Posted on 11/02/2009 3:05:31 AM PST by Daffynition
ONE of Queensland's richest men is fighting the Government to let his nine-year-old grandson continue to drive a 30-tonne front-end loader at the family quarry.
Dirk Karreman, a multimillionaire who owns Karreman Quarries at Mt Cotton, southeast of Brisbane, said grandson Dane was six when he started learning the ropes.
Last year, a complaint was made about Dane, then eight, being allowed to operate a Caterpillar 980H loader, but Mr Karreman said he was in a "restricted area" and there was no danger to anyone.
"You basically cordon him off in an area he works on by himself and the other guys keep an eye on him," he said.
"We've got advice from occupational therapists, he's gone and got his eyes tested for driving tests and all sorts of stuff. It's about a father and a grandfather's rights to train up his own kid."
Mr Karreman was advised by the Mines Department last December that until further notice Dane was "not to operate machinery within the Redlands quarry".
"In giving this directive I reasonably believe that a risk from operations may reach an unacceptable level," Mines Department inspector Phil Goode said.
[snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
Heck, send him here...we have a hard time finding anyone qualified to run one.
:]
I wonder what they would have thought if they knew I was operating a motor vehicle on the road at his age.
First time I got pulled over I was eleven. The officer was kind enough to let me go when my dad explained that if I couldn’t drive the pick-up I would have to drive the tractor-trailer I was following.
There ya go! I had to sit on phone directories to see above the steering wheel ...and without a seatbelt or air bags. Horrors. ;)
I believe you can still get a farm license at 14 in Michigan. I know when I worked on the farm the bosses 9 and 10 year old sons were driving the equipment all the time.
“It’s about a father and a grandfather’s rights to train up his own kid.”
Father put me into the seat behind the wheel, and the levers of a yard crane when I was seven years old. Throughout my youth I operated many a yard crane, and or other large hydraulic lift equipment.
It worked out that I gained an eye, and experience that would help me in alternative employment throughout the booms and busts of life.
The operation of heavy equipment isn’t anything to take lightly, but a Father that pays attention to details of safety, and is keenly aware of his sons appetite for mischief, or not can guide that son to a responsible perspective. Always an asset.
That picture in the first post is a back hoe, not a front loader.
"That picture in the first post is a back hoe, not a front loader."
LOL ...that's what a google search gave me! LOL
Funny Daffy, but I wouldn’t have known either
I was driving on the “camp road” at 10 1/2! in a 54 Willys Jeep......KOCKED IN “low/low”,4WD! I think it went about 8 mph!
—I got to start operating farm equipment at the age of eight also—a 1942 “B” John Deere—guess it served me well as I still work for fun five months a year operating a Cat 777F hundred-ton haul truck—
We’ve come a long way from the days of mechanical steering clutches and brakes.
When I was a nine year old kid in Michigan I worked on my Uncle's dairy farm and drove the tractors while bailing hay (I wasn't yet strong enough to toss the bales up to the trailer so I had to operate the equipment). Also used the smaller Ford tractor with the front end loader to shovel the dung out of the milk house holding pens.
At the same time my Dad had an old Willies Jeep Wagon and I got to drive it out into the woods hunting and berry picking.
Our Nanny State today would have put both my Uncle and Dad in jail just to show them who is boss.
I remember that one!
LOL!!
I was using power tools before I was 5, learned how to weld and channeled a 32 coupe when I was 8, and went 128 at the drags in a flathead rail when I was 12.
When I was 10, the kid up the street’s dad was a road builder and we used to go out to his yard on weekends and rebuild D-8s and then have races with them when we got them repaired.
That is the absolute core of our societal problems, we are not teaching our children adult skills until they are quite literally adults. What society does is shuffle them to a overpriced school system that teaches them a very narrow field of expertise, and there is another problem with todays young adults, they only know a few trades or just one trade. When that trade has no jobs then they are stuck whining and bitching for the government to take care of them.
To survive our future problems we must be able to tackle competently jobs we are not formally trained at (I think I just hear a shudder in the ethersphere) and this does start at home, train your children how to hammer and cut wood, how to use an open end wrench, how to diagnose a problem, how to take something complicated apart and assemble again.
When I was 9 years old I was using cutting torches, operating a boom truck and learning how to work on cars and trucks, I never went to school for any trade and yet here I am a master mechanic with many other skills. I did not finish high school, no college, yet had my own business in the late 70’s at 17 years age with a tow truck making over $500 a week in scrap metal.
I will never consider sending my kids to any formal school for them to be a doctor or engineer right now, yes they are excellent careers but not in our current economic crisis right now. And with the way the country is heading those doctors themselves may find their paychecks shrinking, better to have a good blue collar skill than a white collar skill thats unavailable.
LOL!
Reminds me of one of my favorite Heinlein quotes...
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze new problems, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
By the time I was 12 years old I could fly a Piper cub.Dad taught me right.I will do they same with my son.
Now, if dad starts letting the 9 year old run a Bagger 288, I might get a *little* worried:
I've had nightmares about that thing, btw.
My dad’s business was heavy equipment maintenance. He had a yard that was a few acres, with all kinds of tractors, trucks, cranes, etc. When I was 10 He taught me how to drive all of them, so I could move them around for him while he was doing other things. In addition to just driving them I learned how to operate a few, a backhoe and a bulldozer, and old Cat with cables (before hydraulics).
When I was 12, he taught me how to weld. I ended up doing all of his small jobs that the neighbors would bring in, bicycles, lawn mowers, etc.
I had a blast, and I was the envy of all my friends. If it were today, Dyfus would lock him up and put me in a foster home.
You should send this to Glen beck, he could make an entire show about it, and I would dearly love for him to point out just what defining skills our PTUS has, can Obama shoot a gun to put meat on the table? Repair a leaky roof? Raise any farm animal other than chickens?
Please post that quote, I really do not have the time for it right now, my concrete batch plant caught fire friday night and I have been working on it all weekend trying to get part of it online to fill some concrete orders today. It was a sizable fire, burnt out a 480volt three phase conduit that cut my plant in half, burnt out a water pump a junction box that controls my aggregate bins, knocked half my hot water boiler system offline plus major wood structural fire damage. And its winter in Alaska so I have to act quickly.
And why am I bring up my personal problems?
BECAUSE....
I built all of it and can repair ALL of it, my dad taught me how thats why when I was much younger, thank God he did that or I too may be a whining liberal sucking off the Federalized socialistic teats.
I remember it too; still got it!
Lucky kid. I’ve only had a couple opportunities to operate heavy equipment and really enjoyed it.
Last week, I took my homeschooled 13 year old son up north to help build a retreat center at a Christian camp. (he wasn’t truant, it was a short unit study on construction techniques)
He hung house wrap, helped with window installation, helped install the septic system, learned how to run a chop saw and cut up tons of boards, learned to drive a gold cart and became our gofer and generally helped out around the site.
I can relate. My Dad was a salvage rebuilder. I grew up in body shops and junkyards, and went to work in the shop after school and weekends as soon as I was big enough to push a broom and pick up tools.
Parent’s letting him operate it on private property without a threat to anyone else, why is it the governments business?
I’d have killed to just have a turn on a something like this at 8 years old, let alone be able to truly independently operate it. Where do you think my mind was when I was playing with my pint size tonka replica?
I know how to operate a coffee maker. Been doing so since the age of 32. :o)
If that is a backhoe, I will eat it, one bolt at a time.
It is a tracked excavator, sometimes called a "trencher".
Every Iowa farm boy was at least steering a tractor by age 8. By ten most of us were plowing and cultivating corn as well. Cut my teeth on an Allis Chalmers WD 45 Diesel. Four row cultivator. I remember the old man kicking my azz when I took out the first 50 feet of corn trying to get the hang of it. I learned quickly.
The hand clutch made it ideal for a young boy to operate. We had a WC also with hand brakes and a two row cultivator. That was a “trip” and took a bit getting used to. Plus you had to hand crank it .. it had electrical systems but we never maintained them. Batteries were tooo expensive. To shut it off, you took a screwdriver and shorted the magneto to the block. Learned the hardway, wood handle screwdrivers with the steel shaft all the way through and projecting into the palm of the hand is NOT .. I repeat NOT a good tool to short the magneto. Ahhh yes farm life.
At 15 most of us guys were running combines .. our first self propelled was a JD 105 Corn Special. No cab, but it was the biggest machine out that year. It seemed HUGE.
Engineer/Physicist by formal traing. My hobby is still farm tractors. I restore old Iron. A super 88 Oliver diesel, 730 JD diesel, and WD 45 diesel ... all showroom condition. Looking for a Farmall Super MTA now. Becoming rare.
Yeah, we had an old “B” with a mechanical loader on the front for loading manure. Had to hand crank it, reaching between the loader arm and the side flywheel, opening manual pitcocks for compression relief. God help you if that thing backfired .... broken arm was sure to follow.
Kids learned responsibiltiy back then .. my hat’s off to this father/grandfather for letting their youthful son develop.
Screw the worthless oh so knowing dirtbags that are set on destroying self reliance.
No wonder we are where we are.
Grew up in Central Illinois with the same kind of background....vividly remember driving an old 10-20 farmall which in “road gear” may have done 4 mph wide open over to my Uncles place about 2 miles away. Drove it off in the ditch waving to a neighbor passing by (showing off) in the opposite direction. I was either 5 or 6 years old at the time. Thanks for the memories.
A crying damn shame it is.
I had the time of my life in my dad’s yard, and learned how to be self suficient at the same time. I learned more there about how to use tools and how to fix things than any school could have taught me.
Unless you’re a farm kid today, or you live in a rural area, the opportunity I had as a kid is not available to kids today. Too many laws, too much government interference in our lives.
What the H is that thing?! No wonder you have nightmares!
I agree.
College is great if you can afford it, and can afford to wait in line for a job when you graduate.
My oldest son quit college, and worked for a cabinet maker.
He saw the need for cheaper furniture grade hardwoods, so he bought himself a band saw mill and now has a lumber business, selling cherry oak & walnut. He’s only 23.
I'm gonna guess that Mines Department inspector Phil Goode’s son plays in a safe environment of dresses & dolls.
The nannies make me want to barf!
Grew up on a farm as well. Dad and Mom would have been locked up for what they let us do, and we thought nothing of it, were tickled to advance to the next stage of whatever.
My 2 1/2 yo grandson loves to come to the garden center where I work. He checks out the sping bin full of seeds, know not to touch the pink ones. Sits on the mowers for awhile, heads to the greenhouse, checks out the shop, then heads to the warehouse.
After he sits on the forklift, and yes, he knows what all the knobs and levers are for, he beeps the horn. That’s the only thing he’s allowed to touch at this stage.
He was here just the other day and after we’d finished our tour, with no prompting from me, he grabbed the piushbroom and swept a good portion of the warehouse. Course, he pulls the broom cause he can’t quite push it yet. He put that up and grabbed the rake. I told him he had to use that outside. He carried it out and proceeded to rake in front of the concrete pad—lots of loose wheat straw where we’d been loading for Halloween. Did a fine job on both. I was some kind of tickled!
If the kid’s old enough to handle the equipment and he’s on private property, leave the family alone!
At least we agree it’s not a front loader.
Call it by a technical name if you will, but around here it’s called what the shovel configuration says it is. A back hoe.
—it’s a bucket-wheel excavator, used in coal mining-—
Thanks!
I come from a long line of coalminers, but I think they mostly used shovels and picks. LOL
Glad I’ve never been up close and personal with any machinery that scary looking!
—I’m curious as to the location of the wheel excavator—Germany, maybe?
You and me both! I’d LOVE a bobcat. What fun!
Yep, it’s in Germany. Krupp built the 288 for mining firms. That pic is from the machine being transported from one mine to another along Autobahn 61. According to wiki, it took 15 million German marks and 70 guys to move that thing 14 miles!
They are trying to legislate against death. That’s what all this...or any pc-ism is all about.
But the Scripture says we all have our appointed time. Heb. 9:27
We know the world has been mad for sometime now! And it’s getting worse by the day!
A 980 isn’t a 30 ton loader!
Time to ban government.
Oh my I remember that... too sad for me...
No, a trencher is another animal entirely that has a series of linked digging buckets attached to a pair of large roller chains configured in loops that run on rollers attached to a long straight boom. There is a rubber conveyor belt that runs under the upper run to catch the soil and throw it to the side.
You don’t see them very often any more, except in the grading phase of housing subdivisions, before the roads are rocked.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.