I know this may not be well received here, but here's a counter argument.
Roads, and specifically highways, including the dual lane divided highways were designed to efficiently move high speed car, bus and truck traffic. That traffic pays taxes in the form of registrations, and fuel taxes to maintain and support the infrastructure.
Farm vehicles(of all shapes and sizes), MAY use those roads for travel when other means of getting from place to place would prove difficult, or impossible. It is up to the operator of the farm vehicle to insure safe passage of a non-highway machine on an open high speed road. Up to and including a convoy car/truck behind with flashing amber light.
Having said that, this is no excuse for the highway vehicle(car, truck, bus, motorcycle) to strike the farm vehicle. But it IS incumbent on the farm vehicle which has no registration in most cases, pays no registration fees, and is exempt from highway fuel taxes to stay out of the way of highway traffic. When needed to transit on a muni, state, fed highway to see that all precautions against being hit by high-speed traffic be taken by the farm vehicle.
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How I handled it. About 4 years ago, I bought a road grader in central CO and had to move it to the northern part of NM. Before my trip, I mounted a rotating amber light on the cab, and a pair of flashing lights on the back(magnetic trailer base bought at Walmart for $29). I called the CO state patrol, chatted with them a bit, gave them the route, and my schedule. They said they would have a cruiser wait for me at X location for the high speed road where I needed to travel 18 miles until I was on backroads again.
I joined CO hwy 160 from a dirt road access and met the state trooper. We chatted a bit, and he followed me with his flashers on for the full 18 miles(almost an hour), plus another 4 miles south toward NM before he had to rush off to some accident.
Maybe a tough crowd for this sentiment, but really - the highways aren't meant for farm vehicles. I see plenty out here where I am, and give them every advantage. All of them are also trying best they can to not impede traffic, but I've seen some situations which really could have used a convoy car or truck behind with a flashing roof light.
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Today's Featured Article - Listening to Your Tractor - by Curtis Von Fange. Years ago there was a TV show about a talking car. Unless you are from another planet, physically or otherwise, I don’t think our internal combustion buddies will talk and tell us their problems. But, on the other hand, there is a secret language that our mechanical companions readily do speak. It is an interesting form of communication that involves all the senses of the listener. In this series we are going to investigate and learn the basic rudimentary skills of understanding this lingo.
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