the warning and take it in good part.

In the interests of balance, I should say that we also get some delightful road users (and not just our lovely neighbours.)  On this very same journey, one lady had called over, "Thank you so much!  That's so CUTE!  I think I'm going to cry!"
Don't listen to the money men - they know the price of everything and the value of nothing

Live in a cohousing community with small farm for our own use.  Dairy cows (rearing their own calves for beef), pigs, sheep for meat and fleece, ducks and hens for eggs, veg and fruit growing

Hilarysmum

  • Joined Oct 2007
Re: Road hog?
« Reply #10 on: April 19, 2011, 08:07:07 am »
Its the  norm here to see cattle wandering down the road with a child on a bike or an elderly lady following on.  Bearing this in mind its amazing the speeds some of the locals do in their cars as most of them are farmers too.

 

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