Another "disturbance in the force"

[Mobuck]

Thursday afternoon DIL's Dad's farm tractor was hit from behind by a teenage driver. The 10,000# John Deere was spun 1/2 way around causing it to lay over and skid off the edge of the pavement. Didn't see the car and the kid survived but the tractor was totalled and driver is just getting out of ICU with a fractured pelvis, broken ribs, bruised lung, broken clavicle, head injuries, and serious cuts/contusions on head and face.
Now here's where the strangeness comes in: a year ago(nearly to the day and time) I hit a patch of black ice and nearly wrecked my Jeep IN THE SAME SPOT. The final resting place of the tractor was within a few feet of where my Jeep finally stopped sliding.
This is not a place that we both drive regularly nor is it a particularly treacherous section of road. The odds of either of us being on the same road, same day a year apart are monumental. Add in the fact that we were both involved in some sort of accident (his obviously far more serious than mine) and you have an incalculable level of coincidence.
Just goes to show that sometimes it's your day and sometimes it's not.

 

[gramps]

Wow! Which one of the Gods have ya’ll pissed off?
gramps

 

[Cholo]

I'm glad everyone seems that they will survive! It does seem to be beyond a coincidence. However...

In '91 my soon to be x wife was living a few miles away. I told her to never drive on Akins Rd. to my house in the rain. There was something wrong with the asphalt and even doing the speed limit you'd turn to go around a curve and you'll simply keep going straight into a concrete culvert or head on into another car. It happens every time it rains.

Well, the inevitable call came. I went there and couldn't believe that she and my 4 year old son didn't have to make an ambulance trip though they were a bit beat up. The car was totaled.

Fast forward about 13 years. I let my son drive my F-150 to work and such. I told him that if I ever caught him driving on Akins Rd, wet or dry, he'd never drive one of my vehicles again! He totaled it in the rain not 60' from where his mother totaled her car.

The odd thing is that there was never a reason for anyone coming to or going from my house to drive on this narrow road with absolutely zero shoulder and slick asphalt. None.

 

[Dave P.]

Mobuck,
Two questions if you can answer.
Was the tractor equipped with a cab or ROPS and was it's
driver wearing the seat belt?
Dave

 

[gramps]

Yep, we have a road in county that every time it precipitates, we get a callout for a wreck. This happens at least once a month, and sometimes weekly! Mobuck, I am glad the survival rate for those wrecks is high!
gramps

 

[dreamer]

He didn't have seat belt on, but did stay in the cab.

 

[Mobuck]

As dreamer said, he wasn't ejected but wasn't belted in, either. I don't remember EVER using the seat belt on a tractor unless there was a "no go" safety interface.

 

[Watchman]

The only time I have ever used my tractor's seat belt was when mowing across the side of steep hillsides.
Usually, your butt's "pucker factor" will kick in, telling you when it's time to belt up.

 

[Dave P.]

Almost never worn the belt either. We've had a few of these types of accidents
somewhat local. I have two employees that sometimes clear snow, been making
them wear the seat belt when plowing. We're on a fairly busy road and it's
a pain with traffic when clearing the drive at the road end.
One of those things, it make more sense to wear it on roads vs. fields.
Dave

 

[CLAYPOOL]

I got hit in the back of the head with a 12 foot rotted and mud filled piece of Tip up tubing after i rolled over a 1/2 oil tank hog house. After a few weeks i all MOST didn't go ahead and put on a roll guard i bought to prevent those kind of accidents....

 

[SAJohn]

I never drove a tractor new enough to even have a seat belt. When you say seat belt are you referring to the original lap only belts or the current lap/shoulder belts with inertial reels? Even as a young driver, I was able to figure out that a lap belt would keep you in your car in an accident but would also act as a fulcrum point to dash your brains out in a head on situation.

My 1959 Austin Healey Sprite had an after market lap belt but only for the driver. I would strap mine own on only when I had a passenger just to see their expression when they discovered that they did not have one.

Back before we married, my wife slipped off an ice and snow covered corner and came to rest against a large lava boulder. The next winter she slid off the same corner and into the same boulder.

At least once every winter there is rural road corner here in Central Oregon where I see a car down in a ditch.

I hate black ice, one moment you are the driver and the next moment you are a passenger.

John

 

[Dave P.]

Tractor cabs and belts I've seen are all lap belts. Basically keep you sorta in the
seat protected by the cab or ROPS in low speed tip/roll overs. There's not much
in a tractor cab that is soft enough that I'd want to bang my body against.
I think the more restrained the better.
Dave

 

[eveled]

Coincidence is a strange thing. 2 of my kids broke their right arm exactly a year apart to the day. Daughter fell off a red wagon, son fell off a stool.

 

[blume357]

I had a revelation last week....

As y'all know I had some health problems last year... which has caused me to contemplate my mortality..... in this regard, even though I hope my demise is a ways away, I would hope it happens here at home and not in some 'institution'.... more than likely when that happens my neighbor two houses away will be running over... she is a doctor.... Her last name is Watson.... the Doctor that delivered me was also named Watson...

Maybe I'll put it in my will that she has to sign my death certificate...

 

[contender]

Coincidence is a strange thing. Sometimes,, forces of physical things cause them more frequently,, (such as the road Cholo mentions,) and other times,, there is no way to figure out a link.

Luckily, all survived the tractor accident.

Seat belts in a tractor. I too have never had one new enough to have one. I've only driven one with them in it. And while my current JD tractor doesn't have a roll bar,, I'm hoping to find one somewhere that I can salvage & install on mine. I lost a 12 yr old cousin about 45-50 yrs ago due to a roll over tractor accident. Back then,, nobody in rural farm country thought anything about kids driving tractors. He moved off the roadway to allow a truck to pass,,, and apparently, the soft shoulder gave way, & he rolled over, pinning him underneath it. Never forgot that one.