With harvest underway; combines, grain carts and other large equipment are appearing on Iowa’s roadways. Drivers are reminded to slow down and share the road with farm machinery this harvest season.
Kapil Arora is a Field Agricultural Engineer with Iowa State University Extension and Outreach and tells RadioOnTheGo News drivers should take extra time and caution when slowing for farm equipment.
“All of these vehicles are not moving very fast and they typically have an orange triangle emblem on the back which is very reflective. Typically, combines have amber flashing lights on them as well. The reason we are bringing that up is if you are moving at 55 miles an hour and you are approaching a farm vehicle from behind and they are moving or they are about to turn, which practically is their speed may just be down to like two miles an hour and you will very rapidly cover the distance between yourself and that vehicle and you need to slow down pretty rapidly to avoid anything unsafe from happening.”
Arora says in addition to day-to-day drivers, farm operators also share the responsibility for safety.
“They also need to be cautious of how their equipment moves. If there is a lot of vehicles starting to follow them because there’s no safe way, it may be best for the operator to move their combine or whatever they are driving into a driveway and let the traffic go by. They just also need to be cognizant of what is the line of sight and what blind spots exist for other folks because farm equipment is typically pretty large and for other folks to be able to see things around them sometimes does not work out.”
Arora made his comments during the ISU Midday report Wednesday and the full interview can be found here.
