Skip to main content
.
.
April 17, 2023

Take time to put safety first on roadways, on your farm and for your family. Be alert, use your lights, share the road and watch carefully as you turn onto public roadways and make left hand turns across traffic. 



We can’t anticipate what other motorists will do, or how they’ll react to sharing the road this spring with farm equipment. Roads, bridges and traffic circles aren’t built to accommodate machinery and a lot more motorists are increasingly impatient around slow-moving vehicles. So always start with safety.

 


Use lights, taillights and signals to make your equipment as visible as possible to other motorists. Always display your slow-moving vehicle sign prominently on the back of your equipment. These signs are only meant to be affixed to vehicles and it is an offence to have these signs on roadside posts or to affix them on vehicles travelling more than 40 kmph. 



Take the extra time to wait for an opening onto a main roadway that will give you enough time to get on the road and be visible.


 

Source:  Ontario Federation of Agriculture April 14, 2023 newsletter

 

Standard (Image)
If latest news
Check if it is latest news (for "Latest News" page)
1 (Go to top of list)

Comments

Eric Jelinski (not verified)

18 April 2023

Be careful with the words "Share the road", Tractors and any attached implements have the same rights to the road or highway as anybody else. Sharing the road does not mean that you need to put your tractor at risk by driving even partly on a shoulder, that is often soft after a rain, uneven and full of potholes along the edge. It has been recorded that tractor upsets have occurred by sharing the road by driving on a shoulder, that started out being even, and then turned into washouts and very narrow.
The other thing, your equipment is not allowed to be across the centerline.
On a narrow sideroad, sharing means pulling over, stopping in maybe a driveway, and letting somebody pass.
Consider having an escort vehicle in front, and/or behind to warn about your big machine, especially after dark.

And above all else consider some automobile drivers may be as predictable as seagulls or squirrels especially cutting in front of you, or cutting you off when attempting to turn left from a highway, wait for a clean, clear opening in traffic before turning left off a highway. Make sure you have flashing lights that are large and clean, not covered with dust. Be prepared for idiots who may ignore your lights.

Oh, one more thing, people writing advice about safety need some experience being out there on the highway.

Add new comment

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
Enter the characters shown in the image.
Submitted by Karen Davidson on 17 April 2023