Motorists, farmers urged to be safety-minded during harvest

While rural life often includes idyllic and peaceful country roads, traffic on these roads picks up during harvest, which increases the chances for accidents to occur between farm equipment and vehicles.

“Motorists and those driving farm equipment and grain trucks need to be cautious and alert while driving through the countryside,” said Don Hutchens, executive director of the Nebraska Corn Board, in a news release today. “Farm equipment is larger than it may appear, and generally moves slow on the roadway. It may only take a couple of seconds to close that distance if you’re traveling at highway speeds.”

To emphasize safety on the roadway, Sept. 20-26 is National Farm Safety & Health Week with a theme of “Rural Roadway Safety: Alert, Aware and Alive.”

According to the Great Plains Center for Agricultural Health, there are on average more than 1,100 crashes between farm equipment and motor vehicles annually in the center's nine-state region of Nebraska, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. More than 250 of these crashes involve nonfatal injuries and 22 result in fatalities.

Besides motorists and farmers being on the lookout for each other, Hutchens reminded farmers to be safe during this busy season.

“Farmers also need to remain patient and take their time -- and make time to rest,” Hutchens said. “Harvest can certainly be intense, but we want people to be safe when they are operating or are around equipment that has the potential to be quite dangerous.”

Also read read this good blog post over at The Grain Board. It is a personal reminder on farm safety written by the U.S. Grains Council's Mike Deering.