Snowplows help keep our roads safe, but drivers need to use great caution when encountering them on the road. The Cook County Highway Department would like all drivers to heed their advice on staying safe on the roads during the winter months.
The snow season has arrived. People in Cook County are still on the move, driving to and from work and traveling to appointments and services elsewhere. Knowing how to maximize safety around snowplows and graders is an important part of driving responsibly in winter conditions.
The Cook County News-Herald sat down with County Highway Engineer David Betts and Maintenance Supervisor Russell Klegstad to talk about how to maximize safety when snowplowing crews are out.
The highway crew tries to be out on the roads plowing when more than two inches of snow accumulate, but conditions can vary greatly throughout the county. “I’ve been accused of plowing half an inch of snow near Gunflint Lake,” Supervisor Klegstad said, “but it’s because there was four inches of snow mid-Trail.”
Sometimes it takes the highway crews two or three days to get to all the roads it maintains in the wintertime, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t working hard. Supervisor Klegstad is sometimes out checking roads at 2:30 in the morning if it starts to snow. He likes to have crews going by 4:00 a.m. so the school buses don’t have any trouble.
Klegstad informs the Law Enforcement Center when the crews are out. If it’s snowing across the whole county and the Highway Department is fully staffed, they may have as many as nine trucks and four graders out.
Driving behind a plow
In a snowstorm, vehicles should stay at least 200 feet behind a plow. How far is 200 feet? “If you can’t see their mirrors,” said Engineer Betts, “they can’t see you.” The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) recommends keeping an eight-second separation behind any snowplow or other “moving work zone.”
Drivers “need to stay behind the snow cloud,” said Supervisor Klegstad. If cars drive inside the snow cloud, people behind them don’t know they’re there.
Should a driver ever pass a snowplow? It’s usually best to stay behind it because the road ahead of it is likely to be bad, said Klegstad. Re-entering the lane ahead of a snowplow poses “great danger,” he said, because the road is probably very slippery there. If the visibility is good, however, it is legal to pass a snowplow.
Sometimes plow drivers move over for traffic if they are cleaning up the side of the road after a storm, for example. Drivers should look for the plow driver to “invite” them to pass, Klegstad said.
Drivers should make sure they know whether a plow is slowing up and moving over for other vehicles to pass or slowing up and moving over because it is about to turn around. If that is the case, Betts said, the plow operator might not see the vehicles behind the plow.
Be careful not to brake too fast, Klegstad said. Cars behind you might not be able to slow down as fast as you. Be very careful when passing other cars, he added.
Pavement, gravel, and salting
Cook County does not have a “clear pavement” policy, Engineer Betts said, under which pavement will be clear within 12 hours of a snowfall. “For us,” he said, “it’s to have a drivable surface.”
“Salt and gravel roads don’t belong together,” said Supervisor Klegstad. Cook County’s gravel roads generally do not get salted because the salt makes the road soft, creating bumps and dips. It also turns snow into slush. All of the sand the county keeps on hand has about 10 percent salt in it. This mixture is laid down on hills and at bus turnarounds on gravel roads, however.
When gravel roads get icy, the county puts grooves into their surfaces. Plowing down to the gravel would result in losing the gravel surface.
The county does “centerline sanding” on straight stretches, laying down a heavy layer of salt/sand mix in a narrow strip down the centerline where the road reaches a peak. The salt melts the snow and ice there and the salty water runs down underneath the snow and ice on each lane, eventually clearing the whole roadway. Salt/ sanding the entire lane tends to leave bare spots mixed with snow spots where the salt/sand didn’t land.
Headlights
“People have got to start turning headlights on,” Engineer Betts said.
Supervisor Klegstad agreed. Referring to one snowstorm, he said, “I’ve never seen as many cars without their headlights on.” He called the Law Enforcement Center and asked them to start pulling people over for not having their headlights on.
A car without its headlights on behind a snowplow cannot be seen by oncoming cars because of the “snow cloud” behind the plow.
“Running lights” are not enough when the weather is bad. Whenever windshield wipers are needed, headlights should be on. Even if snow is falling but wipers are not needed, headlights should be on. According to Betts, the law says headlights should be on whenever there’s “inclement weather.”
Parking on the side of the road
Cars should avoid parking on the sides of roads when it’s snowing or might start snowing or when plows could be coming through to clean up after a storm. Plowing around parked cars leaves snow banks too close to the roadway, and snow plowed onto a car can even dent it.
“We do lots and lots of parking lots,” said Supervisor Klegstad, “so cars can park off the road.”
The department pays special attention to parking lots before the trout opener in the middle of January. “It’s well worth plowing the lots,” Klegstad said.
Turnarounds
The Highway Department maintains turnarounds for its snowplows throughout the county, including at boat landings where people go to ice fish. One turnaround on Clearwater Road was so full of cars last winter that the county plow truck had to go out onto the lake in order to turn around. The hill behind it was too steep to back up on and there was no other place to turn around anyway, said Klegstad.
Drivers should leave room for plows to turn around at the end of every plowed road.
Snow banks
“We like snow banks,” Supervisor Klegstad said. They are important for plow drivers as well as regular drivers. In rural areas, knowing where the road is can be very difficult in a snowstorm. Snow banks help define where the road is, and when visibility is very low, plow drivers are guided by the way they feel against the plow.
Snow banks also help keep cars from heading down embankments if they start sliding off the road.
If snow banks start getting really high, the Highway Department “benches” them, shearing off the top but leaving a couple of feet of snow underneath. New snowplow equipment gives operators a lot of flexibility in grooming the side of the road.
Sightlines
Cutting brush back and shearing the tops off snow banks is very important at intersections, driveways, and mailboxes. Sightlines need to be clear so drivers can see other traffic.
In Grand Marais
. The Cook County Highway Department plows all the roads in the City of Grand Marais that are above Highway 61 even though only some of them are county-owned. If you see a grader coming toward you from the other direction on a narrow street, the best thing you can do is to turn onto another street so the grader doesn’t have to maneuver around you.
If a grader is in front of you, stay far, far behind it, because when it gets to the end of the street, it is likely to back up in order to turn around and plow the other side of the street. Last winter, a grader operator had to enter Highway 61 in order to turn around because a car was following close behind it. The car driver was lucky the grader operator even saw the car, however, because when vehicles get too close, they can’t be seen. . When the high school charges kids to park their cars in the school parking lot, a lot of kids start parking on the city streets, especially on County Road 7 (CR7 or Fifth Street). This becomes a danger to their own safety in winter conditions when they get out of their cars and walk on the edge of the traffic lane.
When cars are lined up on CR7, the Highway Department crew can’t plow to the edge of the street, leaving snow ridges between the traffic lane and the parking lane, and they can’t plow the sidewalk with the skid steer because packed snow, sand, and ice would get thrown onto the cars, possibly damaging them. . The county’s plowing priorities within the city limits are the county owned roads: Eighth Avenue West, the Old Gunflint, Broadway, and Second Avenue East. First Avenue West is also a priority because it is part of the Safe Routes to School plan.
Designing roads
The Highway Department continues to try to improve the roads to make them safer even in stormy weather. For example, the hill by the Gunflint Lake scenic overlook has an S-curve and a hill and is not very safe in snowy conditions. Engineer Betts said the department is looking at what needs to be done to the road to make it safer.
Tips from the Minnesota Department of Transportation:
. Fully equipped trucks weigh as much as 15 times more than an average car.
. A single-axle plow (one set of wheels in the back) can weigh up to 50,000 pounds when loaded.
. A new single-axle truck costs $170,000. . During the winter of 2010-11, 72 crashes around the state involved vehicles hitting snowplows.
. The snow flying up around plow blades obscures visibility beside and behind the snowplow.
. The severity of the winter significantly affects the amount spent on snow and ice removal.
. Heavy, wet snow followed by a cold snap requires more time to clear than dry snow.
. MnDOT has 93 advanced weather sensor stations across the state that provide data on weather and pavement conditions. Some sensors are embedded in the roadways.
. To get current MnDOT road condition information, call 511 or visit www.511mn.org.
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