Age limit call for tractor drivers

Published on Friday 22 October 2010 16:05

The practice where farmers allow their sons to drive tractors from an early age came under withering fire this week from one of the country's top health and safety inspectors, Lawrence Murray.

"It is completely ridiculous that we have a situation where youngsters as young as 13 are allowed to drive tractors around farms and farmyards," he said at a meeting in Dunkeld this week.

In his professional career, Murray has seen many accidents and incidents where operators have been injured and in some cases died. He was strongly of the view that allowing anyone entering their teens or even younger to drive a vehicle where there was the potential to kill or main themselves or others was totally wrong.

He did understand why farmers continued to allow the practice to continue.

There was often financial pressure to reduce costs. Family labour was available and often the youngster would want to show that he could drive.

"There should be a minimum age of 16 before anyone is allowed behind the wheel of a farm tractor," he stated, saying that only by that time was the individual "sufficiently mature" to cope with situations which he might find himself in. Anyone younger may be able to drive but that did not mean they had the expertise to cope with situations that might arise.

He wanted to see some age limit introduced to help reduce the number of cases where youngsters had been involved in accidents, saying the industry had not moved its thinking on despite tractors and machinery continue to grow in size and power.

Earlier Murray had pointed to the fatalities on farms in Scotland saying they were double those south of the Border. Last year there were 45 on-farm fatalities in the UK.

In population terms, Scotland should account for one tenth of that total but there were actually nine farm fatalities in Scotland in 2009.

"These are terrible statistics. The industry is not sorting this problem out," he said.

"Agriculture has one or the worst accident records compared with all other industries. Even the construction sector has got its act together and through training and attention to potential risk, it has improved its figures," he said.

Murray said that vehicle accidents accounted for one quarter of all incidents and within that figure were pretty staggering problems with quad bikes. Problems where they tipped over and injured or killed the driver were common, he said, as was loss of control on steep slopes, with the absence of a helmet often a factor.

Murray was addressing delegates at the Farm Business Advisers Accreditation Scheme for Scotland on the financial penalties for those cutting corners on the health and safety front.