By DOUG SCHMITZ
Iowa Correspondent

AMES, Iowa — A nationally-recognized agricultural safety expert is seeking to promote better safety standards on America’s public roads that motorists share with farm equipment vehicles, while also asking federal entities to get more involved in the process.

“Federal, state and local government bodies rarely give this area of roadway safety major attention because agriculture-related collisions comprise a low percentage of all vehicle collisions,” said Charles V. Schwab, Iowa State University professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering, and extension agricultural safety specialist. “However, when viewed by the agricultural community, these collisions become a dramatic and alarming percentage that tragically alters our agricultural workforce.”

In a report released April 23 by the North Central Regional Committee on Agricultural Safety and Health Research and Extension, on which Schwab serves, the committee has strategically outlined its plans for promoting better traffic safety involving farm equipment vehicles accessing public roads.

Established in 2000 by the USDA’s Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service (USDA-CSREES) North Central Regional (NCR) Administra-tors, the committee’s goal is to “more effectively use the land grant system’s research and extension capacity in cooperation with the experience of those who live and work in agriculture to reduce work-related injuries, illness, death and property loss.”

Commissioned by the USDA-CSREES in February, the committee’s report, Agricultural Equipment on Public Roads, addressed the rural/urban traffic interface, state and federal regulations, higher-speed tractors and the transport of America’s workers on public roadways with farm equipment – especially during the peak traffic flow periods of spring planting and fall harvest seasons.

“Effective solutions to the hazards and risks associated with moving agricultural equipment on public roads are not easily devised or implemented, but until all stakeholder groups become engaged in the effort, little progress can be expected,” the committee members said in the report.

“The Committee on Agricultural Safety and Health Research and Extension took on this project because we feel the topic is timely, problematic, widespread and underappreciated by almost everyone.”

The report cites a 2007 study of Iowa crashes in rural areas that found crash fatality rates in the most rural counties were almost double the rate in urban counties, and rural crashes were more frequent, more severe and more likely to result in death than urban crashes. What’s more, the report said the rural road environment contributed to increased crashes and more severe injury outcomes, and in crashes involving farm vehicles, the farm vehicle occupant was killed nearly twice as often as occupants of the other vehicle.

“The committee believes that engineering design standards should be used to incorporate automatic and passive protection for drivers and riders of agricultural equipment during public-road use,” Schwab said.

Dee Jepsen, Ohio State University extension agricultural safety specialist, said vehicle collisions are often the result of the speed differential between slower-moving farm equipment and passenger cars and trucks.

Jepsen said what motorists need to understand is farm machinery has a legal right to use public roads, just as other motor vehicles; they can unexpectedly turn onto a public road from a field or driveway; they travel slower than normal traffic, often at speeds of 25 miles per hour or less; and farm machinery operators may not be able to see motorists because the large equipment or a load blocking part of their rear view.

Last week, LaMar Grafft, safety specialist for Iowa’s Center for Agricultural Safety and Health (I-CASH) at the University of Iowa, spoke at the East Central Iowa 2-Cylinder Club meeting in Troy Mills, with about 50 farmers. One told the story of his recent approach on an intersection.

“Cross traffic was required to stop, (but) he was not,” Grafft said of the farmer. “A vehicle came to the intersection, stopped and pulled out right in front of him. ‘I didn’t see you,’ was the response of the driver. I’m not sure how you can’t see a four-wheel-drive tractor with flashers on, pulling two big gravity flow wagons.”

While few of the estimated 50,000 traffic fatalities occurring every year involve farm equipment, when looking at all motor vehicle crashes, Grafft said motorists still need to be aware of farmers using public roads.

“Laws are already on the books regarding lighting and marking of farm equipment on public roads,” he said. “With a population that is more removed from farming than ever before, many drivers simply do not understand what farm equipment is, how slow it goes and how quickly they can run into it.”

With that in mind, Grafft said many farm safety specialists are trying to change driver education to include more information about farm equipment.

“Does that mean that if you get your driver’s license in Chicago, you should learn about farm equipment on rural Illinois roads? I don’t know,” he said.

“There are city and county equipment on streets in Chicago, so maybe. Anytime you talk to a group of farmers, there is at least one harrowing story of a crash or near-miss.”

To read the report, visit www.csrees.usda.gov/about/white_papers/pdfs/ag_equipment.pdf