I don't think I am but am prepared to be told I am if the MN Jury thinks so

[fuckmepinkandCALLmegoran]

DD1 is 12, she is at her dad's this weekend, and has gone to her grandmother as they have a farm and it is silage time.

She has just sent me a picture of herself in overalls DRIVING A TRACTOR WITH A TRAILER ON IT

I have texted her and she is delighted to be allowed to cart the "near home" fields where she doesn't have to go on the road.

I am most displeased about this. I think it's dangerous and irresponsible.

But past conversations with ex when DS was this age did not go well, as he cannot see the problem nor can his family. They all did it at that age.

So, oh MN July, AIBU to think she's too young, it's too much responsibility and far too dangerous?

Erm, yes it does.

If your child dies while riding their bike, it is not your fault for letting them ride a bike. It is the driver that hits them's fault. It is of course a tragedy, but not an avoidable one.

If your child dies doing something illegal and manifestly dangerous as a job for you, it very much is your fault.

Rosie - please don't read the above as it being your fault if something happens to your DD, it is her dad's responsibility to make sure your DD is safe when she is in his care.

I hope very much you're able to find a way to put a stop to this.

LaWeasel - I am finding Omigawds assertions and numbers hard to deal with. They are made up numbers they are not relevant to the scenario and they totally fail to address the point that at 12 it is ILLEGAL for her to drive a tractor.

To compare that to allowing her to ride her bike when she wears a helmet and has done a bike safe course is ludicrous

And I know you didn't mean your comments as having a go at me

Oh good, sorry! Omigawds complete rubbish has got me very cross. I hope they never have to do a risk assessment in real life...

'Shouty - I mentioned to the solicitor before about them being sent to their grans on his weekends and was told what he does is up to him. Maybe I will have a stronger case now.

He is putting them in danger, I know that.'

What he does with them is slightly less up to him if it can be proven that he leaves them in his parents' care knowing full well they are putting them in danger.

My earlier post was kind of backwards though - thinking of it again, what I would do is stop access citing the health and safety breaches - or more usefully, report them to HSE, get them fined, and once it is 'official' that they have been endangered, I would stop access and request a court order that they no longer be left in sole care of the grandparents. When your ex fires back that you are trying to ruin his access and his relationship with them, blah blah, you can then reply that the fact that he chooses to play cricket every weekend he has them and leaves them with other people rather undermines that point.

You're right - it is nuclear. However, that's the game they've chosen to play. If you want not to be stamped all over by them, that's the only option which seems open to you. It would be nicer for all if they could be grown ups who respect your wishes, or at least listen to you, but they're not!

They aren't going to respect my wishes.

I am actually feeling very angry with the figures that omigawd has put out there. How do we know what % of children under 15 drive a tractor? Where is the research?

And how can you compare it to letting kids ride their bikes?

Per hour spent on a bicycle or per hour spent driving a tractor by a 12 year old I bet the tractor is more dangerous.

Without even getting to the fact that it is LEGAL for my daughter to ride a bike and ILLEGAL for her to drive a tractor.

I think the problem with trying to use statistics in this type of argument is that they will be unreliable. How many 'near misses' or even minor (or less minor) injuries go unreported or only partially reported? How many accidents are 'reclassified' by parents/grandparents to hide the involvement of children?

How many children have caused injury or damage to others but then had it swept under the carpet for the purposes of insurance?

While doing a bit of my own googling I was amazed by how many 'if you have been injured on a farm call us' lawyers were advertising. I guess this means that there is plenty of work for them all.

And do you know what? I bet more kids under 15 and killed or injured riding bicycles than are killed or injured driving cars.

Doesn't mean we should stop kids riding bikes. But still means that driving a car under the age of 17 is illegal.

Feel free to believe whatever you like, personally I prefer it if its rooted in some form of reality.

I'm not a statistician, I just googled things like "farm deaths in the UK" and "deaths on tractors" etc. You get a variety of sources, varying from this one:

[http://www.hse.gov.uk/agriculture/hsagriculture.htm]

with 9 kids 0-16 killed over 6 years (ie an average of 1.5 per annum)

...to this one:

[http://www.hse.gov.uk/agriculture/pdf/childsafetyae.pdf]

saying that 45 children (0-16) and young adults (16-18) died over 10 years, ie c 4.5. And then this source

[http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/as10.pdf]

breaks it down to 31 from 0 - 16, and 12 from 16-18 over 10 years, ie c 3.1 kids per annum :

Here is the article saying that about 24% of deaths are from vehicle accidents on farms

www.hse.gov.uk/agriculture/pdf/fatal0809.pdf

Note, by the way, that all teh above are from the HSE.

Here is the article saying 11% of people in the UK are rural

[http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/peo_per_liv_in_rur_are-people-percentage-living-rural-areas]

And here is the article saying that 14 kids 5 - 15 were killed in the UK in 2007 on bicycles

[http://www.bikehub.co.uk/featured-articles/safe-cycling-for-kids-but-not-wrapped-in-cotton-wool/]

And here are child road deaths overall in the UK 2010 (55)

[http://assets.dft.gov.uk/statistics/worksheets/ras30002.xls]

I had started with earlier data (2009) so matched it to 2009 which was 81 deaths, can't find that but here is 2006 (120 deaths)

[http://www.whatcar.com/car-news/child-road-deaths-up-20-/226355]

Omigawd - you are still entirely missing the point that it is ILLEGAL for a 12 year old to drive a tractor.

All the statistics in the world don't make it legal.

Also, you have no idea what % of children in the UK are driving tractors underage. You have no idea what % of the accidents you talk about are caused by children driving the tractors underage, rather than being knocked over or crushed by a tractor.

Omigawd - with reference to "rooted in reality"

The reality is that is is illegal for a child of 12 to drive a tractor.

Can you calmly ask your BIL to describe the scenario e.g. What safety precautions are in place, what the terrain is like etc, to reassure you that it's ok? I can understand your worries, I would want whoever was looking after my DC (especially if its not their dad) to let you know out of courtesy if they were going to let Dc do something potentially dangerous. Not so I could stop it happening (think you have to trust your X here unless he has given you reason to doubt his attitude to safety in the past), but just out of courtesy. I don't think you have the right to veto it, but it would be nice of them to reassure you.

I think the biggest problem with those stats is that they are worthless, basically, because the number of child-cycle-hours so far exceeds the number of child-tractor-hours.

Unless this has been built in? But it doesn't read that way.

If the number of cycle-hours and tractor-hours isn't confounded for, or whatever you call it, then the risk of tractor-drive death is far far far greater than the risk of cycle death.

33goingon64 - it is illegal for DD to be driving a tractor aged 12. Yes my ex and his family have given me reason to doubt their attitude to safety in the past - I have explained this ad nauseum on the thread.

Gooseberry - that's the point I'm trying to make. Also statistics from here to the moon won't make it legal.

11% of people living in rural areas is a lot I mean a really huge amount different to the %age of children who will be driving tractors underage. As I said before, living rurally myself and attending a school that covered a very rural area, I'd say only around 2% of the children I knew were actually "farm children" and of those I wasn't aware of any driving tractors as young as 12. Some were on quad bikes when I knew them but again that was more like 14+.

There was a case locally where parents were being taken to court because their young son had paralysed himself by driving a quad bike. He had lost control, driven it at a wall, it flipped over and crushed him. There was a campaign to say the parents shouldn't be punished on the grounds they had been punished enough, but there's no doubt that legally they were considered at fault.

Just because something is common practise doesn't mean it is safe or ok. I would actually suggest that the number of children injured as a proportion of children who are driving vehicles at that age is probably very high. Since not all farmers, by any means, would allow their children to drive them so young.

Also these statistics you are quoting are only about deaths. I personally knew of several farmers and their (older) children who had extremely nasty accidents that left them with permanently damaged limbs. I wouldn't want that to happen to a child of mine. It's not just risk of death.

I don't think the statistics cover children driving vs children being run over though, do they?

I'm not surprised you're concerned. I would be too. There is a popular perception that farms are giant country parks. They are in fact industrial premises operating heavy machinery and such machinery should not be given to a child. She will have no insurance, as I can't imagine any insurer covering a child driver. Quite apart from the obvious risk to your daughter, if she were to run over a person in the yard it would be an incident she would feel guilt for for the rest of her life.
Don't let them patronize you with guff about country life either, 12 yr olds on massive tractors with trailers is NOT standard practice on farms. My own mother grew up on relatives farms all summer & she & other children weren't allowed to use the tractor until she was 16 and this was in the 1950s when there wasn't a H&S culture like today.
A silo trailer is a huge risk. A vehicle with a heavy trailer will behave differently from when unloaded and a small slip in handling could tip the whole rig.
Those who dismiss these concerns should contemplate the number of overturned articulated lorries you hear of on traffic announcements, usually at low speed when cornering or manovering round a roundabout - and these are trained adults driving.
No you are not being unreasonable & I'm amazed that some posters think you are!

I think the fact that your son has already been involved in what could have been a serious accident proves your point about your daughters safety.

Thanks folks - I was feeling a bit like I was being a total PFB about it

I just don't know what to do - have had a chat to DD and she gets where I am coming from, but it's a matter of how to handle it when she's at the in-laws.

yanbu, a boy I was in school with died on his parents farm after an accident driving a tractor (he tipped it over somehow) and he was about 15 at the time

Nobdie

Re injuries - I did look at that but I simplified it to deaths. FYI:

Farm injuries: c 400 0 - 18 year olds over 10 years 1999-2009, ie c 40 pa
Cycle Injuries kids 0-17 2010: c 3,500 pa
All Road Injuries 0-17 2010: c 25,500 pa (excl cycle injuries)

ie Cycle injuries are c 100x farm injuries, which means if you assume 1% of all kids use farm gear and 100% ride cycles they are on a par. Bear in mind though that that is all farm injuries, but only c 25% come from vehicles, of which the bulk - c80% - are Quads and Motorcycles.

And both are 1/10th of car injuries therefore..

In other words the HSE would be better of banning riding bicycles and travelling in cars till 18 if it really wanted to cut down injuries.....

As to everyone criticising statistics, I am somewhat surprised - what else would you base your opinions of risk on?

We're not criticising statistics. We're criticising your application.

You need to stop making up numbers of children who do various things, because you have no idea.

But Omigawd - again, it is illegal for a 12 year old to drive a tractor.

And you have no breakdown of how many are caused by children driving tractors, rather than being knocked down or falling off etc

And assume 1% of children - where do you get that from?

LaWeasel - you put that much better than I did