We have received the following email from Andy L:
Despite the road works, this afternoon has been hair raising on Smithy Lane. The attached photo is from one of the skid marks where two tractors, both with large trailers, nearly collided head on. I didn’t measure it but it is more than six feet in length. Unfortunately they didn’t seem to learn from this experience nor take any notice of the children coming out of the school on foot. I witnessed two near collisions just in the time it took me to fetch the kids from school. I appreciate that some of the folk passing through have a job to get done and that “time is money” but this is getting silly.
PARWICH.ORG 
This quite clearly reinforced the need for some sort of road safety monitoring. Repeated requests from village residents appears to go unheeded. Do we need to set up an action group? Anyone volunteering to set the ball rolling?
I have also witnessed the reckless driving by some of the contractors in charge of tractors today. We now have 2 sets of skid marks outside our house. Finally, so anxious about the speed and fearing an accident I tried to phone the farm concerned to ask that the drivers drive more slowly. Unfortunately no one answered. The hair-raising speeds continued until we actually tried to slow the tractors down by waving at them (wearing hi-vis jackets !!).Can’t quite believe we had to resort to that! Not that it seemed to have any impression.
Another resident then did succeed in making contact by phone and was told that work had stopped for the day but would re-start on Saturday. I understand the farmer agreed to ask his contractors to reduce their speed. I really hope they get the message that the village is not a race track. We all have busy lives and need to get to places. However, most of us try to drive responsibly.
By the way , Patti, the issue of speed was raised at the last Parish Council and a group of concerned villagers are working on setting the ball rolling.
i was working for the contractors that day and i can asure you that my tractor will only go 25 miles an hour and when you have got 10 tons of maze in your trailer you can only do 18.3 mph through the village or even less when there are adults and children on the road and parked cars. And why is it that when we are on the main road and doing the top speed the tractor will do 25mph we end up with traffic passing us giving allsorts of hand and finger signs because to them we are going to slow, it seems we are in a no win situation.i hope flossie dog as got over its trauma.
This evening I encountred one of these tractors when returning into the village at about 7.45 pm. It was dark and the vehicle was travelling out of the village towards the pikehall road when I encountered it, going far too fast and with lights blazing. Forced into the side of the road as it thundered past I was left feeling as if I’d just had an encounter with a vehical of the third kind; ten minutes later I narrowly escaped being mowed down during a dash from our house across the road as it tore past our house at a speed I’d estmate as about 50 mph.
The driver, who didn’ t appear to see me, certainly didn’t slow down and I’m thanking my lucky stars that i was able to get out of his way fast enough to avoid being mushed; there are plenty of people in this village whose mobility is compromised, are children, or are parents with pushchairs who wouldn’t have been able to. Our attempts to determine the source of these kamikazi tractors have been fairly productive and given this information we intend to inform our local community police officer tomorrow. Apparently the tractors are due to return at the weekend….in which case if this continues it may be better for us all to wear Hi-Vis vests to compensate for their highly dangerous driving, or just remain indoors. I don’t feel too happy about even allowing the cat out until they slow down.
Regarding the tractor hurtling up and down Smithy Lane yesterday: I spoke to the farmer who told me that these were contractors and didn’t work for him directly. They will apparently be back soon at some stage and I asked if he could have a word with the driver(s).
The Parish Council discussed the issue of road safety in the village with the Police and members of the community at their recent meeting. I volunteered to be a link person to gather names of people interested in working on this.
A post/notice has been drafted and we are waiting for the Police to confirm they are happy with the wording. However in the meantime anyone wanting to put their names forward please contact me via parwich@hotmail.co.uk or tel. 287.
Alternatively you can let the Parish Council know via ppccl@fsmail.net
If anyone has a problem with the above please contact the haulier, the “farmer” above bought a Feed product ONLY & was not responsible for the haulage!
Thank you to Sarah and Rick for the clarification. Sarah, if you have the phone number or name, please could you email me, I’d be happy to give them a call. I’m sure the blog team can pass a message to me, if you don’t have my email.
Whilst we are talking about a specific incident here, I didn’t really want to get into blaming individuals as this is about a more generic problem.
For the most part, I don’t think we are talking about speeding either. To my mind, the issue is vehicles driving too fast for the road conditions, not exceeding the speed limit. Smithy Lane has a blind corner (as the current skid marks indicate).
Folk from outside the village may be unaware of this and unaware of how many children live around that corner. I’ve heard folk talk about speed monitoring and perhaps looking to reduce the speed limit but to my mind the issue is that a speed that is acceptable for a small car coming around that corner is way too fast for a large vehicle. When a small car passes pedestrians, there is plenty of roadway left to stand on, when a large vehicle passes it is a squeeze.
Some additional comments on this issue have been left here:
I was helping the contractor on Thursday haul maize through the village and wish to add my comments/observations.
Speed of tractors; most tractors are limited to about 43kmh which in English is less than 30mph because when I was travelling through Hulland the “SLOW DOWN” lights did not flash at me.
Tractor/trailer brakes; Modern tractors and trailers have either hydraulic or air brakes which gives efficiant brakeing on 3 out of 4 axials ( the photo above shows the short stopping distance extreemly well)
School children: The children from school where walking down the village as I drove by the pump shed and they were ushered to the side by the teachers and assistants as I slowed down to go past.(A good lesson in road safety for the kids not from a farming background)
Other road safety issues: Travelling further up the village I encountered one of the above commentors reversing their car out of their entrance on the blind corner, not looking for traffic coming up the village untill they were nearly half way accross the road within 18 inches of my tractor and trailer. ( the owner of this car appears not to see reversing out onto the road as a danger to either theirselves or other road users as the car is drawn into their entrance again today)
Future action: It would be very easy to continue the anti “FARMER” hysteria, however a more balanced approach looking at all issues which effect road safety 365 days a year rather than just focus on a once or twice a year event will have a more productive outcome.
Sorry I have spelt AXLES wrong, must have been thinking of axial flow combines
Rob
“It would be very easy to continue the anti “FARMER” hysteria, however a more balanced approach looking at all issues which effect road safety 365 days a year rather than just focus on a once or twice a year event will have a more productive outcome.”
Robert, I agree completely with you. I can assure you that there is no anti farmer feeling here at all (nor have I heard any from my neighbours). Just as there is no anti tourist or biker, cyclist or any other group that may be perceived to come down the hill a little fast at times. None of us are perfect drivers, the issue of road safety applies to all of us.
Thursday just serves to highlight a problem that exists with the roadway when it’s being heavily used.
I think Robert has raised a very good point; the problem is 365 days ayear. This problem is not just contained in the village but also on the back lanesinto parwich. every morning i need to go down the dale on my Quad to check on my cows,i used to go around 7:30 but met everyone who was late for work.To make the journey easier, i swapped my jobs around and made the journey later, at 8:30. However,going at this time meant i met the entire school run of mums in 4x4s. This was more of an encounter of the fourth kind, one morning a 4×4 mummy was going so fast that her skid marks were 3 or 4 times longer than those left by the tractor in Parwich. I was so frightened i did a little one, not on the road!! I had to brake so fast that my dog (Floss) fell off, she is OK but is now so frightened she will no longer ride on the Quad with me.
I do think a group to look a these problems is agood point and i believe Robert with his suggestions is the ideal man to run this group, so something can be done for the sake of Flossie!
I would like to add a couple of obsevations to the road safety debate.
Last winter the back lane from Parwich to Pikehall where i live was particulary trecherous for a couple of weeks following the snow. On more than one occasion people were on the road in 4×4’s towing young children behind their vehicles on sledges attached with rope.
I have also seen a car going down the road with the boot up, two children sat with their legs hanging over the side and the dog running behind.
It’s a good thing that none of the farmers were going about their business on tractors these particular days when the safety aware parents of Parwich were letting their children have some fun on the road!
As a regular visitor and user to Parwich and the local back lanes i have come across the local farmers going about their daily business. To date no accidents have occurred. Before any action group is formed would it not be a good idea for all concerned to think about their own driving habits. Driving through the village it astounds me at the number of residents who have a drive or garage but prefer to park on the road, often on corners, making difficult and dangerous to get passed. Could the emergency services pass by quickly and safely if needed. Please think about others when driving or parking in Parwich, it could make a difference to someone’s health, maybe even your own.
Just wanted to clarify that the issues relating to vehicles going too fast that were discussed at the Parish Council meeting related to all traffic – tractors were barely mentioned, if I remember correctly. It would be fantastic if we could get drivers and pedestrians of all varieties interested in looking at the issues. As there are also horse riders using the roads I wonder if they also have thoughts to share on how we can make the place both safer and more pleasant to navigate. On another point, I don’t think it was anyone’s intention to come across as anti- farmer, just to highlight the inappropriate speed of some drivers with the sole aim of preventing an accident.
The next meeting of the Tissington Safer Neighbourhood Policing Meeting will be held for the first time in Parwich, at the Memorial Hall on Monday 13th December at 7pm.
In the minutes of the last meeting, held at Kniveton on 27th September, the group, under Sgt Steve Edwards and PCSO Kate Cleveley discussed ‘Community SpeedWatch’. The scheme is already up and running in many of the villages. Training would be given by the Sgt and then volunteers can use the equipment and fill in the appropriate paperwork. A PCSO would be in attendance to assist. It was pointed out that there would be no enforcement, but a letter is sent out to the driver to inform them of their speed.
This may be of interest to our community and anyone is welcome to attend the next meeting in December. The police chair the meeting and normally various councillors and local residents attend and raise relevant issues.
check out “tractor boy”on you tube