ON reading your page with the heading ‘In the dock’ a fortnight ago, I read with interest about the tractor driver who ‘landed in court’.

It says that he drove his tractor to the pub for a pint after work.

His crime was that he did not have ‘social’ on his tractor insurance. Not that he was driving under the influence of drink or drugs, not that he was speeding and not that he was driving dangerously.

I cannot imagine that anyone in farming would specify ‘social’ on tractor insurance, it is hardly the vehicle to go out and about in.

READ MORE: Fine for farmer caught driving tractor to the pub

This raises a very serious problem for farmers, who in times of flooding on the Levels, people being snowed in, or indeed the very elderly or not so well for whom the farmers have been ‘lifelines’ in getting food, provisions and medications through to them, even getting them onto a trailer and taking them to safety, that they could find themselves facing similar penalties.

Apart from commenting about the unbelievable level of fines and points on his licence in comparison to the other court cases, I do hope that through your column you are able to inform and warn anyone with a tractor not to go to the rescue of anyone as it is most unlikely that there will be 'social' on the tractor insurance.

EDWINA WAKLEY