Tractor overturns happen very quickly, faster than a person can react. OSHA has established nine safe operating practices for tractors used in agriculture which will help to reduce injuries and fatalities resulting from overturns. All employees operating tractors should be made familiar with these procedures in addition to safe operating procedures contained in the operator's manual of the tractor they will operate. The seat belt is intended to hold you in the seat if an upset occurs. They are very few known fatalities that have occurred to operators wearing a seat belt.
Deaths usually occur when a person is thrown from the seat and is crushed by the tractor.
If the tractor is not equipped with a ROPS, don't wear a seat belt. In this case the seat belt eliminates the operator's chances of being grown clean off an overturning tractor. A new Rollover Protection Directory published by the National Farm Medicine Center at Marshfield, Wisconsin and available in the Cooperative Extension offices throughout the country lists 23 manufacturers of ROPS, the models of the tractors that they fit most tractors still in use. Where possible, avoid operating the tractor near ditches, embankments and holes. Banks or ditches and gullies often give way if the tractor is driven too close to the edge.