Jared Soares | The Roanoke Times

Darrell Jeter contends with heavy traffic while making a trip from Jeter Farm in Botetourt County to Montvale on U.S. 460.

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Life in the slow lane can sometimes feel like an obstacle course for strawberry farmer J.D. Scott as he bobs and weaves his way around fast-moving traffic on a dusty red-and-white tractor.

Puttering along Joppa Mill Road at a top speed of 25 mph, cars zoom up behind him, lean on the horn and attempt daredevil passes on the curvy, two-lane road.

As he discusses the perils lurking on these narrow back roads, a maroon Corvette zips toward him in the opposite lane. Without slowing down, the sports car's driver drops its right tires onto the gravel shoulder, swerves around and whips past Scott's tractor -- loudly punctuating the farmer's point.

"It's scary. It really is," said Scott, 60, who bought his Bedford County farm along Virginia 24 in the early 1980s. "But we can't help it. We have to get out there."

For decades the winding back roads that crisscross rural parts of Botetourt, Bedford and Franklin counties have served as main arteries for farmers hauling heavy machinery to and from their fields.

But as residential development spills out into these areas, depositing waves of suburban newcomers, farmers find themselves jostling for space with a new crop of speedy and impatient drivers.

The result has been a rise in what farmers describe as the number of "close calls" and "near misses," and some fear that this emerging culture clash tumbling onto public roads may soon result in a head-on collision.

"If you look at the pure demographics of the issue," said Bruce Stone, a safety manager with the Virginia Farm Bureau, "approximately 1.8 percent of the population is associated with agriculture nationally. If you simply do the math, 98.2 percent don't understand agriculture and don't have to. So when people get behind a tractor running 25 mph, they get impatient and then they take a chance to pass."

The risks have become so pronounced in some areas that some farmers say they are abandoning fields they've worked for years to avoid fighting traffic.

Although steps have been taken to raise awareness about farmers traveling on public roads -- such as posting tractor-crossing signs and educating farmers about making equipment visible to drivers -- many safety experts say those solutions do little to convince rushed commuters to be more patient.

Richard Thompson, a dairy farmer near Eagle Rock in Botetourt County, said he's had workers threaten to quit rather than battle 18-wheelers hurling down U.S. 220 from behind the wheel of a tractor.

Traffic is particularly bad during rush hour, Thompson said. "I won't even think of cutting then. You see five vehicles stretched out behind you where they can't pass."

So far the number of vehicle-tractor collisions remains small -- fewer than one-tenth of 1 percent of all wrecks reported in Virginia during 2005 involved farm equipment, according to Bill Foy, a spokesman for the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles.

But when a car does plow into a tractor, or more likely, a piece of machinery it's hauling, the outcome tends to be serious for both farmer and motorist. Tractors are prone to overturning, and farmers can be easily thrown from their seats.

Rear-end collisions are common and so are accidents involving passing vehicles when a tractor is turning left into a field, Stone said. Driver distraction and cars attempting to pass are often the culprits.

That's how Scott ended up in an accident six years ago. A driver trying to pass him on a two-lane road plowed into the back of his tractor, hitting it with such force that it broke the seat off the tractor with him in it.

A piece of machinery Scott was hauling pinned him underneath with the car on both him and the equipment, sending him to the hospital with six broken ribs and leaving him real "bruised and skinned up," Scott said.

For a driver, the sheer difference in speed can be equally as startling, especially if the person behind the wheel is distracted or chatting on a cellphone, Stone said.

The mix of slow-moving vehicles and ever-increasing vehicle volume has also spurred what Stone describes as an increase in "traffic irritations" -- drivers frustrated at being stuck behind a sluggish tractor. Farmers also feel beleaguered, and often have to weave onto shoulders and dodge mailboxes to avoid crashes.

Drivers may be unaware of the limitations of sitting behind the wheel of a hulking, diesel-engine tractor -- where farmers can't hear a horn over the engine noise, the stopping distance is dicey and maneuverability minimal. Most rural roads are narrow, crooked and flanked by ditches, giving farmers little room to pull over and let cars pass.

Farmers' efforts to give hand signals can be misunderstood. "I use the hand signal," said Jeff Cox, a cattle farmer in Bedford County. "But when I give the left or right hand signal, they think that means come around into my blind spot," he said.

And it's difficult to ignore the bad apples in the bunch. "I've had people give me the finger, cuss and honk the horn," Scott said.

Tracts of farmland are also becoming more scattered as more farmers decide to sell to developers, forcing those that stay in the business to farm more land to "survive economically" but also forcing them to travel longer distances on public roads to access that land, said Charles Poindexter, a Franklin County Board of Supervisors member who represents the Union Hall area near Smith Mountain Lake.

The steady stream of tourists, weekenders and construction workers heading to the lake has also changed the demographic profile of lake-bound traffic, Poindexter said.

There are cars hauling boat trailers, and with new houses sprouting up along the lake's edge, the number of tractor-trailers rumbling along back roads, hauling materials and construction equipment is on the rise.

The Virginia Farm Bureau, which keeps only an informal record of tractor-vehicle collisions compiled by news clippings and insurance claims, recorded five fatalities and 21 injuries since 2002, Stone said.

North Carolina labor officials have studied such accidents more aggressively. In a 2003 survey, it found driving farm equipment on public roads to be a major hazard faced by agricultural workers. Only 22 percent of respondents said they felt safe driving their tractor on rural roads.

The Virginia Farm Bureau is adamant about promoting highway safety, suggesting that tractors be equipped with blinking lights and an orange, triangle-shaped "slow-moving vehicle" sign. "Farmers bear a responsibility in the solution as well," said Steve Jenkins, a field services director for the Virginia Farm Bureau.

The bureau is also compiling a brochure for new homeowners moving into agriculture-heavy areas -- a rural living primer of sorts -- with a section on farm equipment safety.

But many farmers say the key to preventing farmer-motorist mishaps is simply good old-fashioned courtesy and patience by those in faster vehicles.

"How would you feel if someone came running through your office and told you to get out of the way," Stone said. "When a farmer is on the road, he is in his office."