RIP Michael Edwards
 

Love ELO, rip man.http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ilies/sad1.gif

For those who don't know, his car was crushed by/crashed into* a large haybale that rolled out of a field!

*reports vary on details.

rofl [rofl]

oh no. Sad day, indeed. I like anything with disco violins.http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ilies/sad1.gif

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...--YkAD9I2FIQG0

He should have baled out of the car.

thats a damned big bale @ 600kilos. happened not too far from here actuallly.

Doesn't need to be very big - those things are HEAVY!

considering the size of farms and farming equipment in this area a 600KG round bale is BIG. Ours are about 400KG and they stand ~5ft tall and about the same across. Unless of course the amateurs were baling wet grass :P

I've seen a lot bigger around here - would be well over 2 meters, I reckon.
Do they also come in different widths?

May be overestimating their sizes - found this bit, though - makes you think...
" Large round hay bales present a particular danger to those who handle them, because they can weigh over a thousand pounds and cannot be moved without special equipment. Nonetheless, because they are cylindrical in shape, and thus can roll easily, it is not uncommon for them to fall from stacks or roll off the equipment used to handle them. From 1992 to 1998, 74 farm workers in the United States were killed in large round hay bale accidents, usually when bales were being moved from one location to another, such as when feeding livestock

i would guess so...?? i'm not really a farmer i just work on one!

i'm guessing you wouldnt count 100-150 acres as a farm down there? in this area thats a reasonable sized holding. i think the biggest farm round here is about 1400 acres and thats not all in one place. we are restricted by gate widths (most hedges here are old old old) and the small roads.

ill go look in the local paper see what it says

edit: that didnt take long... first page: 'a driver was killed yesterday when a six hundredweight bale of silage rolled over a hedge and landed on top of his van' - typical townies not converting things right. 6cwt is ~300KG

edit2: thats taken from the western morning news on saturday

Yes, the press isn't the most reliable source - "rolled over a hedge", huh?
Perhaps if it fell over a cliff directly onto the vehicle - they are quite solid but a mere 300kg ... unless it was a convertable, of course?

just seen your edit: sounds about right with the deaths they can be a bit dodgy when handling... one of my least favourite jobs is unrolling them to be rebaled into small square bales for horses which then have to be picked up. manually of course!!

anyway - another quote from the paper:

'the bale of silage is believed to have been in a steeply sloping field beside the road when it started rolling and fell 12-15 feet directly on to the cab of the oncoming van.'

http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/1272/em31n.th.jpg

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least he wouldnt have known too much about it

edit: excuse crappy pic