Here's how PennDOT trains snowplow drivers for the upcoming winter

Unlike a lot of people, Ann Rogers does not mind driving in the snow.

For the PennDOT driver, it’s something that comes with her job.

“I really love plowing snow,” said Rogers, who has been keeping state roads in the Uniontown area clear for the past three years.

Rogers was joined by about 10 other PennDOT snowplow operators Wednesday for training on a winding, half-mile obstacle course at the state’s storage yard along Henry’s Road in Unity. Drivers maneuvered snowplows equipped with a 12-foot wing on the right side of the vehicle, which made missing the traffic cones that set the boundaries even more difficult.

About 125 full-time snowplow operators in PennDOT District 12 — which consists of Fayette, Greene, Washington and Westmoreland counties — will undergo the training program this week and next, said Jay Ofsanik, a PennDOT spokesman for Uniontown-based District 12. The training has been conducted annually for about a dozen years, with the exception of last year because of covid restrictions, Ofsanik said.

As the drivers guided the trucks through the obstacle course, fellow PennDOT employees held clipboards and graded the drivers on how well they did. They received recommendations on how they could improve, then went through the course again, Ofsanik said.

The course offers different challenges — narrow roads, serpentine sections, driving in reverse and embankments on the side that made drivers adjust the height of the plow so as to not dig up dirt, Ofsanik said.

Knowing how to drive the snowplow safely with the wing plow extended is important, Ofsanik said, because the wing plow is used to clear snow away from the berm of the roads. If the heavy salt-laden trucks were to drive the berm to clear the snow, it would “break the berms down,” he added.

Like so many others in the trucking industry, PennDOT District 12 is looking for truckers with commercial driver’s licenses who want to be temporary snowplow drivers, Ofsanik said. It wants to supplement its force of 291 full-time drivers with about 110 temporary drivers, to have up to 400 drivers in the four counties.

PennDOT recently hired some drivers during a job fair at its Westmoreland offices along Donohoe Road in Hempfield, but Ofsanik said the district needs to hire about 40 more temporary employees. The state is paying those drivers $16 an hour, plus overtime when they work more than eight hours in a day, Ofsanik said.

Motorists might see plow trucks driving on highways free of snow over the next few weeks.

“They will do their dry runs now to be aware of any obstacles they might not see in the snow,” Ofsanik said.

Rogers said one of the biggest challenges “is not hitting stationary objects,” particularly along the old two-lane state highways where mailboxes are close to the road. Night driving sometimes is easier because the snowplow operators can see the lights of vehicles, Rogers said. Nearby vehicles would be blocked by the flying snow.

Not all of the challenges are avoiding inanimate objects.

Among the worst is “drivers passing the snowplow truck when there is a double yellow line on the road,” indicating a no-passing zone, Rogers said.