High corn - high hazard

By DAVID J. COEHRS

Civ­i­tas News Service

It can become an annoy­ing game for motorists dur­ing plant­ing sea­son: inch­ing per­ilously for­ward in their vehi­cles at rural inter­sec­tions because corn­fields obstruct their view of approach­ing traffic.

Local offi­cials say the prob­lem is pre­ventable, and in cases of unco­op­er­a­tive prop­erty own­ers they have the author­ity to enforce a solution.

Most farm­ers stay planted on their prop­erty, said Sgt. Tracy Zuver of the Ful­ton County Sheriff’s Office. When a deputy notices corn edg­ing into the road right of way or obstruct­ing traf­fic, they will notify the farmer.

“Ninety-nine per­cent of the farm­ers are good about it,” he said. “We get a few calls about corn, and we address them immediately.”

In some cases, motorists need to inch up a lit­tle at the stop sign to see “so long as they’re not out too far,” Zuver added.

Ful­ton County Pros­e­cu­tor Scott Hasel­man said he does not know of a crim­i­nal law pro­vi­sion that applies to corn grown on pri­vate prop­erty out­side the road right-of-way.

How­ever, Ful­ton County Engi­neer Frank Onweller said his office has juris­dic­tion over county roads. When corn stalks appear to obstruct motorists’ views, the engi­neer will con­tact the farmer or prop­erty owner to resolve the situation.

“We have an oblig­a­tion to main­tain safe sight dis­tance to the trav­el­ing pub­lic,” he said.

In most cases, farm­ers and prop­erty own­ers are agree­able to cor­rect­ing the prob­lem, Onweller said. Some­times, they cut the corn down to the level of the ear so dri­vers’ views are improved. In other cases, it is mowed down.

If the prop­erty owner refuses, Onweller’s office has the legal right to remove the corn in ques­tion. “We encour­age them not to plant in the right-of-way. The Farm Bureau is also coop­er­a­tive. I don’t think we have a lot of prob­lem in get­ting the sit­u­a­tion resolved,” he said.

Roy Nor­man, orga­ni­za­tional direc­tor at the Four County Farm Bureau in Pet­tisville, said he can­not defend any farmer who plants to the cor­ner of their prop­erty in a man­ner that inter­feres with vis­i­bil­ity at an intersection.

“The Farm Bureau has been a long­time advo­cate of farm­ers vol­un­tary leav­ing strips at those dan­ger­ous inter­sec­tions,” he said. “There are some seri­ous vio­la­tors that go even into the road.”

The bureau’s newslet­ter rou­tinely dis­cour­ages farm­ers from the prac­tice, Nor­man said, but “we do often see resis­tance. Some peo­ple do resist these rec­om­men­da­tions to be proactive.”

He said farm­ers can avoid the sit­u­a­tion by set­ting their planters so they don’t plant the last cou­ple rows along the ditch bank. They also can kill the corn in those rows once it is up or refrain entirely from plant­ing corn.

“At the bare min­i­mum, once the corn pol­li­nates around mid-July the farm­ers can cut the corn just above the ear,” Nor­man said. “It would con­tinue to grow, but it helps tremen­dously with the visibility.”

He said farm­ers can allay con­cern that weeds would grow on the field’s outer edges if they don’t plant there by con­tact­ing the county engi­neer about keep­ing those areas mowed.

When motorists pull up to many county inter­sec­tions dur­ing corn sea­son the right-of-way is blocked by the plants, forc­ing the dri­vers to pull fur­ther ahead to see, Nor­man said.

“That’s not right, and we can­not sup­port that type of obstruc­tion,” he said.

“There needs to be more aware­ness by the farmer that we’ve got respon­si­bil­ity that dri­vers can safely see when they get to that intersection.

“We’re not talk­ing acres here. We’re talk­ing a few rows of corn mak­ing a life or death dif­fer­ence. Farm­ers just don’t think about it.”

Posted by Rob Treynor on Feb 4 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.