CALUMET COUNTY, Wis. — According to the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation, fall harvest is one of the busiest and most dangerous times for farmers, and it’s the responsibility of both motorists and producers to keep the roads safe.
Chief Deputy Derek Bries, with the Calumet County Sheriff’s Office, said he can attest to that.
“We just hope that people take the time to slow down when they see farm equipment and slow-moving vehicle signs,” Bries said. “Just to make sure that vehicle isn’t turning into a field entrance unexpectedly. Just to try to minimize those situations where we’d have a crash between a passenger vehicle and an agricultural vehicle.”
The National Farm Medicine Center in Marshfield found that in 2020, roughly 20% of all farm deaths in Wisconsin were from roadway crashes.
“Be alert. Give that vehicle some distance,” Bries said. “A lot of these vehicles, although they may be traveling on a highway, they’re generally doing it to get to a field entrance, or to get back to the farm or the facility they’re heading to. Leave them that distance and don’t pass one of those vehicles — although they are going slow — in a no-passing zone. You have to make sure, just like if you were passing any other vehicle, that you do it safely in a passing area of that roadway.”
Trent Vanden Boogaard spends a lot of his time in the fall in the cab of a John Deere forage harvester, harvesting corn silage for customers.
“I generally start at 7 a.m. and go until 9 or 10 at night,” he said. “It’s basically just driving back and forth, up and down the fields chopping corn.”
Midlakes Custom Services, where Vanden Boogaard works as an operator, harvests thousands of acres of land every year. He said he never lets his guard down when operating farm equipment on area roads.
“I’m always watching around me, always watching my surroundings, because you never know what someone else is going to be doing,” he said.
Vanden Boogaard said, like drivers, he wants to get to his destination safely.
“Sometimes I might be hogging the road, but there’s a reason for it. They might not see a mailbox in front of me or an oncoming car that I do see,” he said. “If I don’t move over, there’s generally a reason. It’s for their safety.”
