Staying safe during harvest

It’s that harvest time of year when farms around the state are bringing in this season’s hard earned crops.  Trucks bring various grains, beets and potatoes from the field to the farm or from the farm to the processing plant, the mill, bins or cellars to be stored.  Other farm equipment like tractors and combines are frequenting the roads more these days as they move between the various fields ready for harvest.  While they may seem like just one more vehicle on the road, drivers should take extra consideration as they share the roadways with farm equipment.

Most accidents involving farm equipment happen when other drivers become too impatient with slow moving vehicles.  It’s true, it can be a real inconvenience to get stuck behind a slow moving tractor but they are going slow for a reason.  That reason is they are trying to be safe.  

By nature, farm equipment is heavy.  Whether it is a big green tractor, a truck full of spuds or a semi filled with grain, they are just heavy and as a result, you will find them moving slower as they go along the road, here’s why.

The first and most simple reason that farm equipment moves slowly down the roadway is because they aren’t designed to move quickly, they are designed to move powerfully.  What I mean is that their big engines are designed to produce a lot of torque or power to pull and work the implements they use.  Their high torque and low gears mean that most tractors max out anywhere from 15 mph to 40 mph.  

The need for heavy farm equipment to move slowly down the roadway is largely due to physics.  Not to get too nerdy, but understanding some of those laws of nature will help us understand why it’s important to slow things down.  

First, let’s talk about Isaac Newton’s first law of motion- objects in motion tend to stay in motion unless acted upon by an external force.  The heavier the object, say a truck hauling beets, the greater the force it will take to change its motion, or in this case, stop it.  If that heavy truck is going slower, it will need less force, less time and less distance to come to a safe stop.  

That heavy vehicle is going slow for another reason and that is to avoid tipping over, especially on turns.  Physics and its laws of centrifugal force and inertia teach us that there are three main factors that contribute to overturned equipment- the equipment’s center of gravity, its load stability and its speed.  

The heavier the equipment, the higher the center of gravity which increases the chances of tipping.  The greater the instability the more the weight shifts and throws off that center of gravity, again, increasing the chance of tipping.  Both of these factors are hard to control, but speed is something completely in control of the driver.  So farmers slow down to take those turns safely.

You don’t always have to suffer going behind a slow vehicle.  When the time is right, it’s totally cool to pass that slow moving combine but there are some things to keep in mind as you do so.  Some equipment is extra wide and hanging into the other lane.  It’s important to wait to pass until the driver knows you are there and can scoot over for both your sakes.

Pay attention to when trucks and equipment are turning off of the road to be sure you aren’t passing them at just the wrong time.  Most farm equipment will need to make extra wide turns regardless of what way they are turning and if you go to pass them, just as they are swinging across you are mixing up a recipe for disaster.  No matter what sort of rush you are in, it’s better to just wait for the other vehicle to turn off the road.  

Finally, obviously, don’t pass if conditions aren’t safe to do so.  If it is dusty and difficult for drivers to see you or for you to see any oncoming traffic, it is safer to wait than to risk it. Additionally, wait to pass until you are in a legal passing zone.   When given the chance, most tractor operators will pull over to let traffic pass.

There may be times you want to avoid getting stuck behind that slow moving truck and you think you can quickly get out ahead of it, but that line of thinking comes with its own risks as well.  Remember that a loaded down truck will take much longer to slow down than a normal vehicle.  If you pull out and aren’t going fast enough, there is a real possibility that the truck is going to rear end you or drive off the road to avoid hitting you.  In a car vs tractor or loaded truck crash, the car will always lose.

It’s important to realize that everyone has a part to play in farm safety, even if you never step foot on a farm.  Idaho is a proud ag producing state, leading the country in some of its prized crops.  We can all take part to make it a safe harvest if we patiently share the road with those vehicles that make it possible to bring harvest in and food to all our families.  The harvest season may be coming to a close soon, but now is no time to put the rush on things.