VIGO COUNTY, Ind. (WTWO/WAWV) – It’s very easy to become frustrated when you’re stuck behind a piece of farm equipment on the road.
But farmers and law enforcement have asked drivers to be patient this harvest season to avoid accidents.
A few weeks ago, local farmer Terry Hayhurst was driving a piece of equipment on highway 63 when he had a close call with another driver.
“I was gonna turn left and at about that time somebody went flying around me on the left side,” he explained. “Luckily I saw him out of my rear view mirror and just stopped then instead of going ahead and turning.”
Unfortunately some instances aren’t close calls.
“On Hilcrest there was a vehicle that was impatient, popped over to Hilcrest and all of a sudden there was farm equipment in the middle of the roadway and ran into the rear end of the farm equipment,” Indiana State Police Public Information Officer Sgt. Matt Ames said of a past accident.
“Farm equipment didn’t receive too much damage,” he explained. “However the passenger vehicle did and unfortunately that individual was transported to the hospital.”
Farmers use main and county roads to access their fields, but they can only go so fast.
“Some of the new equipment may do 22 or 23 miles an hour. But some of the older equipment maybe 18, 15 or 18 mile an hour sometimes,” said Hayhurst. “So it’s not anywhere near as fast as the general public travels in a car.”
Because harvest season is so late this year, many farmers will be out on the roadways after sun down.
Ames has asked farmers to take proper precautions before hitting the road late in the evening.
“They need to have another vehicle behind them so that way they have their emergency lights on,” explained Ames. “And it gives extra distance so that way oncoming traffic either in the front or in the rear can see that farm equipment and they can slow down properly.”
Hayhurst said drivers need to be patient, change lanes safely when possible and slow down when they see farm equipment.
“You just need to think and watch and see what we’re doing too. Because we really don’t want any accidents,” he said. “We don’t want to hurt anybody and we don’t want our equipment hurt either.”
