Tractors should not be on main roads at peak commuter time. AIBU

[Hoolajerry]

We live in a relatively rural town which traditionally has a large farming community. We have very poor public transport links. We have one major road which bypasses the town and is approximately 30 minutes to a major motorway. Without fail whenever you travel on this road there are tractors. In the morning there can be significant tailbacks 20+ cars long. Unfortunately the road does not lend itself to overtaking (amongst one of the most dangerous in the country). It also does not have many pull-in places and even if they do you will meet another one fairly soon.
I had this conversation with DH and he said that as a rural community they have a right to be there whenever they like. However, these are not small business tractors as per traditional farms, they are massive contractors who have set-up in the last 10 years who are therefore based significant distances from the farms they serve. One in particular is very new and has bought up swathes of land throughout the locality and has its base 2 miles from the motorway but comes all the way to our town it what seems to be a constant stream.
I know that I am being slightly unreasonable so this is a little lighthearted but it pisses me off that everyday my journey to work is taken at a snails pace following bloody tractors. AIBU?

Yanbu
I wish you'd done a poll!

i live in an urban area and still manage to get stuck behind a tractor on a tuesday. There's no escape.

Yadnbu in Cornwall several of the main roads are single lane and if you get behind a tractor you can easily be 10 mins late for work

---- However yabu because got caught behind a tractor is a viable excuse for being late. When actually you just oversleep. So please don't take away the excuse

I'm a farmers wife and I agree with you! but know that it's unreasonable; as do you.

So basically you are saying farmers have to work shorter days, or really really long days to accommodate you? Doesn’t work like that and they have every right to be on the roads. If you know it’s going to happen just leave earlier

Yes, the tractors are helping to provide us with food.
Car drivers could be doctors, nurses, firefighters etc on their way to work too. Or numerous other essential workers.
YANBU OP.

Yanbu. I add holiday makers in caravans. I can be at peace with tractors but caravans make me seethe.

I live in a tourist area. Caravans take and give back little.

I work 30 miles away from home, and my commute is almost all on single carriageway roads with minimal opps for overtaking. The area is also pretty rural, so its a regular occurrence to get stuck behind sometimes 3 or even 4 tractors during the course of my journey. It's totally bloody infuriating when you deal with it regularly and when they drive a significant distance without pulling over.
Yes, I totally agree they have a job to do, but so do most other people on the road. Short distances, absolutely fine. Several miles without pulling in is taking the piss.

And I say this, as the granddaughter, niece and daughter in law of various farmers!!!!

YABU. Tractors can be annoying, I get it, I live in a rural area but they are making a living that benefits us all.

Also the funny thing is last year when the snow hit hundreds of drivers become stuck in it. Who came out to help out? Tractor drivers. That’s who!

Leave earlier in the morning.

Some drivers are nice and will pull over to let a stream of cars go through, but others don’t seem to care

The problem with this is, you do, eventually have to rejoin the road again and annoy a whole new set of road users. The same with pulling out at a junction, you can let loads of people go by but at some point, you do just have to get on with it.

So they probably don't care but not from malice, just from the knowledge that someone, somewhere is always going to be annoyed and/or inconvenienced and there's not much to be done about it.

Signed, someone who has driven tractors and is sorry for holding you up but was also working extremely long days because...the harvest.

YABU. Where do you think food comes from? Leave earlier.

Thats what you get for living rural, tractors. I prefer them over the middle ages lyrca kings who ride 4 abreast holding up traffic.
Once when living rurally in California I got caught up in an actual cattle drive, cowboys on horses the lot! I was 30 minutes late for my appointment and I could see the house I was trying to get to over the field. Luckily the woman I was visisting understood as it was her ranch and her cattle being driven to new pastures. LOL.
Best afternoon I spent at work, and the cowboys were just as good looking as on TV.

@Hoolajerry

Soooo, you choose to live in a rural area, and then complain about the tractors?! Bet if you live near a Church, you moan about the bells/clock chimes eh???

What I find annoying on roads, is the reams of cyclists in their bloody lycra!

What's more 9 times out of 10, the tractor drivers will pull in at the earliest available opportunity! Cyclists take as much of the road as possible, and act like they own the roads!

@Chloemol
What are you going on about? They would still work the same hours just delay it by an hour or start it earlier?

Yabvu. At least remember most of them will be speeding (most should be subject to a speed limit of 20mph) next time you get frustrated.

@Horehound

Why should the farmers arrange their hours and their lives for the precious few who choose to live rural, and then piss and moan because they get stuck behind a bloody tractor?!

Get over yourself.

@Horehound

Why should the farmers re-arrange their hours and their lives for the precious few who choose to live rural, and then piss and moan because they get stuck behind a bloody tractor?!

Get over yourself.

I suppose you could campaign for all farming employees to have a compulsory paid break between the hours of 7-9.30am and 2.10-6.30pm, but I'm not sure that this would be particularly helpful in getting the country fed or in reducing disruption, as you'd then be rather unhappy about tractor jams queued up outside your front window until 11.30pm (ignoring that harvest time means you get bloody great plant and combines doing that all night anyhow).

Breathe deeply and be grateful it's the tractors, rather than animals having to cross to get to milking - you're less likely to have a car that smells of shit (not impossible if they're muckspreading, but less likely), for a start.

YANBU at all.
They have a job to do yes,but we need to be in a certain place at a certain time.
Years ago they would pull in when possible, a rare thing these days.
I also think learner drivers should be taught between 9am-3pm.
I`M AWAITING THE ROLLOCKING.

@LavendarGreen because it's not the "precious few" is it? It's at rush hour so it's iterally everyone that wants to get to work.
Why shouldn't they?!

It should be that tractors aren't on the roads in peak times just as soon as those who don't work get out of supermarkets and the like at lunchtime.

It's an inconvenience but would be assiveky unreasonable to think anyone should be able to dictate when other people are allowed to use a service.

Lots of people don't like getting stuck behind anything on the roads,more so on country lanes,where there might be tractors,sheep or cows etc.

My son was paralysed from the chest down,by a man in a car,who was itching to pass a tractor,and kept trying to pull out and pass it, despite being on a bend in the road, He eventually pulled out,without indicating,and hit my son on his motorbike coming from the other direction.

Ha ha ha.

@MitziK , one time I had a commute which involved me trying to calculate whether I could get to a certain spot before the cows were brought across the road after milking. I was just philosophical about it (as was my boss) if I didn't make it.

Oh god. Terrible juxtaposition.