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New Tractor Speed And Trailer Weight.


powerrabbit

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Today, 9th March 2015, the new tractor speed limit of 25mph comes into force as does the increase in the weight they can pull. It's said that the higher speed will decrease overtaking and traffic build-up and shorten journey times and the higher weight will cut travelling time and result in less journeys. I say that higher speed will cause more accidents as traffic will have to go that much faster to overtake and the higher weight will take a lot more to slow or stop. Time will tell!

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Well I hope they will do the 50kph or 30mph boys for speeding then , fine to target car users for 35 in a 30 zone, but seems wrong if the laws 25mph max why they offer gearboxes capable of 30mph /50 kph and I am sure Marky said mf now do a 60kph box to, what's the point

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Well Ive been living in the middle of the fens for 5 years now and its transport tractor central ;D    I have to overtake tractors virtually every day and I can assure you of two things, firstly very few crawl along at 25mph :- most are doing 30-35mph with or without loaded big trailers.  And secondly no ones complaining if their sat behind one of the local farmers big Fendt 900s whizzing along at 40mph, because everyones still in top gear and the traffics flowing nicely.  But if its one of the smallest growers in his 1970s David Brown travelling at 15 mph, people get p*ssed off real quick!

 

During August to November the roads are hive of activity with tractor trailers, now mostly hauling big 18ton Larrington trailers full of produce and usually behind a 6 or 7 ton tractors.   A NH T7.210 coupled to an R.L trailer is probably a gross weight of around 12 tonnes unloaded and 30 ton fully loaded, which is now legal despite them having run these sized rigs for at least 5 years.   The only accident Ive heard of was a new 300hp JCB and forage wagon trying to squeeze under a bridge that was about 18 inches too small for it :of............made a helluva mess! 

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All the transmissions that do over 40kph are designed for it to save fuel by running at lower revs...

We aren't far off from truck weights and MOT's IMO, then it becomes questionable to use tractors for haulage. Not sure about accidents, not every fast car driven fast crash.

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A long awaited improvement, but still not good enough.

 

My tractor will do 33mph, It always has done and it will continue to do so while I'm piloting her! The weight up to 31T will cover us the majority of the time.. Although last year I went over the weigh bridge at just under 36T, I'd imagine it will be the same while at grain this year, If not more!    ;D  :police:

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The thing is now that the laws on speed and gross train weight have changed the police are now suddenly going to be well aware of what the laws really are so will no doubt see it as easy picking to catch speeding tractors, there's a lot of people out there now who will be gaining 3 points and be £60 lighter in the pocket. As much as I may like to travel at 30mph in a modern tractor I'm not going to be putting my licence at risk in the near future for the sake of a small increase in time saved. The weight that you are allowed to tow has not been increased so still stands at 18.29 tonnes, the weight increase is only in place to allow bigger tractors to be used to pull the loads so if your trailer is weighing more than that then you're at risk too.

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do you now need a different licence for tractors with big trailers ? when I was on the farms I just had a car licence n never got stopped . when I left to work on the council , to drive a wagon to hold a mere ten tonnes I needed to sit a class 2 hgv test n worse still do the cpc course . its a very grey area on how licences are governed

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Your car license covers you for an agricultural machine because it's not classed as a commercial vehicle, the reason that, at the present time, you can tow 18.29 tonnes is because the tractor is still classed as an agricultural vehicle and not a commercial vehicle, this is where the requirement for the different license comes in.

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  • 11 months later...
1 minute ago, chris.watson said:

image.thumb.png.c1b8be919a1c9e1ee72c095dThis happened locally to me this week. Driver is known around here as a flat out merchant . He came unstuck big time. Luckily he only sustained minor injuries.

That mad looking luck lad he was .. 

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He was the only vehicle involved, word is he mounted the bank and lost control. As you can see, it's a narrow road so an oncoming vehicle can't pass without making contact, so I can't think that he swerved for anything. Rig belongs to a local farmer up the road from me that empties septic tanks as a side business., they also install septic tanks an clygesters.  50k box tractors don't mean you have to do 50k everywhere. Around here we get right onto the side if we see this firm coming the other way.

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