Back roads, country roads and highways all pose a risk for crashes, especially for farm vehicles unable to reach the same high speed as a car. A recent accident in Freedom Township made this lesson tragically clear.
Meghan Pugh, a 22-year-old from Mantua, died after her car clipped the left side dual wheels of a farm tractor on Limeridge Road at 6:24 p.m. on Oct. 20.
Tom Mesaros, chair of the Freedom Township Board of Trustees, described Limeridge Road as a curvy back road that is not very wide. He said it’s a road people need to pay attention on.
Pugh’s vehicle, a Hyundai Tucson going north, crossed the double yellow center line before colliding into Daniel Gallagher’s John Deere 8220 farm tractor going south on Limeridge Road, according to a release from Ohio State Highway Patrol.
The collision caused Pugh’s vehicle to go into a nearby ditch, where the fire department later extracted her from the vehicle and took her to UH Portage Medical Center in Ravenna. She was later pronounced deceased, according to the OSHP release.
Mesaros said Pugh’s mom was called to the scene of the accident, as they knew Pugh would pass once she was cut out from the car.
“She told her mom, she said, ‘Mom, all I did was look down for a second,’” Mesaros said. “And it cost her her life.”
Gallagher, a 33-year-old also from Mantua, was ejected from the cab of the tractor, knocking him unconscious. The release stated the tractor came to a stop in the front yard of a nearby residence on the west side of the road. Overall, he suffered some minor injuries.
“The tractors, they can have their slow moving vehicle signs or flashing lights and all that on,” Mesaros said. “But if you come upon one, then you’ve got to remember, they can’t stop as quick as a car. That’s a lot of weight, and they can slam on their brakes as hard as they can, but it takes a long distance for them to stop.”
He said putting road signs up that alert caution toward slow-moving vehicles may help make sure something like this accident doesn’t happen again, and he plans on contacting the township’s local congressman to see what it would take to implement more cautionary signs.
“Also, in some of these back roads we have Amish now with their buggies, and we got to be so careful with them, because they just go three or four miles an hour,” he said. “It just seems like people are in such a hurry, and they don’t need to be.”
Ohio State Patrol Sgt. Shaun Baskerville recommended drivers give themselves a greater reactionary gap and following distance between vehicles.
“I think driving on back country roads presents unique challenges,” he said, “and they often come with sharper hills, limited visibility and changing road conditions, such as they may be wide at one point, narrow at another, less maintained highways.”
Baskerville and Mesaros both addressed the lack of lighting on back roads and how it’s important to take extra precautions.
“Don’t be afraid to use your brights if you can’t see; obviously, you would want to dim them if a car passes you,” Baskerville said. “And if you don’t know the area, take it slow. There’s nothing saying that you have to drive the speed limit. Just be patient.”
