A farmer from Highbridge has been fined £485 for allowing a huge queue to build up behind him.
Jake Fear, 20, was driving at 25 miles per hour which caused a 50 vehicle tail-back along the A39 near Glastonbury last November.
Police spotted the queue and his tractor and trailer was pulled over and he was charged with driving without reasonable consideration for other road users.
The prosecutor Christine Hart said, “The trailer contained beet which was piled high and due to the manner of driving the officer stopped Fear and asked why he hadn’t pulled over.”
He replied he hadn’t seen the traffic behind him and that there hadn’t been any places to pull over.
He was fined £190 by Magistrates for the offence and £190 for driving on a bald tyre, ordered to pay costs of £85 plus a £20 victim surcharge and 3 points were added to his licence.
Mr Feat is thought to be one of the first farmworkers in the country to be fined for the offence after police forces across the South West warned tractor drivers to pull into lay-bys more often to let cars by.
A new set of driving laws was introduced in 2013 which allow police to act over inconsiderate or selfish behaviour, such as tailgating, hogging the middle lane of a motorway or deliberately splashing pedestrians by driving through puddles.
