The New South Wales Riverina faces another protracted harvest due to heavy rain and flooding, with farmers' harvest activity across Christmas and New Year holidays potentially with the added stress of inattentive drivers.
NSW Farmers Grains Committee chair Justin Everitt urged everyone to slow down for a Merry Christmas:
"There’s still a lot of large agricultural vehicles moving on country roads at the moment, and we’d hate to see a joyous time of the year turn to tragedy for any family.
"The roads are pretty shocking in a lot of areas, and the delayed start to harvest means you may see more big vehicles about.
"Remember, if the driver of a large vehicle can’t see you then they don’t know you’re there – so stay back at a safe distance and don’t be impatient."
Police minister Paul Toole told FlowFM listeners on Friday it was important that local and touring drivers alike were mindful of the pressures farmers and their machinery are under:
"We need to be very mindful not only for locals but also for visitors in the Riverina area. We're going to have a lot of harvesting machinery on the roads, we need people to be very mindful there is heavy machinery, there are trucks on the road.
"Our road network has actually been impacted by flooding as well, a lot of damage to the roads and it will take a lot of time to get our roads up to the standards that we all used to see them at previously. So we need people to take care on our roads, they need to be patient, they're not trying to overtake these harvesters where it's impossible to do so ..."
Hear the full interview with Police Minister Paul Toole also promoting signing up with NSW Police or a volunteer service like the Rural Fire or State Emergency Service, on the Flow podcast player below:
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