Published: May 30, 2009 10:18 pm      

Tractor ahead

Hoosier farmers planted 5.7 million acres of corn and 5.45 million acres of soybeans in 2008, the National Agricultural Statistics Service reports.

That’s a lot of grain. And it requires a lot of equipment to put in the ground.

Now that the sogginess of April and early May are behind us, motorists can expect increased traffic of farm machinery on county roads. They should watch for heavy equipment entering and exiting farm fields.

Perhaps you already have seen them.

“Farmers are on the roads because they are trying to get to their place of work, just as motorists are trying to get to their place of employment,” Carolyn Hegel said for the Indiana Farm Bureau just before planting began in 2006. “The days of a farm family just working on their homestead acres are long gone. Some farmers must travel many miles to get to their fields.”

The Purdue University Agricultural Safety and Health Program reports 16.7 percent of work-related fatalities among farmers were a result of traffic accidents in 2007. And one of the main causes of those fatalities is motorists not accounting for slow-moving farm machinery.

If a car traveling 55 mph comes upon a tractor moving at 15 mph, the Farm Bureau says, it would take just five seconds to close a 100-yard gap.

“When motorists see a slow-moving vehicle sign or flashing lights, they need to slow down,” Hegel said. “Farm machinery can be very wide. Motorists should follow behind until there is a safe place to pass.”

Exercising courtesy and common sense are the best ways to travel safely during planting season, the Farm Bureau says.

• Watch for slow-moving vehicles.

• Be patient, and don’t assume a farmer can move aside to let you pass. The shoulders along county roads might not be able to support a heavy tractor.

• And slow down as soon as you see the triangular, red-and-orange slow-moving vehicle emblem.

Howard County has not had a documented farm-related fatality in the past 28 years, Purdue reports. Let’s keep it that way.