MAYO COUNTY COUNCIL has appealed to road users to exercise “tolerance” if they are caught behind farm machinery in the coming weeks and to ‘give farmers a break’.
Recent weather has meant that farmers are spreading slurry and planting crops later than usual, and the council is warning that there could be an increased volume of such traffic on the road.
“If farmers can’t do their job producing food and sustaining the environment, we’re all in trouble,” Road Safety Officer Noel Gibbons said in a statement.
We need to give them a break and exercise driving tolerance so they can move their machinery from field to field.
He added that “drivers’ anxiety levels sky-rockets” when they find themselves stuck behind farm machinery, but that it is likely to delay the road user by just a couple of minutes.
“Country roads are unpredictable and, therefore, present far more challenges to drivers,” he warned.
Country crashes often result in greater numbers of fatalities and injuries because vehicles are usually travelling at higher speeds.
70 per cent of fatal road collisions between 1996 to 2010 occurred on rural roads, the council said.
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