Farmers urge drivers to share the road after crash

By Lauren Johnson

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    STORY COUNTY, Iowa (KCCI) — “In that last five years when we’ve been on the road and moving equipment, we’ve had three different accidents and every single one of them has been a distracted driver,” said Kevin Lawson, a Story County farmer.

Lawson is urging motorists to be extra cautious after a car crashed into farm equipment in Story county on Wednesday night.

Luckily, no one was hurt but Lawson says even one crash is far too many.

Lawson says it took about 40 days to bring in his fall harvest.

His equipment only moves about 20 to 25 mph, so oftentimes, farmers won’t know someone is about to hit them until it’s too late.

“If you’re driving this, you can’t see anything behind you,” Lawson said. “We do have a camera on this so we can see the back of this if there’s traffic approaching. If they’re going to hit us, there’s not much we can do but at least we’re aware they’re there.”

The Iowa Farm Bureau reports 181 accidents between cars and farm equipment were recorded by the Iowa DOT last year.

With that number in mind, Lawson has some advice for drivers.

“If everybody would just slow down a little bit, and be a little bit more cautious, I think things would go a lot better. I just hate to see the accidents that have had happened,” Lawson said.

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