Camilla Faragalli, reporter

Funded by the local Journalism Initiative

A local women’s group is calling on the MRC Pontiac to put up signs on local highways warning drivers of slow-moving farming vehicles.
Members of the Pontiac County Women’s Institute made a presentation on the topic to the MRC Pontiac Council of Mayors meeting on Nov. 22.
According to a letter penned by the group that was distributed at the meeting, members are concerned about the dangers of combining large agricultural machinery with regular traffic that drives at or above the speed limit on main highways in the area.
“There have been so many tractor accidents, there’s been so much movement of equipment on the highways,” said Elaine Lang, president of the institute, a week after the group made the presentation at the MRC.
“Traffic is getting faster and faster and the machinery is getting bigger and bigger.”
Lang explained that the group is requesting six signs, each eight feet wide by 12 feet high, to be installed along Highway 148 in the areas of Vinton, Shawville, and Bristol, and along Highway 303 in the areas of Portage du Fort and Charteris.
Lang said these roads are used by commuters, large transportation trucks, large emergency vehicles, tourists with campers, and regular drivers alike.
“People need to be aware that these tractors drive slower than they do,” she said, adding that local farmers are often required to transport farm machinery from one farm to another along those same roads.
“We would like to put up some farm-safety signs to say, ‘share the road, slow down, caution’, and we want to do big ones.”
“I’ve had some close calls myself out on the highway with machinery,” said Terry MacDougall, who owns a farm near Stark’s Corners.
“Sometimes we pull wide loads which take up the whole road almost, we don’t travel very fast because tractors aren’t designed to travel at high speeds, and sometimes when you have to turn, when you’re pulling something along behind you, you have to veer out in to the other lane,” he said.
MacDougall added that while newer equipment comes with various signals and flashing lights that make it more visible, a lot of the older equipment does not.
“And people ignore them [the lights] anyways,” he said. “I’ve had people pass me on the wrong side of the road . . . there’s lots of dangerous situations out there that happen.”
“People get so impatient, they can’t wait those 10 seconds,” he said. “They’re putting themselves in danger as much as the person in the piece of farming equipment.”
MacDougall said that he doesn’t know if the signs would help but that he supports the group trying to raise awareness.

According to Lang, the group’s push for signage was prompted by “seeing what was going on in the community,” citing several serious incidents involving farm machinery in the past five years, in which people have been killed, severely injured or permanently disabled.
“If we can save one person’s life, stop an accident, we’re going to go for it,” she said.
Lang said the group is waiting to hear from the province about where the signs can be placed, explaining that certain specifications must be met, otherwise the signs will be taken down.
She added that the group is hoping to fundraise the money to pay for the cost of the signs and their installation, and has already received donations from the UPA and Promutuel Insurance.
This is not the first road safety initiative from the Pontiac County Women’s Institute.
Previously, the group has worked to get the speed limit outside the Shawville Giant Tiger reduced from 90 km/h to 70 km/h on Highway 148 and to get crosswalks painted in front of local seniors’ residences.