I would say ask my dad because he knew a lot about mowers and researched which ones were safest before he bought his lovely green BobCat zero radius. But you can't ask him because he ended up dead underneath that mower in the shallow end of our pond at age 62 after sliding down a slight slope and the mower rolled over on top of him. His mower did not come with a ROPs. Well everyone around this town gets a ROPS now. I bet if my dad could come back he'd suggest adding a ROPS because it might have been better to have had the mower roll on its side where he could unbuckle his seatbelt which he had on during the accident, by the way, and walk away from the mower than to be struggling under the mower, buckled into his seat and drowning under the weight of it. Yep he would be a big advocate for the good old ROPs device if he were still alive to tell.
Sorry to hear the story about your dad.
That was a horrible accident. Sorry you had to live through that. I'm also sorry no one could comment or acknowledge your heart felt 1st post here on TBN.
I hope you looked into legal action to see why it was not sold with a Rops.
There are strict US Federal Regulations in place about Rops and their required safety certification. Maybe the Rops was not required on the certain size of your fathers machine. I don't know. But if other manufacturers of similar size machines have them, and the company that made yours didn't have them, I would check into it if I were you. If one of my loved ones was hurt or killed because of someones willful neglect on not installing, or modifying a required safety device, you bet your bottom I would sue. That's a good reason to sue someone. Not a bad or unjustified reason.
There is one well known guy here on TBN that just cut a fellows Rops up and destroyed the factory safety certification that every Rops has. He had a customer that was too lazy to put it up and down. Too bad your father didn't have that option. He took it upon himself to cut it down and re work it. His thinking was at least now he will use it in the upright position. The tractor now has no safety certification for the Rops and he thinks he is some sort of hero now for doing it.
Not only that, he made a video to show others how to do it, others that may not have his skills in welding. Thus putting many more tractors sold down the road with unsafe untested Rops. Someday that tractor will be sold to some unsuspecting person. That person may never know if the Rops will hold up in a mishap. He will be riding around thinking he is protected. But the modified rops was never approved or tested.
Funny he wouldn't even drill a 1/4 inch hole in his rops to run a wire through it.
In the past he posted a number of times on a number of different sites that he never messes with his Rops and others shouldn't either. But hey cutting it down makes for a good video I guess.
Engineers design and test Rops for each tractor, the size, the height, how it bends, where it bends is all figured in for operators safety in case of a roll over, and it must be certified that it will hold up in an accident before the tractors are sold.
To destroy the certification of a Rops system or mislead someone into thinking that it's still certified down the road when the tractor is sold again, should be criminal.
If it was a U.S. Shop that modified Rops and Osha found out about it they would fine the daylights out of him.
Sorry for the loss of your dad but the point you made in your post and how you posted it was well taken. Hopefully your example will deter others from messing with the safety devices on their machines big or small. Thank you for sharing your story.
