GRAND FORKS – As harvest season heats up in the Red River Valley, traffic on area roads will become much busier with the addition of farm equipment – and motorists should remember that driving on these roads this time of year “is a team sport,” said Angie Johnson, an NDSU Extension employee.
Drivers of all types of vehicles “have to be on the defensive – and share the road,” said Johnson, farm and ranch safety coordinator for NDSU Extension.
As the harvest gets underway for crops such as edible beans, soybeans, potatoes and sugar beets, motorists will see “extra-large equipment” on the roads – combines, tractors and grain trucks, she said.
This equipment “is not only wide, but also tall, and can be very challenging visibility-wise,” Johnson said. “They may have very wide tires or a header on the front.”
These vehicles are so big and take up so much space, “you can’t see around them,” and are sometimes so wide they take up space “way over the (highway’s) center line,” she said. “It can be very dangerous to pass them.”
Passing is also potentially hazardous because farm equipment drivers “are not looking to turn at intersections” but, instead, at field entry points, Johnson said, making these turns unpredictable to drivers behind them.
In her role with NDSU Extension, Johnson keeps an eye on data collected by the North Dakota Highway Patrol, and its Vision Zero program. She works closely with the Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute, to gain insights regarding traffic accidents involving farm equipment, including where and how they are happening on the state’s major highway systems.
In the educational sessions she conducts with farmers across the state, “I do a lot of prevention work,” she said, noting that she prefers the word “incident” to “accident.”
“I rarely use the word ‘accident’ when I talk about farm safety, as we strive to set the tone that many incidents are preventable.”
The majority of farm equipment-related “incidents are happening on major highway systems” in the state, she said, and usually involve high speeds.
Rear-end collisions are, unfortunately, all too common in harvest-season vehicular accidents, Johnson said, and often happen when a driver must quickly slow down for farm equipment.
A motorist traveling at high speeds – up to 70 mph on some area highways – and “then approaching farm equipment moving at less than 30 mph, “is a recipe for an injury to take place,” she said. “The motorist can’t stop fast enough … (so) reaction time is another huge piece” in the situation.
Accidents are possible, “especially if the motorist is distracted,” she said. “It only takes a matter of seconds” for a mishap that results in injury or fatality.
Complicating the matter is the fact that, in the fall, there are more less-experienced drivers on the roadways – students who just received their drivers licenses in the summer and are driving to and from school or other places.
These drivers represent a group that is “many generations removed from the farm,” Johnson said, and lacks an understanding of the use of farm equipment during the harvest.
Drivers must be especially diligent when weather conditions lead to wet roads or products fall off trucks hauling sugar beets, potatoes and other crops, and create muddy road conditions.
According to state requirements, farmers are responsible for placing signage alerting drivers to such hazards, Johnson said, and they must “safely remove the mud.”
She urges farmers not to overload their trucks and semi-trailers and to stay at or within the legal weight limits, she said.
“There are some legal ramifications (associated with) these really important messages,” she said, citing, for example, “if a sugar beet flies out and hits a vehicle,” causing an unfortunate outcome.
Farm implements must be equipped with special lighting – such as hazard and beam lights – as well as “slow-moving vehicle” signage that warn on-coming vehicles and other motorists to their presence on the road, Johnson said. Such equipment is necessary to “warn motorists to slow down.”
In her work with farmers, she stresses the importance of moving equipment during daylight hours and good weather conditions. She recommends that farmers use trailers to move equipment, if possible, rather than operate them on roadways.
For the general public, Johnson emphasized that, especially this time of year, all motorists should be “very aware of their surroundings (and) give yourself extra time (to get to your destination). And slow down, don’t pass,” when encountering farm equipment on the road.