EU directives now reach far into corners of the lives of millions of people but commonsense isn't always to the fore.

We've all heard about directives on subjects like the permitted straightness of bananas - just one of thousands of rules and regulations governing our everyday existence.

On the face of it laws to govern the maximum amount of time people can spend using potentially dangerous machinery have a logic that's difficult to dissent from.

We now accept without argument that public safety dictates that lorry drivers should have regular rest breaks and not be allowed to hammer along motorways trying to keep awake for unlimited hours.

And although they only spend a small amount of time - if any at all - on public highways the idea that farmers should have a time limit on tractor usage does make some sense.

But advice is one thing and compulsory regulation quite another.

Because, as a number of East Lancashire farmers point out today, what farmers can do depends very much on the weather and the tractor is a vital tool of their trade.

They really do have to make hay while the sun shines on their own land without being disabled by an inability to use tractors for more than seven hours a day.

After the crisis that has overtaken them in the past couple of years with the scourges of BSE and foot and mouth disease, those in the agricultural sector need all the practical help they can get - not the imposition of impractical rules.

In the past we in Britain have been handicapped by the fact that we seem to slavishly follow EEC rules while our competitors, especially in southern Europe, blatantly ignore them.

And without a huge army of officials paid for by hard-pressed taxpayers, this regulation will be impossible to police. In short, as the Lancashire NFU points out, it is "just barmy."