Fieldwork is underway in earnest across the region as farmers begin the planting season, and Carroll County Sheriff Ken Pingrey is reminding motorists to be on the lookout for slow-moving equipment on rural roadways. For crop insurance policies, the earliest planting dates are April 10 for corn and April 15 for soybeans. However, Pingrey says farmers are already out prepping their fields for planting.
Those tractors are often towing equipment between fields and just don’t move at the same pace as the usual consumer vehicles, which can lead to serious accidents if farmers and drivers aren’t both very aware of what is happening around them. Pingrey encourages drivers to give that large equipment the respect it deserves, as the smaller vehicles often don’t fare well against a 30-ton tractor.
Pingrey says farmers also bear some of the responsibility for safe travel conditions. There isn’t much they can do about their travel speeds, but they can follow basic traffic laws and check that their safety features are functional when moving between fields.
He adds that it only takes a few moments of distraction or lost focus for an accident to occur. According to Pingrey, they’ve been fortunate, generally speaking, to have had very few farm-related accidents over the last several years, and he’d like nothing more than for that trend to continue.
