Saturday, November 30, 2019

Snowplow Awareness—Be Safe This Winter

Did you know that Local 63 members are busy in various parts of Alberta maintaining the province’s highways? In the winter, that means keeping roads safe with snowplows.

Over 160 Local 63 members are employed by Ledcor Highways Ltd. maintaining the roads in central and northern Alberta. If there’s one message they would like you and the rest of the driving public to know it’s to slow down and back off.

Local 63 and Ledcor Highway Maintenance are running a public safety campaign to support snowplow drivers in northern Alberta. The campaign encourages drivers to be safe around snowplows—most of all for their own safety as well as for the safety of the operators.

It sounds like an obvious message, but every year accidents and near misses happen that could have been avoided. The goal of the public service announcement isn’t just to tell people to drive safely during winter driving conditions but to know that there are real people driving the trucks who have families of their own who also want to get home safely.

If you haven’t seen it already, go to YouYube to watch a video coproduced by Ledcor and CLAC asking the public to be safe around snowplows this winter.

There’s also an easy to remember acronym to help you know what to do when driving near snowplows.

Stay SAFE!

Snowplow operators can’t always see you.

Avoid passing—there’s not enough safe space.

Follow at least 60 metres behind a snowplow.

Extra care when multilane plowing/sanding is in progress—do not pass!

Winter driving is here. Let the snowplows get you home safely!

In case you missed it, check out our feature on Local 63 members Erin Vanderhoek and David Horst in the December 2019 Guide. You can find it online on Your Voice. Erin and David are snowplow operators helping to keep the roads in central and northern Alberta clear and safe.

Snowplow Awareness—Be Safe This Winter

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