Most kids in seventh grade are about 13 or 14 years old and almost grown. I don't think there is any problem with a 13yo kid driving a large farm machine on the highway in a rural area as long as he knows how to handle it. Here in VA anyone 12 and older can drive farm vehicles on the highway legally. By the time I was that age, I was working a couple of farms on my own using dad's equipment in addition to helping him farm his land. The farms I had were some distance from home, and I used to take the 4230, or 4440, with pieces of equipment on them to and from there as well as the combine with a 15 foot grainhead. By the time I started running the equipment on the highway I had been running it on our home farm under dad's close supervision for several years so I knew what I was doing. Back then it was unusual for me to ever meet another vehicle on the highway though. If I passed anyone on the road it was usually another farmer, a hunter, or a log truck. Now we have these rich urbanites who have moved out here in the country and built $300,000 houses. These morons drive these narrow, winding, country roads in fast cars like they think they are Dale Earnhart, and get a major case of road rage when they get behind a tractor or a combine. They are the ones who really scare me. Just remember to turn the headlights and flashers on, and make sure you have a good clean and shiny SMV, and put plenty of reflectors on the equipment so the idiots can see you. I can't believe how many farmers around here who either don't turn the flashers on, or have burned out bulbs in them. Most of them either have the same old faded SMV that came with the equipment when they bought it several years ago or no SMV at all.
