I saw this article in the Daily Mail and thought it was worth sharing, even though it’s completely pointless

When drivers experience the familiar frustration of being stuck behind a tractor on a country road it is natural to ask ‘Why me?’.

But according to research it is not down to bad luck – it is virtually inevitable.

Anyone who drives along a rural minor road for at least 80 minutes during the spring or summer months will end up following a slow-moving farmyard vehicle, according to scientists.

However, the good news for country drivers is that the average hold-up will only last between two and four minutes.

The motoring myths report was carried out by experts at University College London and commissioned by breakdown firm Greenflag.

The transport experts have determined that if you end up behind one of the UK’s 250,000 tractors, on any of the UK’s 132,352 miles of rural minor roads, it will only be for between 1.2 and 3.1 miles.

And it will only add between 1 and 2 per cent to a driver’s journey time. The study focused on the period March to September, when the majority of road usage by tractors is undertaken.

Henry Topham, head of Green Flag, said: ‘Many of us end up behind a tractor either directly or as part of a queue of traffic. While it can be frustrating it’s worth noting that it won’t delay your journey for too long, so getting impatient and undertaking risky manoeuvres to overtake the vehicle on a narrow, rural road is not worth it.

‘With blind bends, narrow roads and overgrown foliage obscuring visibility overtaking in rural areas can be fraught with danger.’

Professor Benjamin Heydecker, from the Centre for Transport Studies at University College London said: ‘Our calculations have enabled us to prove that drivers are indeed likely to end up stuck behind a tractor on a country drive through minor rural roads.

‘However, we have shown that when this does happen, it typically causes only small delays to a journey.

‘While a car is following a moving tractor, it is travelling more slowly than desired but it is still progressing.

‘For this reason, not all of the time spent following counts as delay.’