Harvest traffic, horse-drawn vehicles call for extra care on rural roads

By Mark Reusser, Director, Ontario Federation of Agriculture

September is a busy time on Ontario’s rural roads. Students are back at school, commuters are settling into their fall routines, and crop harvest is in full swing, putting more tractors, combines and other farm equipment on the move.

With school buses, commuters and slow-moving farm equipment all sharing the road and days getting shorter with fewer daylight hours, drivers need to be especially alert at this time of year.

In some parts of Ontario, those road users also include horse-drawn vehicles.

I farm in Waterloo Region, where Wellesley and Woolwich townships are home to many Amish and Mennonite farm families who use horse-drawn vehicles for transportation. Similar communities are also found in Midwestern, Eastern and Northern Ontario.

For those of us who live in communities with a large horse-and-buggy population, they’re simply part of everyday traffic. But with rural roads carrying more and more commuter traffic, there are also more drivers on country roads who may have little experience encountering them.

The most important thing to remember when you approach a buggy is that you aren’t simply passing another slow-moving vehicle. It’s pulled by one or more live animals, and there are people inside.

A vehicle approaching quickly, passing too closely or accelerating loudly can startle a horse. Farm equipment presents another challenge: it is large and noisy and may be towing implements or wagons, making it much longer than a passenger vehicle.