Lighting & Marking – Resource & Survey

During our recently completed Fall Convention in Indianapolis, we gathered a group of individuals who have worked in the fields of industry standards, product liability and government regulation to discuss what impact pending federally imposed regulations will have on our portion of the farm equipment industry.

We were pleased to not only be able to share the views of our panelist on these important topics but to also make several resources available to our members in attendance.

On the topic of Lighting and Marking of Agricultural Equipment on Highways, ASABE provided the most recent version of the ANISI/ASAE S279.17 Standard. To help members understand the above standard, we also provided attendees with an illustrated guide of the standard which is being used internally by one of our member companies.

While neither of these documents can take the place of attending the session,we believe they can be a valuable resource to all of our members and are making copies available to all of our members.

Because some of this material is protected by copyright we cannot simply post the link on the Association’s website where it would be available to the general public.

We ask members to either email elaina@farmequip.org or give us a call at 314.878.2304. We will be glad to provide the information in PDF format or mail you a printed copy.

Compliance Cost:

Before the federal government can issue final rules regarding lighting and marking of farm equipment, they must take into account the cost of compliance for the industry. While the major tractor manufacturers have been able to respond with some cost information, we have up until now, not even been able to make an estimate of the additional costs compliance would add to our members’ products.

In an effort to make an educated estimate of the compliance costs, we asked members in attendance at the Indianapolis Fall Convention to complete a very short, confidential and anonymous questionnaire on various types of equipment.

The survey questions are simple and look at 10 types of shortline equipment: Do you manufacture products that look like this example?   Do you consider your products to be in full compliance with the current standard, somewhat in compliance, or not currently in compliance?   Within what range would it cost you to become fully compliant?   How many units do you sell annually?

While we were pleased that a good number of members took the time to provide their information during our meeting, we need a much larger member survey sample to provide credible compliance cost numbers for the shortline industry.

If you did not return the questionnaire during the meeting, please send it to the Association office in any form you are comfortable with.

All questionnaires are destroyed once we have recorded the replies. The confidential Survey Form is available at: FarmEquip.org/LMSurvey.pdf

Survey results will be compiled in the Association office, where we will then consult with our various product councils before providing ASABE our compliance cost estimates.