I've never seen a setup like this before.
Lots of farmers run similar setups here. Avoids whole bunch of red tape and regs. No CVOR needed, no hours of service, logs, and most importantly, don't need to pay the $$$ needed to register a semi every year.
Hold my beer:
If those are being run down public roads, then DOT needs to address that. Where is the commercial insurance?
Farm equipment, no DOT involved. There was a guy a while back looking at making one, and someone else has several. If they hook it behind a farm tractor, and its all their own stuff, I don't think there's any requirements. I don't know if they are running a small pony compressor for air for the brakes, or just not using brakes at all.
Never seen one with functioning brakes but a little electric over air unit would be a great invention No DOT involved never will be
about 35 years ago i came upon the aftermath of an incident involving one of those. the guy(farmer) was hauling a D6 or D7 behind a JD 8440? tractor down a gravel road and apparently was rolling along at a good clip until he hit some potholes. it started to gallop and jerk and bounced, throwing the cat over on its side down over the shoulder of the road. he must not have had it chained very well or not at all. they had the road blocked off and i had to detour through an adjoining field. i would suspect he learned a valuable lesson that day
Same here. A farm tractor can travel down a main highway and if you run into it it's your fault regardless. Now I haven't seen a farm tractor lowboy but I'd bet some farmer in south AL has one.
Some of the sketchiest stuff is run by farmers. Couple months back I watched a guy hauling a swather through town behind a pickup. Probably at least 16 wide. Took out signs, smashed the teeth off the swather and almost clipped a few cars on a narrow bridge. Borderline stupid IMO.
Here's the thread with farm tractors pulling lowboys. HeavyEquipmentForums
That may be but Farmers Towing farming harvest equipment That track hoe is not farming equipment.
It is if they are putting in tile, clearing ponds, or tearing trees out of fence rows.......
I understand the ag rules, But none of that makes it right. I spent 8 years working for a ag supplier. I know quite well what goes on and what slides by.
I think even if it's farm equipment but is over width they should still have to have a pilot truck(s) to warn other drivers. They are wide loads, moving slow on narrow roads. Pretty much a recipe for an accident. One of the secondary hwy's. out to my land is only 2 lanes. I was coming home one day and came up on a big 4 wheel drive tractor with triples pulling a huge cultivator. It pretty much took up the whole hwy. He had to pull over at a field entrance to let anyone get by no matter which direction they were traveling. Tractor doing 20-25MPH and the speed limit is 60MPH. Add a bit of a hill or glare from the sun and it's too late to to avoid an accident. Have also came up on a custom combining caravan. 3 huge combines and a couple huge tractors pulling grain carts. You're pretty much stuck behind them until they head into a field. Thankfully the guy below was caught and charged. Nothing against farmers but some really push the limits. 'Quite scary': Driver fined for unsecured scrap load in Edmonton | CBC News
The tractor in the original post is a late model and could have factory brake controllers. Either air or hydraulic are available, but I don't believe both on the same tractor.
I saw similar sort of things a lot in Ireland. Farmers don't seem to own trucks over there and pull all manner of trailers with tractors - end dumps, equipment, flatbeds. I found it interesting how much they ran tractors up and down the road. I don't know how the brakes worked. That would be my fear with the lowboy pictured. A tractor can pull a whole bunch - but when it comes time to stop you get pushed all over.
Back in the 70's a local farmer got tired of playing dickaround with gravity wagons, bought 2 45' flatbeds, added 3' sides and a dolly. Pulled them with his farm tractor to haul grain to the mill. The mill would tip them with their gantry to dump. No idea wth he did for brakes, at least he lived 2 miles from the mill. Ed
Same in the UK up by the Lakes district. We were having dinner and these big 4x4 tractors would roar through town by the restaurant towing a trailer. Actually they roared right AT our table, then made a corner. It was a bit disconcerting.
UK, IE, and Europe use a hitch that's centered and closer to the axle, not the drawbar. And they're required to have brakes, usually air brakes, sometimes hydraulic brakes that use the same S cams as air brakes. Not saying their brakes don't fail, but Americans pulling something with a tractor, you can assume they have no brakes on the trailer.
There's a few large Manitou telehandlers around here that are setup for trailer airbrakes.
Somewhere in Australia?
Indeed, the dealer is in Queensland. Gotta love Oz....
Never seen a tractor is the us that had trailer brakes and get a big baler with a steamer full of water and you got about as much weight as a trac hoe Back in my farming days we pushed it hard on skating rules my experience is farmers are so used to playing the ag card as a license for anything and the sketchy ones play the victim of broke farmer that cops dont want the court case
I can legally road my 12 foot wide DW-21 scraper on any road but the Interstate here as long as I keep it under 25 MPH and have a Slow Moving Vehicle sign on it. I can only move it without permits for building my own logging roads however. If I were to work on a logging road for someone else, it would not be AG but would be classified commercial and I would need permits. I have brakes and always have a follower with flashers. I still need to be under the road weight restrictions with the AG exemption. A large diary farm a hundred miles down the road recently got a speeding ticket for exceeding 25 MPH in their big JD tractor with slurry wagon. Made the local TV news.