WILSON’S MILLS – An accident near Wilson’s Mills shut down traffic for more than an hour.
Around 4:00pm Sunday, a farm tractor was pulling a large implement on Fire Department Road and crossing the Neuse River bridge. The tractor driver said that he did not drive onto the bridge until making sure there was no oncoming traffic.
However, before he could cross, he met a passenger car being followed by a motorcycle.
The driver of passenger car, feared being struck by the wide implement, stopped on the bridge. The motorcycle operator, apparently blinded by the bright sun, struck the rear of the stopped car.
The rider was ejected, suffering head and shoulder injuries. He was rushed to Wake Med with serious but non life threatening injuries. There were no other injuries.
The blinding sunshine was blamed for the mishap.
The State Highway Patrol investigated the accident. No charges were filed.
Those tractors should be required to have lead and follow vehicles with signs and flashers.
That is unreasonable to ask and impossible to pass legislation regulating agriculture in that way. NCGA would never even allow that out of committee.
Why is it unreasonable?
If the sun is blinding you, it is obvious that you should know enough to slow down or stop. Use your sunvisors and sunglasses to help in those situations.
Click, most farming operations in our area do not have the means to use pilot vehicles. Farmers typically try their best to move along roadways during non-peak travel times — such as 4:00pm on a Sunday. Farmers do not want to have to deal with traffic any more than motorists want to deal with slow moving equipment. From what I gathered in this article, this appears to have been an unfortunate accident where the factors were the setting sun and a long bridge that doesn’t have room for oversized vehicles to move over.
So if the bridge isn’t big enough for oversized vehicles, why was an oversized vehicle on the bridge. It doesn’t matter if farmers don’t have the means to use pilot vehicles or if they don’t want to deal with traffic. It fact is that they are using the roads and should be required to take necessary precautions to prevent these situations.
Fair enough. You can always take your concerns to NCDOT for consideration.
“It’s the sun’s fault.” Snowflakes will do anything to avoid responsibility.
What do you mean snowflake?