Glad he wasn't hurt seriously

[K5lwq]

There is 3239 miles of interstate in TX and nearly 73,000 centerline miles maintained by TxDOT. They award the mowing contracts to the lowest bidder. Although I think there is safer ways to mow the roads, there will always be one cowboy out there willing to use his tractor cheaper than any of the safer methods. Doubt they will get away from tractors here in the near future.

 

[4570Man]

I understand that, I just can't see the point of risking lives and expensive equipment when there plenty of better ways of doing it.

Over here those hillsides are handled with boom flail mowers and the tractors never leave the road. When those can't do it, a crew of 4 to 6 people will do it by hand with gas string trimmers that will also handle the brush around poles, signs, etc that the tractor can't do.

Lately there has been a slight increase on those remote controlled flail mower for the very steep hills though.

View attachment 758632

There’s a vast amount of road sides to mow over here. Using large tractors with bat wings is the only feasible way. They actually have fairly few rollovers. They use those boom mowers on county roads where the ROW isn’t wide enough to need batwings and they also use them to trim branches off the road but the interstates are almost exclusively done with batwings.

 

[Raul-02]

Always concerned when I see these folks cutting by the side of the road on a hillside. Wonder if that blown right rear tire was the cause or a result.

View attachment 758621

Worker safe after tractor overturns during a mowing job in Lebanon

I guess no one told him that mowing across the incline was a bad idea.

I can't imagine why he didn't abandon mowing in that direction after the first pass.

 

[Raul-02]

bat-wing mowers

they spread the center of gravity out

 

[CalG]

Some of the tractor mowing rigs are set up with side weight boxes. (Weight goes on the uphill side ;-)

 

[oldnslo]

I doubt the blown tire had anything to do with roll over since it appears to be on the high side.

 

[old and tired]

Not sure why I have questions but I do... (slow typing) WHY was the rear (up hill) tire blown? It should have just lifted off the ground and if it did "blow" it would have made the tractor more stable by lowering the uphill side. Also, the location of the front (down hill) tire, suggests he was higher up on the hill, if it was a simple roll over that tire would be closer to the bottom of the hill. My guess is that he was in reverse (higher up the hill) when the roll over took place...

 

[RandyT]

I know of 2 operators use independent braking when mowing.

I have watches some of those guys mow side slopes and the tractor and mower will be moving sideways at a 45 degree angle which the mower trying to pull the tractor down the hill.

 

[ultrarunner]

Came across one where the operator died later that night from internal injuries… side mowing, older tractor no rollbar.

Was told same tractor had been mowing the same side hill since the 80’s each year in preparation for fire season…

 

[MossRoad]

they spread the center of gravity out

How?

It’s getting towed by the drawbar and oscillates on it’s own axis compared to the tractor and it’s riding on its own wheels.