Here is a copy of the note I sent to Wendy's Restaurants. I hope all of you will do the same.

I just saw a new TV ad for Wendy's. I have to say I was very alarmed by what I saw. It depicted a fellow driving a Massey-Ferguson tractor with a Woman standing on the three point hitch holding on to him. Do you have any Idea how many people(often children) are killed/maimed/crippled by riding on farm and industrial equipment. There should be no "passengers" on a tractor unless it is built for them. Equipment like that is very rare, and I can assure you the MF135 used in that ad was never intended to carry passengers. Her pant leg could become entangled in the PTO stub. I won't even describe the horrific injuries that this can cause. She could slip off and be dragged or crushed. There are also numerous sharp items and pinch points that could easily and instantly gore/disfigure whatever came their way.
I'm sure that the ad was created innocently enough, but to continue showing it is irresponsible. Children are very impressionable and get a lot of crazy ideas in their heads on their own, let alone with this kind of influence.
Would you show an ad with people playing chicken with a freight train? Or 5 year olds on roller blades hanging onto cars? I hope Wendy's will recognize that this ad is not suitable and edit or retire it immediately. Public safety and a positive influence on kids are EVERYONE'S responsibility. I'm sure Wendy's can find a more appropriate way to promote its excellent products.

Accidents can happen anytime, anywhere, anyhow.

I have ridden on a drawbar on the back of my tractor many times while others drove. My grandfather rode on the drawbar while I drove. I know it may not be safe, but it's not safe to drive a car these days. :-)

Lets have a show of hands who have stood on a drawbar while someone else drove.

The commercial may not be suited for teaching what is right while operating a tractor, but there's common sense and some safety involved when standing on a drawbar. I also don't stand on a drawbar when an implement/wagon is attached.

I have to point out that the drawbars on my 9N and Jubilee are stationary, and not connected to the 3pt hitch. There's a larger platform for standing so it's a bit different than the drawbar attached to the 3pt.

Ready to be cut down by the safety police. LOL!

Tyler

I cant count how many times I sat on a fender with one foot on the axle and the other on the floor

Thank You Tyler for telling the truth. Gees lots of stuff aint safe but I see nothing wrong with the commercial. Most of the kids who aren't smart enough to ride back there safely live in the city where they will never have a tractor to jump on and the kids in the country I'm sure have already rode on a drawbar many times in there life. I should post pics from the Rushville IN Steam Show. There are always kids riding inside the wheels on the Steam Engines and most of the tractors have atleast one passenger in the parade. It's that way at EVERY tractor show I've ever been to. If you wanna know my honest oppinion , I'm against most Safety upgrades. I feel like this country is progressively getting dumber every year because of all the safety crap out there. It's almost impossible to get killed with the stuff they sell today. All this does is let the dumb ones live to procreate and make more dumb ones. I grew up around hit-n-miss engines , old tractors , steam engines, farm equipment and learned at a young age to pay attention to what I was doing and use my head to keep me safe. I was cutting up skid lumber with a 24" buzzsaw with no safety gaurds and being run with a flatbelt and a 1.5 hp McCormick Deering Model M when I was 6 or 8 years old, by myself, while my dad was at work. We used the lumber to burn in the woodstove in the house and garage. Kids grow up today with hardly any real danger in there daily life and all it does is let them grow up without having to use there head and think. I was smart enough when I was a kid to keep me and my clothes out of moving parts and not get on a tractor with somebody that was stupid enough to be running full throttle in reverse with someone on the drawbar. I am all for saftey but my kind of safety is much differant than todays outlook. I teach my kids to use there mind to be safe. You can do almost anything in a safe manner,,INCLUDING rinding on a drawbar. Even dangerous stuff can be safely done, it just requires thought and attention. This is what I teach my kids. It's just like driving, my dad told me when I first started to drive when I was about 12 "Watch everybody else on the road and figure out what the dumbest thing they could do is and then plan on them doing it". I use that same mentality in everything I do and I'm 36 years old and have worked with farm equipment, lathes, mills, ran a 250 ton punch press, and work on engines of all kinds my whole life and I can still count to 10 on my hands and on my feet , have never had a major broken bone and never had any more injuries than bruises and pulled muscles. I say teach your kids to think and take the saftey guards off and let natural selection do it's job and stop dumbin down the gene pool!

Hi All,

I just happened to have this commercial saved on my computer. I discovered it today so here is the entire commercial, Enjoy.......

Kevin(FL)

• Wendys Commercial

I've caught that new ad several times over the past few days and thought the same thing as you, how ignorant some people are to stage such stupid stunts just to try to make a buck! Next thing you know, some youngster will see the ad, go out and jump on his dad's or grandad's tractor and have the neighborhood kids jump aboard and we'll be reading about the results in the newspaper or seeing it on TV.

LS

Its probably a case of the advertising agency not knowing and no one at Wendy's does either. Good thing to contact them though

Guess I'm an old fuddy-duddy at 71. I've seen too many accidents while working in metal fabricating shops, and most were due to the operators doing something they "thought" was safe or harmless. I rmember as a youngster seeing people riding standing on a tractor drawbar. Only need one bump or divet in the ground to send one flying off. I'll leave drawbar diding to others that like hospital food more than I do. Most tractor accidents can't be corrected with a band aid applied.