Be Safe...because it only takes once

I pulled my son's air rifle out this past Saturday so he could get in session of backyard target practice. It had been a while since he had shot it, so I went through the whole safety spiel with him before letting him handle the gun. "Be safe," I said, "because it only takes once. One mistake, one careless moment, one shortcut with a gun could hurt or kill you or someone else."

The same goes for farm equipment, and I should have taken my own advice earlier today.

Though I generally use common sense and follow safety guidelines around the farm, I'm willing to admit that I've cut a corner now and then if doing the safe thing was really inconvenient. Like this morning, for instance. One of our tractors needed to go to the dealership's shop for repairs, and the hauler asked me to remove the GPS antenna off the roof before he left our farm. I should have gone looking for a ladder, but that would have taken too long. So I climbed up on the trailer, shimmied up the tractor's cab steps, grabbed the top of the roof, stepped onto the top of the rear tire, and swung around to the back where I could detach the unit while standing on the three-point hitch's lift arms. Mission accomplished, no problemo. Now I just had to get down.

a swollen foot was the extent of my injuries...luckily

I started my descent by retracing my steps, but my route changed halfway through. The most awkward part of the process was getting from the tractor tire to the platform in front of the cab door. I got one foot there but lost my balance trying to get the other one over. Very luckily for me, I had enough time to realize what was happening and knew the best thing to do was push off and jump away. I landed hard but on my feet with nothing worse than a bruised foot from the 8-9 foot fall to show for it. It could have been much worse, as I likely would have fallen over backwards if I hadn't been able to push myself away from the tractor and trailer. Of course, it wouldn't have happened at all if I had taken two minutes to fetch a ladder.

As I sat in the car on the way home from my son's soccer game tonight, all four of us singing along to "Louisiana Saturday Night" and having a grand time while my left foot throbbed, I decided life's too precious not to take a little extra time to be safe. As I said earlier, it only takes once. Hopefully once was enough to learn my lesson, because I might not be so lucky if there is a "next time".

Roadway Safety is a Shared Responsibility

Though I generally can move my tractors over the road from field to field without incident, I do encounter the occasional impatient driver. I’ve been passed after signaling a left turn and around curves, forced onto narrow shoulders, honked at, and been shown not-so-polite gestures of disapproval. It can be frustrating (as this post recounts)! I have also been on the other side of the tractor, so to speak. I too have been in a hurry to get someplace only to find myself “stuck” behind a farmer on the road. Who is right and who is wrong when vehicles and farm equipment find themselves travelling the same roadways?

National Farm Health & Safety Week is being observed September 20-26. This year’s theme, “Rural Roadway Safety…Alert, Aware, and Alive”, speaks to the responsibility of both farmers and the public alike to keep our roads safe for travel and transport. Collisions between agricultural equipment and vehicles are far too common on our rural roadways and often result in injuries or fatalities. We all must accept our shared responsibility to lessen the frequency of these dangerous accidents.

Farmers have a responsibility to display slow moving vehicle signs on tractors and equipment, properly use caution and signal lights, tightly secure loads, and only travel roadways in low light conditions if adequate lights and reflectors make the equipment clearly visible from front, back, and side. We farmers also need to extend a little courtesy and when possible allow following drivers the space to make a clear, safe pass.

Likewise, we need our commuting friends to be alert and aware when encountering our machinery on the roadways. Keep in mind that many rural roads are hilly, curvy, or have narrow shoulders, and that you can quickly meet agricultural equipment without much warning. Always be cautious in such areas were the terrain limits your long range visibility. Please slow down and maintain a healthy distance behind us until it is safe for you to pass. Oftentimes we can see obstacles ahead that you cannot or cannot safely maneuver our equipment onto the shoulder, so please be patient. Use caution and “time” your pass-by wisely if you are approaching us in the opposite lane, especially if narrow or rough shoulders will limit our abilities to give each other more space.

Patience, cooperation, and common sense are virtues we all need to practice when traveling the roadways, whether we’re in a car, a truck, or a tractor. So let’s stay alert and aware so we call all stay alive!

To learn more about roadway safety, check out The National Educational Center for Agricultural Safety and The Alabama Farmers Federation's Farmer at Work Program.

Pass Safely

As I was hauling bovine-generated organic fertilizer to the hayfield this morning, I encountered three drivers who were short on patience, courtesy, and common sense. On two different occasions I was passed after I had turned on my left-turn signals and had began slowing down to pull into the field. Sandwiched in between those two episodes, someone in a car with a state government tag whipped across the double-yellow lines and passed me in the middle of a sharp curve. Luckily, I never had that problem again after I wrote a little reminder on the back of the honeywagon.

Events like these aren't just frustrating, they are very dangerous for the drivers, for the farmer, and for any oncoming traffic the driver may not see. When you're driving down the highway and come up behind moving farm machinery, please be patient. As long as you keep enough distance so that we can see you in our mirrors, we'll move over and slow down the best we can when the coast is clear for you to make your pass.

Let's all practice a little patience, courtesy, and common sense out there on the roadway so we can all live to drive another day!