How to kill yourself without knowing

[TripleR]

Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true! --Homer Simpson

 

[texasjohn]

Oh, my, surely you joust....er...jest.....<grin>

Wonder, in the old days if there was a court fact-er the same way there was a court jester ?? Of course, in those days with no net, God only knows what authority they would find to quote...Issac Newton being the only extant authority of ill repute who could be quoted. :laughing::thumbsup:

 

[SPYDERLK]

Summing up the thread to date.

We have data that says we can flip a tractor to a point of no return in 3/4 of a second on dry level ground doing things we shouldn't be doing. We'll be on our back in another 3/4 of a second which means the total maneuver takes 1.5 seconds and can be "much quicker" provided the surface conditions are not dry, the ground is not level etc.

We've documented that it can take up to 5 seconds to react to a startling situation that we have not anticipated.

Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein's theories apply to tractors and aircraft in many of the same ways.

Documentation is as follows:
The study results show that a driver "with average reflexes, eyesight, decisiveness and sobriety, driving
an average car" [at 60 miles an hour] will take almost three seconds to see and recognize a hazard,
almost seven seconds to decide on a course of action, and almost four-point-five seconds to complete a
maneuver."
This is not to say, the study goes on, that the rule to allow 100 feet of stopping distance for each 10 mph,
is entirely invalid. But at night, when a tractor-semitrailer is blocking the road, motorists must identify the
problem when they are one-quarter mile away.
Therefore, in the 14.5 seconds necessary to see, perceive (recognize), decide what to do, and then do it, a vehicle will travel 1,276 feet. If the recognition begins a quarter mile away (1,320 ft), the motorist has a
"cushion" of 44 feet.

Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true! --Homer Simpson

Yes, especially in mixed context situations ... And further compounded by slight of hand on those unwary of the specious. -- In the above quote from reference doc, shear remoteness of the threat is a reason for slow response behavior. If at 500 feet you abruptly come into view of that roadblock the reaction would not be the same, but the "cushion" would be comparable.
The most glaring problem with the reference statement is the inclusion of stopping time in the mix without factoring in the reduced speeds effect on the total incident distance. The next would be the use of average completion of maneuver time. This is highly inflated when applied to a full alert action period of the incident. Braking from 60 in 4.5 sec is a ho hum rate.

Unmixing the facts so that they hang together just doesnt produce the sensational results claimed. ??Agenda: somebody's particular motive: an underlying personal viewpoint or bias.??
Encarta ｮ World English Dictionary
larry

 

[The Haymaker]

TripleR...you might be interested in this model...

I see a class action against Peg Perego. There are no ROPS on their models. My boy has already rolled his after learning the effects of long, steep grassy knolls and plastic tires.

 

[TripleR]

Oh, my, surely you joust....er...jest.....<grin>

Wonder, in the old days if there was a court fact-er the same way there was a court jester ?? Of course, in those days with no net, God only knows what authority they would find to quote...Issac Newton being the only extant authority of ill repute who could be quoted. :laughing::thumbsup:

Great minds are often misunderstood or even persecuted in their own time. Some day Mr. Simpson will take his rightful place among the other great philosophers.:laughing:

My comment was meant as levity as I do appreciate all the information presented by NEBRASKASPARKS and others.

 

[patrick_g]

1. I have less then 10 years tractor experience all of which is on thye same Kubota Grand L-4610HSTC (39 PTO HP with cab and HST)

2. The first year I had my tractor I saw a guy back a tractor off a trailer at a tractor repair shop but he missed disconnecting one tie down chain. Tractor flipped in a heartbeat pinning the op to the pavement with the steering wheel (older tractor, no ROPS.) EMT's hauled him off on a back board with cervical collar in place. He did not look good.

3. That same year an 80 year old farmed-his-whole-life man near here was working under his brush hog to clear some wrapped wire when it fell on him and crushed him to death.

4. A few months ago a friend was out for a morning walk and found her neighbor's tractor with brush hog attached, upside down in his pond (been mowing around the pond for over 30 years.) He was under it and had been there for a couple days.

5. I was brush hogging a dam on one of my 12 ponds recently. I have brush hogged it many times. Never before was it exciting and never before did I ever turn sideways on the steep (water) side of the dam. I was on auto-pilot (mental auto-pilot not cruise control on tractor) with my thoughts occupied by other issues when I was suddenly on three wheels headed for 2 wheels and beginning to roll over toward the water. I snapped the wheel to the right (toward the water) which provided centrifugal force to get tractor on 4 wheels and then got off the HST (nearly equivalent to putting on breaks heavily) while turning the wheel back to the left to avoid driving into the pond.

With the tractor stopped and my heart started up again I was parked parallel to the water about 2-3 inches away. Due to drought the mud wasn't too bad next to the water and the tires were only in a few inches. I drove slowly away... no harm no foul.

Lesson learned? When you least expect it, expect it! Can I be sure my mind will never wander off topic again? No way. I try to be safe but stuff happens.

Why did I do such a stupid thing as drive on the steep side of the dam parallel to the dam instead of at right angles as I had done every time before for many years? I assure you I didn't do it on purpose with conscious knowledge. I guess what little part of my brain that was involved in tractor ops reverted to driving as in driving a car from here to there instead of OPERATING the tractor.

Be careful, I obviously got a little help from blind luck and my avoidance maneuver worked but you can't count on it.

Patrick

 

[Don87]

Thanks for the good info in this thread.
Things can happen quickly: YouTube - Tractor-Truck-Car CRASH VOL2

 

[EE_Bota]

A few comments:

First, the name of the thread "How to kill yourself without knowing" is a bit odd, and reminds me of many a twilight zone episode, and causes a bit of a dilemma for me.

Gorillas. When I was a little pre-school kid, seeing news reports about the war where the US was fighting "gorillas," and then later seeing that same night "Planet of the Apes" (the series) where apparently the war was already lost....let's just say I had lots of strange ideas about humans, gorillas, and a strong respect for the military.

I wonder if any adults during that time ever stopped to consider how a four year old like me would reconcile the war reports and the Planet of the Apes series. My parents finally figured it out one night when a news report talked about a setback the troops had, and I started crying and packing up to go join the fight. They put two and two together, and explained:

"The "gorillas" are people."
"Which ones?"
"Both."
"Are all gorillas people?"
"No, some gorillas are people, some are not, but all gorillas are animals."
"Which are not people?"
"The ones in Africa are not people."
"Are we fighting the ones in Africa?"
"No, we are fighting the ones in Vietnam."
"Are they people or gorillas."
"Both, wait, which ones?" (I don't remember anymore, but there were 10 children in my family, so something probably got knocked over, and I was still left with a fear of talking gorillas.)

Here is a story of something that happened to me this week that makes me skeptical that the 3/4 sec back flip is actionable by a human because our body likely will fail to respond by pushing the clutch due to balance issues. Even if you can trick your body into responding, unless you are belted in, your response will likely fail because the reaction force will probably move the body instead of the body moving the clutch.

Recently, I was mowing my ditch with the little riding mower. I was on an incline where the tractor was leaning to the left, and when it was time to go up the ditch to avoid the culvert lined with rip rap, my front wheel ran into a rut it could not steer out of. I was headed straight into the hole.

My mind said STOP THE MOWER, but my body declined the request with no explanation given.

My mind, instead of finding an alternative, started immediate calculations to determine why my left leg disobeyed a direct order. A parallel routine was running calculations about when is it time to jump off and run, as my right arm did a quick sweep to make sure none of my clothing was snagged in case the time to jump is NOW.

But a fault routine kicked in and interrupted both of those processes, and much to my surprise, ordered my LEFT ARM to reach down and press the clutch instead, and exited returning the value IDIOT!!! (I was surprised by this. I don't remember it being a direct thought such as "I know..use your arm instead!"

While there in that rather awkward position, I could plainly see that my left foot was planted firmly on the floorboard. It was told to stay planted by one of our most basic overriding routines: the balance routine.

Having been a kayaker for many years, one of the things you have to overcome in order to roll a kayak is our apparently innate desire to keep our head up to maintain balance. Whether the water has much to do with it I cannot say. I presume the water may strengthen it, but I believe it is mostly innate. If you ever have to contemplate what a person will do during an upset, and you don't have any particular way to know the answer, you would be safe to assume that they will contort their body in whatever way is necessary to keep their head nearest vertical.

 

[Egon]

Be careful, I obviously got a little help from blind luck and my avoidance maneuver worked but you can't count on it.

Still got some water in your ears Pat??:thumbsup:

 

[texasjohn]

Fact is, I'm enjoying this thread

EE_Bota, thanks for the trip thru the joy we have in early childhood of making sense of the adult world:thumbsup: And, for the self aware description of how your mind works! Wish mine was so organized! Good job!

Patrick_g, thanks for the litany of dangerous situations both personally observed and experienced.:drool:

Nebraskasparks, I like your summary. TripleR... your levity makes a welcome interlude.:laughing:

The various discourses on human response time capability versus experimentation with Newton's laws reminds me somewhat of the question of how many angles can dance on the head of a pin. :mur:

Personally, I think danger exists, stuff happens and y'all need to be careful out there...we don't need any OhNosecond moments in time:shocked:

 

[nebraskasparks]

I've learned a lot from this thread myself texasjohn. Thanks to everybody for finding sites that are packed with good information. I've printed them up and when I teach Farm Mechanics to the scouts...they will be exposed to what you fellas dug up.

The title...How to kill yourself without knowing comes from the fact that these tractors which move slow and methodically ... can in fact snap and flip just as fast as a fighter aircraft and we will not know why the tractor ended up on top of us. Dead without knowing. It was a common comment that I heard during safety briefs involving fatalities in the USAF..."He probably didn't know what hit him".
It also implies that if we don't read some of these articles and study center of gravity diagrams and how it moves with slope, acceleration and FEL movement then we're just dumb pokes waiting our turn to do something really stupid...without knowing.

Why did I start the thread?

I was loading fire wood onto a hay wagon with my little ford jubilee and when I raised the FEL (on a gentle slope) and just as it got above the hood I thought I had bought a ride on the meanest bull that the PBR circuit had to offer. It leaped off the ground so fast that it was pure instinct to dive away. I might have performed this dive in less than two tenths of a second or maybe it took up to five seconds...but I wasn't exactly trying to time myself.

After I spit the grass out of my mouth and looked back...the ford was swaying back and forth on the two down slope wheels. No joke. Balanced on two wheels with the FEL raised. My heart was pounding so hard I could hear my pulse. My very good neighbor was still frozen in place on the hay wagon with his mouth hanging wide open. He couldn't believe how fast this lumbering old paper weight had just "jumped" off the ground.

We both made the comment that we needed to do cpr to each other and wondered just how we were going to pull that off. I was able to creep over to the side of the ford and lowered the FEL very slowly. My hands were still shaking and I went home feeling like I had truly left my brains in my pants.
I grew up on tractors and was always careful but there was nothing on the back of the Ford to counteract the weight up front. :confused2: It was a true Forest Gump moment...Stupid is as.....

If we can keep this from happening to guys that are getting back onto tractors after being away from them for a while...or they get a newer tractor which means...new center of gravity and we keep them honest. We've done what the manufacturers should have been doing all along.

Having a ROPS and a seat belt that's fastened is peace of mind. If you're still trying to debate on TBN whether you get any protection with the rops folded down or you don't want to wear that seat belt...go get more insurance so you're family won't have to beg for a living.

 

[texasjohn]

Amen!

 

[EE_Bota]

The title...How to kill yourself without knowing comes from the fact that these tractors which move slow and methodically ... can in fact snap and flip just as fast as a fighter aircraft and we will not know why the tractor ended up on top of us. Dead without knowing. It was a common comment that I heard during safety briefs involving fatalities in the USAF..."He probably didn't know what hit him".

Thanks for mentioning where you got the idea for the name of the thread. I think rather freely sometimes, and when I read it, I thought a good long while about different fictional accounts I have seen of dead folks not knowing they are dead.

I spend a lot of my spare thinking about "what do folks really know, and HOW do they know it." My interest stems from having operators train me on how to operate machines that (unbeknownst to them) I designed and programmed. It started there, and blossomed into a keen interest in why people think most anything.

I am very glad the event you described above did not hurt anyone. I would have loved to see a picture of the setup before the event to see if I would have suspected trouble ahead. You didn't, and you seem to know your physics well, so I doubt I would have either.

One question about the event:
NOW, do you see that it should have been obvious, but you missed it, OR, was it fairly obscure and tricky, where most of us would have missed it?

 

[Redneck in training]

Thanks for mentioning where you got the idea for the name of the thread. I think rather freely sometimes, and when I read it, I thought a good long while about different fictional accounts I have seen of dead folks not knowing they are dead.

It is easy to tell. If you are over fifty and you wake up in the morning not feeling any pain you are certainly dead. No tractor required.

 

[SpringHollow]

Maybe I already mentioned it here (this is a long thread) but someone posted on TBN about going up a hill and being careful. The tractor rolled over backwards. By the time he realized there was a problem, the clutch pedal of his tractor was staring him in the face. I appreciated his post and keep that image in mind when i am thinking if i am careful, i can get away with something.

Ken

 

[texasjohn]

EE_Bota....well, I never:confused2:.

Really, you, a programmer

Never would have guessed it from the event log you gave of error routines, parallel processing, interrupt processes and supervisory uninterruptable balance threads.:thumbsup:

And, on top of that, you admit to wondering what people know and how did they figure that out!

Must be fascinating to recieve instruction on a device you designed and programmed.... inquiring minds want to know if you learned anything new about the device's capabilities in the process

Ah, yes, the wonderful things one learns when following a tractor track

 

[nebraskasparks]

Thanks for mentioning where you got the idea for the name of the thread. I think rather freely sometimes, and when I read it, I thought a good long while about different fictional accounts I have seen of dead folks not knowing they are dead.

I spend a lot of my spare thinking about "what do folks really know, and HOW do they know it." My interest stems from having operators train me on how to operate machines that (unbeknownst to them) I designed and programmed. It started there, and blossomed into a keen interest in why people think most anything.

I am very glad the event you described above did not hurt anyone. I would have loved to see a picture of the setup before the event to see if I would have suspected trouble ahead. You didn't, and you seem to know your physics well, so I doubt I would have either.

One question about the event:
NOW, do you see that it should have been obvious, but you missed it, OR, was it fairly obscure and tricky, where most of us would have missed it?

I knew I was on a slope and it wasn't steep at all... but lifting an FEL above the hood while the tractor was pointed across the slope is as stupid as I could get. I missed it all together and I wasn't thinking about where the CG was at. I was thinking about finishing up quick and calling it a day. I did in fact quit loading firewood that very moment and went home.

 

[EE_Bota]

I knew I was on a slope and it wasn't steep at all... but lifting an FEL above the hood while the tractor was pointed across the slope is as stupid as I could get. I missed it all together and I wasn't thinking about where the CG was at. I was thinking about finishing up quick and calling it a day. I did in fact quit loading firewood that very moment and went home.

It could happen to anybody, and now, perhaps, it will not happen to someone because they read this tread.

What I bolded above is what I think about most when I am working with the tractor. Getting in a rush, or being too tired leads to most of my mishaps.

 

[EE_Bota]

It is easy to tell. If you are over fifty and you wake up in the morning not feeling any pain you are certainly dead. No tractor required.

Not only is that funny, and true, but it solves the actual dilemma as well.

Mental note to myself: On the day I wake up without a single trifling pain, remember not to be disappointed if people start ignoring my posts.

 

[EE_Bota]

EE_Bota....well, I never:confused2:.

Really, you, a programmer

Never would have guessed it from the event log you gave of error routines, parallel processing, interrupt processes and supervisory uninterruptable balance threads.:thumbsup:

And, on top of that, you admit to wondering what people know and how did they figure that out!

Must be fascinating to recieve instruction on a device you designed and programmed.... inquiring minds want to know if you learned anything new about the device's capabilities in the process

Ah, yes, the wonderful things one learns when following a tractor track

I've learned that it was designed by an idiot, and programmed by a sadist. But the fellow the operators are training seems nice enough, but they can tell by the look on his face that he doesn't always understand what they are telling him about some of he more obscure aspects of running the machine. He acts like he is afraid to press the buttons, so he always lets it run in "auto."