I learned a valuble lesson from my older brother years ago. It was in the early 70's, my father's firm was placing a 72" rcp storm drain along side a rail line that had been dead for a few years. We had to bury the track with a foot of fill to protect it, for access, and later clean it back to origanal. After the pipe was laid and backfilled to a foot or so above the pipe, my brother would get on the 6-c and 4x4 sheepsfoot and place about four more feet of fill in the vee'd out trench. We were working along the back fences of a sub division.
I was only 12 or so and my job was on a skip tractor scraping down to the rail ties, and then running the compressor with a blow gun cleaing the ties.

My brother came walking up white as a ghost. He ask me to lock up the D-6 as he was leaving, too shook up to work any more. He explained that a four or five year old boy was sitting on the fence watching him do his thing. When he put it in reverse, something made him freeze. He stood on the brakes, put it in nuetral, and locked the brakes. He didn't see the kid anymore:eek:. Where did he go? Greg(my brother) walked to the back of the sheepsfoot and found the kid bent down to his knees with his hands over his head, saying "please don't run over me". The boy jumped off the fence as Greg passed by, picked up a stick and was tapping the feet as they came up around on the drum. When Greg backed up just two feet, the boy curled up.

Greg didn't know what made him stop, but thank God he noticed the boy wasn't in sight when he did, making him freeze. I will never forget the look on his face when he asked me to lock up the Cat. Know your surroundings, it pays off.-glen

You can't be too careful, sounds like he could have used a flag person. Anytime you work near residences people will be curious and come out to see what is going on. Pedestrians and your own workforce need to be protected from and directed away from work areas, there is no doubt about that.

I've run a D5 with a tow behind vibratory w/self contained motor, you cannot see behind that drum. I had never seen that kind of roller before, foreman gave me directions to a yard that the company owned, one that I had never been to before either, my favorite type though, old bone yard, it was by some NJ transit railroad tracks in Morristown NJ, trains zooming by, old carcasses with the company logos on them, low and behold the tow behind unit I was told to go get. I got it loaded up with something, don't remember what I had with me, and brought it to the job where were building an earthen dam that was part of a large detention pond. I pulled that thing in a trench the size of the dozer, packing in good fill in 1'-0" lifts all the way to grade and above to the height of the dam. Looked old, but a very useful piece of equipment, never saw one since

I know that feeling-I was at a farm shop working on a tractor, & the owner's son, about 5, had been riding his bike around the shop, circling my service truck. After an hour or so, I was finished, & nobody else was around, so I started the truck, looked in the mirrors, & started to back out...after just a couple feet, I heard something, hit the brakes, & looked in the mirror again. The kid's bicycle was under the back of my truck...the 10 seconds it took me to get around behind the truck was the longest of my life...no kid, just the bike-he had leaned it up against the back of my truck when he went to the house...bent it up a little, otherwise, no harm done. Scared the crap out of me though, needless to say, I never back out of a shop now w/o walking around behind the truck. Running over a kid has always been one of my worst nightmares. There was a local rancher who ran over his little grandson with a sheep camp trailer when I was a kid, & that man was never the same...