This document is adapted from a fact sheet in the Safe Farm series produced by Iowa State University Extension. This fact sheet was updated February 1994.
Tractors are common to all farm operations.
They also are the major cause of death in agriculture today. Tractors are linked to more than half of farm-related deaths, both nationally and in Iowa. The National Safety Council estimates that 460 people were killed in 1990 while operating a tractor. About 52 percent of those deaths were the result of a tractor rollover. This high death rate associated with tractor rollovers is not a new problem.