Touching or getting close to infrastructure with any object can be fatal.

On Saturday a tractor hit a Stobie pole on a rural property north of Adelaide, and on average, there are more than 20 incidents each year where farm machinery hit Stobie poles and power lines, resulting in an outage, and damage to both our assets and the farming equipment.

The most recent incident, which impacted 35 customers in the area, did not result in any injury but these incidents pose a high safety risk to people and property.

In a bid to reduce the number of farm machinery incidents that take place each year, reflective markers in the form of yellow corner cube delineators have been developed. Designed to be installed on Stobie poles, they improve visibility and reduce the likelihood of incidents.

The initiative arose following direct feedback from customers at Field Days held in 2017. Landowners approached us with concerns about the visibility of Stobie poles while operating farm machinery on their properties and wanted a simple solution to increase safety while working near our infrastructure.

Following this feedback, and in collaboration with Safe Work SA and Grain Producers SA, we developed a simple approach to improve the visibility of Stobie poles, and thereby reduce the likelihood of incidents involving farm equipment.

As part of a trial, reflective markers have been made available to landowners, free of charge. Feedback from our trial so far has been overwhelmingly positive with considerable interest from landowners across the state.

To pick up your free reflectors, visit our stands and Field Day events or contact us on 13 12 61 to arrange collection from your nearest SA Power Networks depot.

Find out more around Stobie pole safety and making them more visible through the use of reflectors.

Working around overhead powerlines