Why Tractors Hurt People

A farm tractor is a machine for pulling and for driving other machines. It pulls trailers, ploughs and seed drills. It carries implements such as mowers and sprayers on its rear linkage. Through its power take-off (PTO) it turns the moving parts of those implements. Tractors also work far from farms: on estates, in parks, on road verges, at airports and on building sites.

Because a tractor is so useful, it is often driven by many different people: the farm owner, seasonal workers, family members and contractors. Many of them drive it for years without trouble. That is part of the danger. The machine feels familiar, and the habits that keep people alive slowly disappear.

The three big killers

Safety regulators in many countries, among them the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in Great Britain and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) in the United States, describe the same pattern. Most deaths with tractors come from three kinds of event:

• Overturns. The tractor rolls onto its side or flips over backwards, and the driver is crushed under it.
• Run-overs and crushing. A person is hit by a moving tractor or trailer, falls from it and goes under a wheel, or is trapped between the tractor and an implement while hitching.
• Entanglement in the PTO. Clothing or hair catches on a turning PTO shaft and pulls the person in.

Each of these has a simple, well-known control. This course is built around them.