Sheriff urges fall harvest safety
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[A few southeastern Illinois farmers are already in the fields with their combines, augers and grain carts harvesting corn and with dry weather and a three-day weekend ahead there will be many more.
Saline County Sheriff Keith Brown asks motorists and farmers to slow down and be ready to share the roadways.
"They are getting out now and running combines," Brown said.
The most obvious hazard is a combine or wide grain cart coming down a narrow road at night.
"The best thing to do when you meet one of these on a gravel road is to pull off and let them go by. They are so big they can't very well pull in anywhere to let you go by," Aaron Apple of M & S Implement Company said as he and Brown examined a massive 1,000-bushel grain cart.
Tractors attached to grain carts may be equipped with mirrors that can be extended so the driver can see behind, but visibility to those following too close is very limited.
"These probably are one of the hardest things to see around," Apple said.
"If someone is directly behind you, you cannot see them."
Most combines and other large equipment have lights and reflective signs that intending for them to be seen from distances.
In Apple's view there are fewer farmers on the roads these days, but what equipment is there is is larger.
"The way the economy has evolved there are a lot less farmers on the roads, but as a trade off the equipment has gotten bigger," Apple said.
The equipment has also become safer, for both motorists and for the equipment operators.
"The suspension is better, in the cabs the seats are not bouncing around so much and so they can concentrate on where they're going," Apple said.
Header trailers -- the trailers that haul the heads of the combines -- have advanced to include four-wheel steering and surge brakes to allow for faster stops.
Those trailers, hay bailers and augers should all have reflective signs.
Brown asks all motorists pay attention to the orange triangular slow moving vehicle emblems and to blinking lights. Brown asks everyone obey speed limits and wear seat belts as equipment will be turning onto and coming out of field roads.
Brown is distributing a pamphlet produced or endorsed by a team made up of Illinois Farm Bureau, Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White, Illinois Sheriff's Association and Illinois High School and College Driver Education Association.
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DeNeal receives e-mail at mailto:bdeneal@yourclearwave.com.</li>
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