A Clear Roads project has earned top honors among research presented by U.S. authors at the PIARC 16th World Winter Service and Road Resilience Congress, which was held last month in Calgary. The project, Defensive Driving for Snowplow Operators, was the subject of an award-winning paper presented at the conference by a Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) research team led by principal investigator Matthew Camden.
PIARC’s U.S. National Committee selected the VTTI paper as the top entry by a U.S. author in the winter service category. The paper describes the team’s work in developing two new modules for Clear Roads’ snowplow operator training series: defensive driving and safe driving. Free for any public agency to download and customize, these training materials help operators learn to anticipate and prevent situations that can lead to snowplow crashes.
The study’s project champion, Doug McBroom of the Montana Department of Transportation, recently chatted about the project with Snow and Ice Pooled Fund Cooperative Program (SICOP) Coordinator Rick Nelson, host of AASHTO’s SICOP Talks Winter Ops podcast. Listen to their conversation on Episode 57 of the podcast.
Access the training modules: Clear Roads Training Resources