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Gary Kleppel is the owner of Longfield Farm in Altamont. When he’s not feeding the sheep or tending to the chickens, Gary is advocating for his fellow farmers as the chairman for Knox's agricultural advisory committee.

“Farming is one of the most dangerous businesses you can be in,” Kleppel said.

He says the latest and most pressing item on their agenda is fighting for their safety not on the farm, but on the road.

“One of the places that is most dangerous in the business is to be driving on the road, sometimes pulling a very large load of equipment or produce,” said Kleppel.

The committee is looking to get new signs on the road to alert drivers to slow down and be on the lookout for heavy machinery. They’ve also reached out to the state‘s department of transportation to request that guardrails be pushed back.

“Sometimes it takes up more than a lane of traffic, gets in between guardrails or a pair of guardrails and a vehicle is coming from the opposite direction; everyone has to stop,” said Kleppel.

The committee has conducted a study identifying 14 roads in the town that could use new signage. But if the signs don't go up, Gary fears for the worst.

“The possibilities are really frightening and unnecessarily so,” Kleppel said. “Sooner or later, we’re going to have a tractor and an oncoming car gets stuck between guardrails, and another car hits one, and I hate to think about that.”

Gary operates fairly smaller vehicles, and fellow farmers nearby have larger ones.

“A farmer’s life goes by at 5 miles an hour, so it can be quite a horrific feeling being out on the road and traffic is zooming by you or people stuck behind you,” said Kleppel. “You know you’re getting people angry, and there’s nothing you can do.”

According to a study published by the New York Center for Agricultural Medicine and Health, roadway crashes involving farming vehicles were found to be five times more fatal than that of non-agricultural crashes.

“Most people don’t realize, most equipment is 10 to 14 feet wide, and as you can [see], it can be as much as 50 feet long,” said Ken Saddlemire, a fourth-generation dairy farmer.