good post, although it reminds me how easily this could have been me with my little guy before i found this and other sites and starting boning up on tractor safety. my wife, even after i told her no one could operate the tractor without reading the manual and getting training and that we couldn't ride together, still wants to take pictures of the kid in the FEL bucket and of me holding him on the tractor. the kid is only 9 months old but has a natural curiousity for the machine.
i was the kid 30 years ago, sitting on my grandpa's lap, learning how to mow on an old bolens mower with no belt guards, rops, or other safety features. heck, i'm pretty sure there wasn't even an owners or safety manual for that old mower - my grand parents probably bought it used. i remember it had a dump bed rigged up on it and i used to ride in that thing all the time. i somehow also survived learning how to drive in a car with no seat belts and never had a car seat.
does that make me an "idiot", "dumb", or a bad parent? i think it just means i was ignorant because i had poor role models and wasn't aware of the safety issues. now that i have access to the internet and more current thinking about the safety issues, i try to hold my line and follow the rules. but it's hard sometimes and the natural inclination is to share the experiences on the tractor with the rest of the fam.
my neighbor has an extremely sloped front yard and i've seen him out there holding his little boy while mowing on his craftsman mower. it always makes me cringe and pray nothing bad happens to either of them. i wish i could do more, but i don't know them well enough to approach the topic in a casual way. maybe someday if we are talking, i'll slide in something about safety issues and "my rules on our tractor" and some of it might rub off as a take away.
this past summer, my wife was visiting people in the hospital on various occasions, and she encountered two families with children in intensive care due to mower injuries. despite first hand knowledge, i think she still has the attitude that it "can't happen to us".
my worst fear while mowing is that the little guy or one of the neighbor kids will sneak up behind me to say hi or see daddy or something and i won't hear or see them. i wear ear plugs and always try to look behind when backing up around trees and such, but when i get going, i know i could easily miss a small child. our focus will be on education and keeping them inside until old enough to understand the dangers, but sometimes i think the kid might actually be safer on my lap - at least i would know where he is!
hoping everyone will be safer out there....
amp
