Rain & Right Turns....these may not seem like they go together, and we haven't gotten much of the 1st, but I got another reminder of why I'm thankful for right turns the other day, so I thought I would blog about my safety message.
Rain has been pretty sporadic and hard to come by this summer. The yard hasn't been mowed for 3 weeks, and that was simply to knock off the tall weeds around the septic field and the road ditch. However, our corn doesn't look like
this, so we have to be pretty grateful for what we've gotten. And, I'm especially grateful for the full 1 1/2" we received Wednesday night! It was a great welcome home gift after a couple days of meetings. It came with a little more wind than we'd like, but there are still puddles in the driveway!
Right Turns. When moving farm equipment from one field to another, I always appreciate being able to make right turns. I was reminded of this yesterday. I was on a fairly highly traveled road coming home from work behind a loaded hayrack. I noticed he was slowing down, and there was an intersection coming up, so I waited for him to make the left turn, even though I couldn't see his turn signal. At that point, a car behind me decided to try to pass both of us. My hand still hurts, as I instinctively tried to throw my hand out the window, screaming "No, Stop, Don't", and all I caught was the window glass. Thankfully, the driver of the hayrack either noticed the idiot, or was just plain lucky. Now, this person broke multiple laws (passing multiple vehicles, passing too close to an intersection), but it is amazing how often this happens, especially as many of the places farm equipment turns isn't at a marked intersection. I'm very thankful that we only have 1 hay field that requires us to make a left turn into the field. It's amazing how fast vehicles can come up behind you when you're going down the road. Many times, I would pull out onto our road (not seeing a vehicle coming in either direction), and by the time I'd turned and shifted gears, I was getting passed!
I can't see anything behind me when driving this equipment!
Please remember to be careful when you come across farm equipment on the roads. As my mother always told me, the bigger vehicle gets the right-of-way, which is usually the farm equipment, so the life you save may be your own!
