Grass on Country Roads:

This is an new topic that has come up over the summer, and I'd like to hear the opinions of my agnostic friends. I have a lot of friends who are farmers and a lot of friends who ride motorcycles, and I'm curious to hear their thoughts on the issue of "grass on a country road". First from the farmer's side. If a farmer is farming 2560 acres in 1 mile squares, he will have 16 miles of roadside to mow. If he gets a large rotary mower, he can probably mow it in 2 passes, so that's 32 miles of dangerous tedious driving. For the non-farmers, mowing the roadsides is often dangerous work, the older brother of one of my friends from school was killed doing it. I've known several farmers who had to jump out of their tractors just before it tipped over. My father let me drive tractors starting at age 9, but he never let me mow roadsides. One of the things that makes it dangerous are people who drive by and throw things out of their cars and trucks to the roadside, not the least bit concerned about the safety of the farmer. If a farmer chooses to mow with a smaller lawn mower, he can probably to a better job controlling where the clippings go, but then he's looking at ~80 miles of driving rather than 32 miles of driving. From the motorcycle side, one of my father's best friends was killed on a 3 wheeler. I became a field engineering manager in 2001 because the old field engineering manager decided to go on a joy ride on his 49th birthday. He was driven into a guard rail by an careless driver, and he never made it out of the hospital. I know several doctors and nurses who are "on call" on weekends for emergencies, and during the summer months "on call" means "on duty" because they are almost always busy treating people who have smashed their skulls, severed their spines, broken their arms, legs, etc. in 2 wheeler, 3 wheeler, and 4 wheeler accidents. The question is "Should people who voluntarily choose to go on a joy ride in a vehicle that is 35 times more dangerous than a car expect a farmer to spend six to eight more hours mowing his roads each time on the chance that someone will come buzzing down the road on a motorcycle and not be prepared for grass on the road?" It's a tough question for me to answer. I'd like to hear the thoughts of some other people.