In hopes of reducing the number of accidents – sometimes fatal – between motor vehicles and slow-moving farm equipment, farm bureaus across the state are reminding motorists and farmers to use caution on the highways.
With hundreds of miles of rural roads running through Cambria and Somerset counties, many motorists will encounter farmers on tractors hauling plows and other equipment to their fields for spring planting.
Mark O’Neill, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, based in Camp Hill, Cumberland County, said the organization looks out for the welfare of the state’s 58,000 farmers.
“We’re coming up to that time of the year for spring planting, and we’re asking the public to show some patience because of the slower-moving vehicles,” O’Neill said.
April 21-28 has been designated as Rural Roads Safety Week, a time to call attention to the need for increased caution when traveling roads heavily used by farm equipment, said Bob Davis, president of the Cambria County Farm Bureau.
“The big thing is that farm equipment keeps getting bigger and bigger, and traffic keeps getting worse,” Davis said. “No one wants to be involved in an accident, and it gets scary sometimes when people don’t pay attention.”
Davis, who lives along Colver Road in Cambria Township, said some of his biggest concerns are drivers who don’t allow enough time when approaching the back of a farm vehicle, fail to move over when approaching farm equipment, or pass on curves.
“They’re traveling 50 miles per hour; we’re traveling 15 miles per hour,” Davis said. “It’s dangerous to both the farmer and the motorist.”
Harold Shaulis, a dairy farmer who tills 360 acres in Milford Township, Somerset County, said traveling public roads on farm machinery is the last thing he wants to do.
“I do not enjoy being in front of a long line of traffic,” Shaulis said.
“The equipment has gotten bigger and wider over the years, but we have to get our equipment into the fields.”
Shaulis ran into legal trouble a couple of years ago because he was operating a piece of machinery so large that a small wheel had to ride on the yellow line in the center of the road. An oncoming motorist, also traveling on the yellow line, did not move over, hit the wheel and crashed.
“I was at a dead stop, but I was at fault,” Shaulis said.
“You have to worry when you try to get to the fields.”
Recent figures from PennDOT show that accidents involving a motor vehicle and farm machinery are relatively common.
There were 87 farm equipment-motor vehicle crashes statewide in 2003. That jumped to 98 crashes and one death in 2004. The latest figures available, for 2005, show93 crashes and two deaths.
In addition to urging motorists to use courtesy, state and county farm bureau members are out talking to farmers.
“We’re asking them to look out for people and control when they are on the highways so they are not out there during heavy drive times,” O’Neill said.
But it comes down to courtesy on both sides and an understanding that everyone has to share the roadways.
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