According to Canadian Agricultural Injury Reporting data, traffic collisions accounted for about five per cent of all agriculture-related fatalities from 2011 to 2020.

Here are some tips to help ensure everyone’s safety while on the road:

Motorists

• Tractors and other farm equipment travel significantly slower than typical traffic, meaning a motor vehicle driving at the speed limit can close the distance on farm machinery much faster than anticipated. Always reduce your speed when approaching any farm equipment.

• Keep in mind that spring seeding and fall harvest seasons are when more agricultural equipment is travelling on public roads, especially in rural areas.

• Always keep a distance behind farm machinery, which provides a better view to determine when it’s safe to pass and helps the equipment operator see you.

• Although it may be frustrating when behind a slow-moving vehicle, it’s important to only pass when it’s safe to do so.

• Be aware that some farm equipment is very wide and may take up more than one lane.

• Tractors and other farm vehicles often make wide left turns. If you see a tractor veer to the right, there is a good chance it is about to turn left — this is not a signal for motorists to pass!

Equipment operators

• Whenever possible, use side roads rather than highways due to the size and slower speeds of farm machinery. Take the time to plan your route before hitting the road.

• Ensure your equipment it outfitted with reflective materials and a slow-moving vehicle (SMV) sign that is in good condition and visible.

• Before going out on any road, check that all lights, beacons and turn signals are clean and working properly.

• Double-check that all loads are secure and that your equipment won’t leave debris on the road or send any projectiles toward motorists.

• Understand the width and height of your equipment and adjust mirrors accordingly. This will help ensure safe travel and clearance from potential obstacles such as road signs, overhead wires or bridges.

• When transporting oversized loads or operating on high-speed roadways, it’s best practice to use a pilot vehicle whenever possible. (Note: Some provinces have specific requirements regarding pilot vehicles, while others do not. Be sure to check your provincial highway traffic legislation to confirm requirements in your area.)

Remember: We all share the same public roads, which means we all have a role to play in making sure everyone gets home safely.

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Every year authorities organize pop-up roadside inspections to check heavy trucks for safety violations. And although farm trucks and drivers get a variety of exemptions from some regulations commercial carriers must follow, passing a roadside safety inspection isn’t typically one of them.

So how do you get through a spot check and avoid a ticket — or worse?

The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) was set up several years ago to standardize equipment requirements and inspection procedures across Canada and the U.S. Most officers checking trucks will be certified by CVSA. Inspections will be carried out in a similar way no matter the province where they occur, although exact regulations and some exemptions vary a little.

“We have level one, two and three inspections,” CVSA roadside inspection specialist Jeremy Disbrow said during an information webinar in May. “A level one is we’re looking at driver credentials, their hours-of-service status, and it’s a complete vehicle inspection. It includes all the components underneath the vehicle as well. And it focuses also on cargo securement.

“A level two inspection involves everything except going underneath the vehicle. It’s called a walk-around inspection, basically. A level three is just a driver-only inspection.”

Farm truck drivers will usually be exempt from the hours-of-service regulation.

First impressions

The first step in acing a spot check inspection is to do a thorough daily pre-trip inspection on the truck before starting work. That ensures you find any defects before heading out onto the road — and repair them.

Officers doing inspections get an overall impression of a driver and truck pretty quickly. And first impressions are important, so having a clean, well-maintained truck will help.

“If you have your vehicle in order and you’re ready for the day, you’re likely to get a clean inspection,” Disbrow says. “Quite frankly, you can tell a lot within the first 30 seconds of interaction. A driver that seems to be prepared shows a level of professionalism.”

READ MORE: Driving a loaded grain truck

Drivers must make a written record of daily pre-trip inspections, but some farm truck drivers are exempt from needing to create a written report. For example, in Manitoba, the Commercial Vehicle Trip Inspection Regulation exempts a “two-axle or three-axle commercial vehicle or any trailer attached to it while being used primarily for the transportation of primary farm, forest or aquatic products if the driver or driver’s employer is the producer of the products.”

In Saskatchewan, only two- and three-axle farm trucks are exempt. Drivers of a farm semi will have to produce a written inspection report and show it to police when requested, according to the Saskatchewan Highway Patrol.

Them’s the brakes

One of the defects most commonly found at inspections is brake problems. Though nearly all modern heavy trucks with air brakes use automatic slack adjusters, some may not realize a driver still has a procedure to follow to ensure they are set correctly.

Making six full brake applications and holding them momentarily with system air pressure above 90 pounds per square inch is required for automatic slack adjusters to set up correctly. Failure to do this at the start of each day may mean push rod travel will exceed the maximum limit, putting brakes out of adjustment.

Making a full-service brake application and holding it for one minute to measure air loss is a key pre-trip test. Single-unit trucks cannot lose more than three p.s.i. in that time. Semi-trailer trucks with one trailer cannot lose more than four.

READ MORE: Truck is key piece in transport puzzle

There are other tests as well, such as ensuring the tractor protection valve closes at no less than 20 p.s.i. when the trailer lines are disconnected.

Farmers who’ve never had to take additional training to drive a Class 3 truck with air brakes may want to pick up a copy of their provincial air brake manual to ensure they understand the full test procedure, and make sure they know how the system works. Pre-trip regulations typically require a driver to have a reasonable working knowledge of the systems they’re checking.

“Last year the top out-of-service violation we had was for brakes,” Disbrow says. “Some of the other common violations were tires and lighting devices, things like that.”

Finally, even if you’re in a hurry and annoyed at the delay, curb your attitude when pulled into a roadside inspection. Being rude and abrasive won’t help you in the least.

“Something we look for is the professionalism of the driver and their attitude,” Matthew Austin of the Saskatchewan Highway Patrol said during the webinar. “That’s immediately noticeable as soon as we walk up and say hello. Things we’re looking for — do they have their proper documentation; do they know what documentation they’re giving us? Do they understand the expectations of the inspection? That all builds up to a good interaction during the inspection.

“The more organized the driver is, the smoother the inspection goes. It speeds it up.”

To find out more about CVSA inspections, visit the alliance website.

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Spring road restrictions set axle weight limits for vehicles moving on certain roads to reduce the damage heavier loads can cause during the spring thaw period. Grain and equipment movement can both be affected by the spring road bans, as drivers may need to find alternate routes or haul smaller loads.

The duration of the restrictions will depend on the local weather conditions, but typically last through April and into May.

In Manitoba, spring road bans are set to come into effect on Friday, March 17, according to a provincial order.

The winter weight season in neighbouring Saskatchewan is set to expire on March 14, which will reduce the tonnage allowed on roads.

Alberta has yet to report the official start of road restrictions in the province, but typically sees its first weight limits for the southern areas of the province in mid-March.

— Phil Franz-Warkentin is an associate editor/analyst with MarketsFarm in Winnipeg.

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Annual spring road restrictions set axle weight limits for vehicles moving on certain roads, in an effort to reduce the damage heavier loads can cause during the spring thaw period.

Grain and equipment movement can both be affected by the spring road bans, as drivers may need to find alternate routes or haul smaller loads. The duration of the restrictions will depend on the local weather conditions, but typically last through April and into May.

“At various times of the year, weight restrictions are put in place on some highways as a measure to prevent damage to the surface and roadbeds,” Saskatchewan Highways Minister Fred Bradshaw said in a release announcing the province’s road restrictions that came into effect on Tuesday.

“As the warmer weather rolls in, some roads can become susceptible to soft spots and surface cracks,” he added.

In Manitoba, spring road bans are set to come into effect on Friday across the province, according to an update from Manitoba Infrastructure.

The restrictions vary depending on the road, with level one restrictions consisting of 90 per cent of normal loading and 65 per cent of normal on level two affected roads.

Spring road restrictions went into effect across the southern half of Alberta on Monday, with other areas expected to be added to the list as the thaw progresses, according to Alberta Transportation.

— Phil Franz-Warkentin reports for MarketsFarm from Winnipeg.

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Authorities have so far confirmed one death after torrential rains and mudslides destroyed roads and left several mountain towns isolated. At least three people are missing.

Provincial Premier John Horgan described the calamity as a once-in-500-year event.

“We will bring in travel restrictions and ensure that transportation of essential goods and medical and emergency services are able to reach the communities that need them,” he told a news conference, urging people not to hoard supplies.

The massive floods and mudslides also severed access to the country’s largest port in Vancouver, disrupting already strained global supply chains.

Some of the towns are in remote mountain areas with limited access and freezing temperatures.

In Tulameen, northeast of Vancouver, up to 400 people are trapped, many without power, said Erick Thompson, a spokesman for the area’s emergency operations.

“(We) did a helicopter flight recently, dropped off food,” he told CBC.

In Hope, 160 km east of Vancouver, food was starting to run low. Pastor Jeff Kuhn said a quarter of the town’s 6,000 residents were seeking shelter.

About 100 volunteers at the Dukh Nivaran Sahib Gurdwara Sikh Temple in Surrey spent all night Tuesday preparing about 3,000 meals and then hired helicopters to deliver the food to Hope, president Narinder Singh Walia said.

The disaster could be one of the most expensive in Canadian history.

The flooding is the second weather-related calamity to hit British Columbia in the last few months. A massive wildfire in the same region as some of the devastation destroyed an entire town in late June.

“These are extraordinary events not measured before, not contemplated before,” Horgan said.

Canadian exporters of commodities from grain to fertilizer and oil scrambled to divert shipments away from Vancouver but found few easy alternatives.

Canadian Pacific and Canadian National Railway (CP, CN), the country’s two biggest rail companies, said their lines into Vancouver remained unusable on Wednesday.

After a phenomenon known as an atmospheric river dumped a month’s worth of rain in two days, officials are concerned that another downpour could overwhelm a pumping station near Abbotsford, a city of 160,000 to the east of Vancouver, which has already been partly evacuated.

Mayor Henry Braun said volunteers had built a dam around the station overnight.

“That will buy us some more time but if we had another weather event like we just went through, we are in deep doo-doo,” he told reporters Wednesday.

Farmers in Abbotsford ignored an evacuation order on Tuesday and desperately tried to save their animals from rising waters, in some cases tying ropes around the necks of cows and pulling them to higher ground.

Provincial agriculture minister Lana Popham said thousands of animals had died and others would have to be euthanized.

Environment Canada said Abbotsford would receive more rain early next week.

Rescuer Mike Danks, part of an Abbotsford evacuation team, said the situation had been very tough.

“The majority of people had elderly parents with them that were unable to walk, suffered from dementia,” he told local outlet Black Press Media.

“You’re trying to assist them into a helicopter at night.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, while in Washington on a trip, said his government would help the province recover from what he called a “terrifically bad situation.” Ottawa is sending hundreds of air force personnel to aid the recovery.

Federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau on Twitter Wednesday also acknowledged B.C. producers left “stranded” by road and rail closures, and added her department is “monitoring the situation closely and working with our provincial counterparts to respond.”

— Reporting for Reuters by Jesse Winter in Abbotsford, David Ljunggren in Ottawa, Ismail Shakil in Bangalore, Rod Nickel in Winnpeg, Anna Mehler Paperny in Toronto and Nia William in Calgary; writing by David Ljunggren.

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The rainstorms that started on Sunday triggered landslides, shut roads, prompted the evacuation of an entire community, forced an oil pipeline to close and delayed flights.

About 275 people including 50 children were stranded, some 100 vehicles near the mountain town of Agassiz about 120 km east of Vancouver, which prompted evacuation flights.

Video footage showed Canadian Forces Cormorant helicopters ferrying evacuees to safety.

Authorities in Merritt, some 200 km northeast of Vancouver, ordered all 8,000 citizens to leave after rising waters cut off bridges and forced its wastewater treatment plant to close.

“Continued habitation of the community without sanitary services presents risk of mass sewage backup and personal health risk,” the city said in an official notice.

Some areas received eight inches (200 mm) of rain on Sunday — the amount they usually see in a month — and the deluge continued Monday, with roads covered by mud or up to 10 inches of water.

The landslides and floods come less than six months after an out-of-control wildfire gutted an entire town, as temperatures in the province soared.

The storms forced the closure of the Trans Mountain pipeline, which takes crude from Alberta to the West Coast. The line has a capacity of 300,000 barrels per day.

Work on a proposed expansion project has also been halted, the operating company said.

Around 30 km further east, footage posted to Facebook showed parts of a road had been washed away near the town of Hope.

“The situation is dynamic … it is very difficult weather,” provincial public safety minister Mike Farnworth told reporters.

Gales are due to hit the area later, most likely causing power outages, officials said.

The storm is the second weather-related calamity to hit the Pacific province in just a few months. In late June, temperatures hit a record high, prompting blazes that destroyed one town.

— Reporting for Reuters by David Ljunggren.

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