Stay Safe During Slow Moving Vehicle Season – AG Matters

It's slow moving vehicle season. As farmers begin working and planting fields, lots of slow moving farm equipment will be hitting the road. Jeff Miller of Cornell Cooperative Extension says both motorists and farmers must take proper precautions to share the roadways safely.

It is legal for farm equipment to travel the roads as long as it displays a slow moving vehicle emblem, a triangular fluorescent orange sign with a red reflective border. The sign is placed between two and six feet above the road in the middle of the rear of the farm equipment or tractor. These signs can easily be seen from five hundred feet away. If you are driving on the road and approach a vehicle displaying a slow moving vehicle emblem you should slow down as if you were approaching a stoplight.

Farm tractors usually travel at less than twenty five miles per hour or less.  It is really easy to misjudge the speed you are traveling and the speed of the farm equipment in front of you. To put this into perspective, if you are traveling at fifty five miles per hour and you approach a tractor traveling at fifteen miles per hour it only takes five seconds to close a three hundred foot gap or the length of a football field. .

It is illegal to pass farm equipment in a no passing zone. They need to be treated as if they were another vehicle on the road and not a nuisance. You need to exercise caution and patience when considering whether or not to pass slow moving farm equipment. If you slow down to follow a tractor traveling at a speed of twenty miles per hour for one mile it will only add three minutes to your trip. Farm equipment may be wider than it looks when you are following from behind, making it critical to have a wide, clear lane to enter when passing.

Left turn collisions are one of the most common farm vehicle accidents on public roads. This type of accident occurs when the farm equipment is making a left hand turn when being passed by a motorist. This happens because large farm equipment is sometimes forced to make wide left turns, especially when towing other farm equipment such as planters, mowers and wagons.  Sometimes when this happens the following motorist thinks the farmer is pulling over to let them pass. When you approach farm equipment that has slowed down or stopped in the road, look for field entrances, driveways or gates on the left side of the road that may indicate a left turn.

Remember that farmers may have poor visibility because of the implements that are in tow. Be cautious, the implements in tow may sway back and forth.

We have some Amish settlements in our area and horse and buggys can be expected on roads in these areas. Be cautious when sharing the road with these individuals, sometimes animals make unanticipated movements.

Get more details about NY State laws and regulations regarding slow moving vehicles in CCE's  April and May Farm Flash

SOURCE: Cornell Cooperative Extension