please please please be careful!!!

[SNOWPUSHER]

its one of those times of the year again where us farmers are in full force planting, trying to get the crops in while we can. but it makes our job very stressful when we are driving down the road with our tractors and implements because people dont realize when we are turning or how wide our our implement really is till its to late, our airseeder has no lights on it (nether do many others) so you cant tell is we are turning, what do you do? DO NOT PASS if it starts slowing down more than likely it will be turning. if you approach a wide farm implement on the road and you are close to a driveway TURN IN and let the tractor pass by. older tractors have signal lights LOOK ON THE CAB, all tractors have hazard lights ON the top of the cab along with the signal lights all newer tractors have light bars sticking out over the tires. and all newer implement have light on the back.
i have had too many close calls. a guy i new was turning a corner with his airseeder and a guy tryed passing him and he ended up getting an airseeder boot throught his window and got pulled into the dich.

so be careful, remember farmers feed you, and please show some respect for farmers, use common sense when approaching farm equipment, most accidents involving farm equipment are fatal.... so think about it when you pass farm equipment if your inpatient you might not arrive to your destination....alive

 

[medler]

Lets also hope that people have checked their lights and to make sure they are working when moving equipment during the evening hours. I had a close call with a tractor and cultivator last fall,,,met him on a bridge ,barely got stopped in time because he had no lights on what so ever..Have a safe weekend everybody!!

 

[RETODD]

Give them the room they need...be safe!!!

 

[SNOWPUSHER]

yes yes just because your a farmer doesnt mean you dont need to follow any safety precautions safety is EVERYONES responsibility, i was coming home this morning with the airseeder on a gravel road and a guy was approaching me from the front and he was in a dually truck cliping along way to fast and i did get him to snow down but at the same time my tank ended up in the ditch and was pulling me in with it

 

[mach123]

Medler that is exactly what happend to my buddy a week ago, coming down highway with no lights by onaway and took out his mirror and drivers door coming around corner no lights.

 

[tmix]

cheers to all the farmers,:d

 

[SNOWPUSHER]

from what i understand this accident was caused by a pickup not pulling far enough off to the side of the road

 

[imdoo'n]

maybe keep the farm equipment in the field not on the highways or have pilot cars like wide load transportation use's. you know how wide your equipment is, 16 ft wide on a 16 ft road demands some foresight on the equipment operator. put your lights, flashers on, maybe even chain those harrows up, you are responsible for every ones safety. how can i be responsible if i can't see how wide your equipment is. pilot vehicle as warning is one of the easy ways to warn oncoming traffic.

 

[SNOWPUSHER]

maybe keep the farm equipment in the field not on the highways or have pilot cars like wide load transportation doe's. you know how wide your equipment is, 16 ft wide on a 16 ft road demands some foresight on the equipment operator. put your lights, flashers on, maybe even chain those harrows up, you are responsible for every ones safety. how can i be responsible if i can't see how wide your equipment is. pilot vehicle as warning is one of the easy ways to warn oncoming traffic.

well, if you cant see a 16' wide 15' tall load coming down the road, you have a problem, glasses maybe? harrows arnt a problem on the road, its cultivators, air seeders, etc,,, we cant afford pilots for every tractor we have on the road. farm equipment is ment for road use, otherwise how to we get from one field to the other? safety IS everyones responsibility and if you cant accept the fact that we are on the road with wide loads and cant pull off to the side do you really think you should be on the road? we do have our lights on but its not our fault your not looking for them, we do have our loads chained up. We have SLOW MOVING SIGNS on our equipment, that and lights is all that is required for us to be on the road. if you dont like it maybe next time you sit down to eat you should think how that food got on your plate, maybe a farmer went through all that work to feed you

 

[Pinner]

from what i understand this accident was caused by a pickup not pulling far enough off to the side of the road

Sure looks like the shoulder gave away.

 

[TheLonelyIsland]

one time my dad was coming home at night from a job in his backhoe and he was going up a hill with every light on the machine on an slow moving vehicle signs everywhere and on the shoulder but some 85 yr old woman comes up behind him at like 120 km/h and hits him , the bucket demolished the little focus! and my dad said her husbands face looked like a hamburger! and when the cops got there she asked my dad "why were you parked in the middle of the road?" whaaaaaaaaaaaaa? he was not even parked , he was on the side of the road on a 3 lane highway!

 

[SNOWPUSHER]

yea some people just dont realize how much of the road they them self's are taking up

 

[SNOWPUSHER]

it could be, but from what i see if he was in the middle of the road not enough of the road/shoulder is gone to make the combine crash, but if he was passing someone and had to pull far off to the side cuz dummy that coming doesnt pull off, that shoulder could have given then

 

[CUSO]

My opinion, in a Highway application, these backhoes that take a highway or city street to get from job to job should have a licence plate like the rest of our vehicles on the road.
If I have to, so should you.
Just because you make your living with a machine (and some make a very gooood living) Get a trailer, or register you machine.
I can see the farmers going down a gravel road from field to field... but those backhoes clogging traffic just because the owners are too cheap to get a truck and trailer to haul their equipment... that is too much IMO.

 

[rigrat]

It all boils down to common sense. Put as many flashing lights, wide load signs, a pickup or 2 with flashers on to warn traffic of the over width farm equipment coming down the road. Some of the farm equipment could use the gravel roads instead of the major highways also. A lot of the farm equipment could definitely use more flashing lights etc than installed from the factory to make a better attempt at keeping the public safe.

 

[SNOWPUSHER]

It all boils down to common sense. Put as many flashing lights, wide load signs, a pickup or 2 with flashers on to warn traffic of the over width farm equipment coming down the road. Some of the farm equipment could use the gravel roads instead of the major highways also. A lot of the farm equipment could definitely use more flashing lights etc than installed from the factory to make a better attempt at keeping the public safe.

the problem is we cant afford 8-12 trucks just for pilots never mind the guys too drive them. i put extra lights on my tractor but i cant have lights on my implement because its an older model tractor and has nothing for wiring

 

[rigrat]

We use a lot of battery operated amber strobes - flashers in our industry. Magnets hold them on and they are super bright. I agree it is not cheap to use pilot cars but again it depends on where you are traveling. For example we have a lot of farm implements that seem to meet oncoming traffic on a very busy bridge where i live, someone will lose there life on this bridge sooner or later. A pickup with flashers going and a person with a slow sign on top of the river hill warning oncoming traffic could not hurt. There will always be idiots that wont slow down but all we can do is try to warn them. Always a good idea to talk about this stuff, makes us a little more cautious when out on the road. Have a good one.

 

[Modman]

Don't get me wrong because I love farmers and have spent a few hrs behind the wheel of a swather, disc, inverter, baler, etc, but a lot of the issues could be avoided if the equipment operator simply looked behind them every now and then. Both farmers/backhoe operators/grader operators, any slow moving machinery on the highway Yes there are courteous ones, but there are also many who never turn around. So you get some ansy person who has been following a combine/backhoe/whatever on the highway for 5 km, doing 15 km/hr on a 110 km/hr road, you cannot argue that anyone would get a little jumpy, then they try and pass at an unsafe opportunity and bad things happen. The equipment operator is just as responsible for checking behind them as the overtaking motorist is. If there is a spot for the machinery to pull over and let someone pass, it should. Similarly, most farm implements are not travelling far between fields, so waiting for a km or 2 is not a big deal, the machinery will likely be turning soon.

A little courtesy by both parties is required and things will go much smoother. This also applies to any RV owners hauling a 30 ft 5th wheel at 70 km/hr on a 110km/hr road . Check your mirrors (this is why you have them, so you can see behind you.....) and pull over if there are 50 cars behind you, before some doucheweasel from the back of the line decides to try and pass everyone on hills, corners and intersections!!!!

 

[davelaw1982]

We have a farm on the 815 highway 10 miles north of the Joffree Nova plant. When the were doing their expansion in 2000, we didn't even travel the highway at certain times of the day due to the amount of vehicles on the road, it looked like rush hour in Red Deer coming down the road. The turn off into the farm yard is on top of a hill, so no passing right? We had a small car pass the tractor at well over 110 as we were slowing down to turn. He had to take the ditch, just about rolled the car, as a loaded semi was coming right at him. We had all flashers on, and our tractors all have signal lights on them, which do work. Scary situation

 

[medler]

Medler that is exactly what happend to my buddy a week ago, coming down highway with no lights by onaway and took out his mirror and drivers door coming around corner no lights.

Yep, made my heart pound for a while..But i phoned the cops after i got passed him,,they showed up ,pulled him off the road ,slapped him with a fine and (this is the best part) took him to jail as he had a warant for his arrest!! I guess one more tool that learns the hard way.