Michigan, Minnesota, New York and Nevada are looking at the use of the Pikalert Enhanced Maintenance Decision Support System. The idea is to give officials a near-real time picture of road conditions. According to Petoskey News.com :
“This offers the potential to transform winter driving safety,” NCAR scientist Sheldon Drobot, who oversees the design of the system, said in a statement. “It gives road crews an incredibly detailed, mile-by-mile view of road conditions. They can quickly identify the stretches where dangerous ice and snow are building up.”
Through the use of sensors on snowplows the idea is that information with be shared through satellite and radar observations and computer weather models. The areas that are most dangerous could then be dealt with as quickly as possible.
From time to time, ideas come forward like this. Hopefully, it will work. It still comes down in many cases to slowing down.
