Published: July 24, 2008 12:00 am      

Seward-backed bills meet with success

New York roads could be safer and firefighters have greater access to health coverage under separate bills recently signed by the governor.

State Sen. James Seward, R-Milford, sponsored the bill that allows volunteer firefighters and emergency service providers to participate in health-insurance plans offered by local municipalities. The volunteers would pay for their coverage, which would be offered at a group rate, he said.

"The bill provides an additional recruiting tool and helps expand health insurance to those who need it and it may be the boost that some volunteer needs to renew his card," Seward said in a media release. "It is particularly rewarding to have members of both parties support this bill on behalf of the volunteer firefighters and ambulance workers across the state."

Seward filed the other bill that was signed into law. The measure requires farm machinery to display standard, reflective slow-moving vehicle emblems _ orange triangles _ to improve visibility when being driven on public highways.

Seward said the bill was passed by the Senate and Assembly in response to a tragic and fatal accident in his district involving a passenger vehicle and a tractor towing a manure spreader. Because the manure spreader was not required to display any lights or the slow-moving vehicle emblem, the driver was unable to see the machine in front of him until it was too late.

Schuyler Lake resident Manfred Weidemann perished in the accident on state Route 28 south of Milford. After Weidemann, 69, died Dec. 23, 2004, his daughter, Carina Franck, said she wanted to do something to prevent another family from experiencing similar grief.

The bill requires all farm machinery, whether self-propelled or a towed implement, to display the slow-moving vehicle emblem. Currently, the emblem is required to be displayed on the machine or the towed implement of husbandry, not both.

The measure also clarifies that lights on tractors must be operating from one-half-hour after sunset to one-half hour before sunrise and when visibility for a distance of 1,000 feet isn't clear, Seward said.

The legislation was sponsored in the Assembly by Assemblyman Bill Magee, D-Nelson.