OT: Kids driving legalities?

That's interesting I wobder how that stacks up againest the HSE advice/rules for farms that

"Children under 13 years old must not ride as passengers on tractors, ATVs or other farm machinery."

"Do not allow children under 16 years old to operate an ATV. If the child is 16 or over they must wear a suitable helmet and be properly trained."

There seems to be a grey area here, it also appears that as a farmer I may well have to take more care than someone who simply owns a pony paddock. As a farmer with a chold I'm subject to HSE inspections that the general public wouldn't be ;(

The HSE does not have the ability to dictate the law, they just wish they do and keep making 'guidelines' that they'd like to think have the power of laws.

However, when they actually talk to real lawyers they rapidly find that, for example, trying to drag a landowner into court because his child has died in an accident doing something he or her shouldn't the lawyers.

First of all, the lawyers recoil in horror at the idea of prosecuting someone for having the misfortune to lose a child, and second say 'Don't be bloody silly, he wasn't breaking any laws and he wasn't negligent in any matterial way and thousands of others do it every day'.

On or around Sun, 2 Mar 2008 03:06:30 -0000, "Larry" enlightened us thusly:

they don't have to, they don't pay out either way.

On or around Sun, 02 Mar 2008 11:42:54 GMT, snipped-for-privacy@btopenworld.com (Tim Jones) enlightened us thusly:

That's more or less what I meant. You rent me a field for the day to do off-road driving, and someone gets in through a hole in your fence, and gets run over. Who's responsible? Me, running the event, or you for not having decent fences? You can bet that the lawyers would have a field day (if you'll pardon the pun).

Ditto, my everyday commute is a 6-second walk down the hallway, when I'm travelling in London during the rush hour I'm glad I don't have to do that every day!

It's surprising how impotent some of the government bodies are, I recently had some hassle with a company and on contacting the Office of Fair Trading was told that the company was clearly in the wrong. When I contacted the company, they consulted the OFT and were told they were clearly in the right... In both cases the OFT were provided with the same information! The sale of goods act and distance selling regulations appear to be totally impotent when it comes to mobile phone contracts amongst other things. Industry bodies dealing with the mobile phone industry are voluntary and the company concerned isn't signed up to their codes of practice, however they have now clearly violated their own terms and conditions so chances are I can give them a kicking.

If you look at my post again you'll see I used the same words "farm machinery" which I take to mean machinery that is being used on a farming activity as opposed to a piece of "leisure" equipment.

I'm not claiming to be an expert in this area.

AJH

Take them to the small claims court.

It's easy, it's cheap and the system favours the customer.

Have you tried it? First time I enquired about it with the OFT and CAB, I was told it can be expensive so best use arbitration, then the arbitration services told me for a few hundred quid it wouldn't be worth it as fees would eat that up (never mind that I'm tied into a long expensive contract, that's not counted as a "loss").

Also the whole reason I haven't already taken them to small claims court is because the system does not favour the customer, the mobile phone company refused to supply me with terms and conditions until I'd already violated them by keeping the phone for a set period of time and powering it on (as is theoretically my right under the distance selling regulations -- and I'm right and wrong according to the OFT), however they claim they did send me T&Cs with the unreasonable terms in them (the unreasonable terms are the ones the OFT claim are simultaneously invalid and valid). The OFT and the arbitrators told me that the company is claiming that they have a "procedure" that makes it "impossible" to send out a phone without T&Cs and 95% of the time the small claims court will believe their word over mine because of that. So they only have to claim to have a procedure for me to already stand less than a 5% chance of winning on that basis alone.

However the company has now violated their own terms and conditions, that plus them changing their story on a daily basis regarding the sending of the T&Cs means I now stand a much better chance so will be writing them a letter soon.

On Mon, 3 Mar 2008 12:22:54 -0000, "William Black"

It would be nice to be able to believe this.............

Nothing there to show/suggest the death was in anyway connected with driving the tractor lawfully or not!

But the prosecution was and it disproves the theory that lawyers are noble people who wouldn't prosecute the parents of a dead child ;(

I didn't say they wouldn't.

I said that in the event of a tragic accident they probably wouldn't.

The circumstances here are unclear.

The court must have had a lot of sympathy for the guy, and some mitigating circumstances, cos a grand fine after a fatality is pretty unusual in an HSE prosecution.

On or around Tue, 4 Mar 2008 10:21:22 -0000, "GbH" enlightened us thusly:

I was driving tractors at age 12, but generally under supervision. Mind, none of them had decent brakes. ISTR that to get it to stop, I had to stand on the brake pedal with both feet and pull on the steering wheel.

It's a fairly typical scenario when pulling a (3tonne?) roller downhill, typically with 2WD and a tractor weighing

It certainly does - 'Balls the size of watermelons' is a phrase that springs to mind.

Mind bleach.

Lizzy

I thought you were less shockable than that Lizzy. ;-)