"This also includes all Airseeders and longer Grain Augers"

A fitting response would be new rules for bread for bureaucrats.

Make 'em a deal drop the stupid length restriction.

Let's have some safety inspections for all the registered vehicles instead. That would be entertaining.

Eddie is certainly helping his fellow farmers prosper! Alberta has Wayne Easter's twin in the Premiers office! Who voted for this useless man - oh that is right, nobody voted FOR Ed, he is the 'default' Premier, nobodies choice. He has been wrecking the province in retaliation. Wake up people of Alberta, you hurt this man's feelings and now he is going to hurt your pocketbooks and businesses (he already hit those nasty oil field entrepreneurs - Sask thanks you! - farmers are next..).

This is the result of some senior buerocrat being in convenienced because he was hindered by a slow moving farm machine......these urbanites are terribly impatient to get no-where fast.
They harbour the notion that farm machinery has no business being on their run-way.....

See Agriville for update on commodity forum.

FYI:
There are no changes being considered to the rules for custom farming operations. Weights and dimensions for farm equipment apply equally to custom operators as they do to farmers.

While the Alberta government has not changed the legislation, in place since 1998, it is aware that the existing dimensional limits are out of date and do not reflect the size of modern farm equipment. To resolve this issue, the department will be amending the regulations to accommodate current farm equipment requirements.

The length is to be increased to 30.5 metres (100 feet) from the current limit of 23 metres (75 feet). This increase in length will accommodate longer equipment such as a farm tractor pulling a combination of an air seeder, tank, and harrows, or a long grain auger. The height is to be increased to 5.0 metres (16 feet 4 inches) from the current limit of 4.15 metres (13 feet 6 inches) to accommodate the actual height of farm equipment (note that height cannot be unlimited due to power lines). Farm equipment will continue to be exempted from width.

There is no change to the allowable weights which have been set at the highest level to maximize productivity while ensuring road safety and the protection of the infrastructure. It is understood that some liquid manure spreading equipment may be excessively heavy when fully loaded, requiring the operator to reduce the load when traveling on public roadways, either provincial or municipal, to prevent damage to the roads and bridges. This restriction does not apply when traveling on private property or when crossing a public roadway.

These are my favorite posts; the ones that prompt responses from government workers to stave off an onslaught from SDA readers. Good work!

Just setting the record straight, RL. Or perhaps you're ok with people acting on misinformation?

I'd appreciate a source link if you've got one.

And they're going to enforce this, HOW?!? It's well known in our neck of the woods that you can do whatever you want on the highway so long as it's not within fifteen minutes of a crapper or a hot cup of coffee.

The local teenagers know this, that's why I've clocked them doing 200 kph plus. The local oil patch workers do to, which is why so many of them keep trying to kill me by passing illegally.

Maybe we could enforce the existing laws before creating new ones?

You can usually get blanket permits anyways, good for a year or more. They do not cost much either.

It really isn't a big deal. I'm in the transportation industry. Permits don't usually cost much either(unless you're heavy).

"Maybe we could enforce the existing laws before creating new ones?

Posted by: Sean at April 2, 2009 6:29 PM "

Bwahahahahahahahahaha.Good joke,Sean.If that were to happen,how could the bureaucrats justify their jobs???How could the cops scream for more bucks? How could the leeches(politicians)keep telling us they are doing good for us???? Its like the cell phone ban.There is all ready a law for this.Its calle driving with undue care and attention.But then the leeches couldn't make it look like they where doing(??) their job,if they didn't come up with more useless crap laws.Hell. They can't enforce the ones we have now...so add more???Only in the LALA land of politics would this make sense.

Good job Kate. Good to know that someone out there realizes that people with big equipment need to be accomodated.

That's what she said.

Any tractor trailer unit on the highway today has to obtain permits for moving over dimensional equipment, why not farmers? The permit is a good idea. When I order a permit (which is free in the Province of Saskatchewan for agricultural equipment) the person in the permit office checks my route to make sure it is safe and that I don't end up with a wide load on a narrow road meeting a house going the opposite direction. There are so many reason to have a permit, the 5 minutes it takes to order one is well worth the inconvenience.
If you disagree with permits just ask yourself if you want to be the person caught behind the combine that meets the house move on a narrow country road trying to figure out what the hell to do.
I have trucked all across Canada and the US, from Brownsville Texas to Jericho Diamond mine Nunavut, Miami to Anchorage Alaska and every place in between. Over dimensional loads are my specialty. Permits work, they are necessary, this is a good change. Period.

The new federal long grain auger registry to replace the long gun registry.

One of the lads down the road (SW ONTARIO) did that "go drive a combine in the West" thing.
He reported that SOP with a combine with a 40' drapper head was NOT to use a head transporter but to just proceed down the road with the head mounted...
I am at loss as to the concern about the manure haulers----which must operate off road----and not compact the soil or get stuck. Groundpressure is usually minimal hereabouts.

Bottom line, new regs with new permitting taxes

Eddie Melmac's liberal drag regime needs to start gouging every little niche with increased regulatory taxation to pay the costs of expanding the size of government 20% since he took the reins from Ralph.

As Trent correctly stated, Alberta Transportation is not changing rules to make it tougher for farmers to transport equipment a short distance down the highway. In fact, our department has increased the length and size restrictions, because modern farm equipment is larger than the old regulations allowed.

Anyone who would like factual information on Alberta Transportation's farm equipment policy is encouraged to visit the department website at this url: http://www.transportation.alberta.ca/522.htm

scroll down the page and click on "farm equipment" for a printable pdf that explains our policy.

There is no charge for a farm equipment permit, and there is no requirement to obtain a new permit for each equipment move.

Commercial operators that are performing commercial hauling work, and charging commercial rates for their services, ARE required to obtain the proper permits and pay the same fees & fuel taxes as any other commercial operators in Alberta.