Light it up: Provincial and state departments

Light it up Provincial and state departments work to increase plow visibility

By Bailey Hildebrand-Russell

Across Canada, most winter maintenance vehicles are equipped with orange and yellow flashing lights in effort to warn drivers to stay a safe distance away. But several American states find a different-coloured light works better to notify drivers of equipment and, as a result, prevent crashes.

Ohio has been using strobing green lights on snow plows since 2012. More recently in spring 2016, a bill passed in the state of Michigan amending the Michigan Vehicle Code allowing state, county and municipal agencies responsible for snow removal and other winter maintenance activities to use green lights in addition to amber lights on snow plows. That following winter, 70 per cent of Michigan’s 83 county road commissions used green flashing, rotating or Photos courtesy of MDOT Photo.

oscillating lights on winter maintenance vehicles, according to the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT); but not without the lights being tested two years prior in Kent County with great success.

“We haven’t had any rear-end accidents with the green lights on the trucks that we’ve had for the past two years and that’s what we’re really trying to eliminate,” Jerry Byrne, Kent County Road Commission deputy managing director, said in a news release . “Folks slow down and don’t rearend the backs of the trucks. We’ve had injury incidents in the past, so our goal is to spend a little money to save the number of accidents.”

Why green? According to MDOT, studies suggest people can differentiate more shades of green than any other colour.

“Our visual system would be more attracted to a bright green light versus a bright white flashing light in a heavy snowstorm,” Dr. Bernie Tekiele of the Michigan Eye Institute said in an informational video released by MDOT. “That reason would be because of the contrast that exists between the green and white snow, number one, and number two, our visual system is piqued to be sensitive to the green/ yellow spectrum. That is where most of the overlap occurs in the cone designation of the cells that we have in our retina.”

That means greater visibility of winter maintenance vehicles using green lights and less crashes with truck operators and motorists, particularly rear-end incidents.

In addition to the safety aspect, the lights aren’t too costly. In most cases, it’s a switch of the lens covering the light on existing vehicles in the fleet. On new trucks, it’s the same amount of work as a plain amber or white light.

“The cost, really, to the state is just the lens on the back of a light. It’s small. Something less than $100 per truck,” Mark Geib, MDOT engineer of operations field services, said in a release. “So, since we put lights on anyway, in time there’s really going to be no additional cost to speak of.”

Coinciding with the new lights, MDOT has rolled out an informational campaign called When Green Means Slow. Meanwhile Byrne said there likely won’t be any confusion between green traffic lights and the lights on snow plows.

“These green lights are going to be flashing,” Byrne said in the When Green Means Slow video. “You’re going to come up to the back of these trucks, it’s flashing, it’s a quick flash. It’s not a green light at a traffic signal. It’s going to catch your attention. Most of the jurisdictions are running the amber with the green, so you have the combination of the two, so there should be no confusion.”

Increasing visibility north of the border While in Ontario only firefighters and volunteer medical responders are allowed to have flashing green lights on their vehicles, according to Ontario’s Highway Traffic Act, the Ministry of Transportation determined it needed to increase the visibility of winter maintenance vehicles several years ago; especially since most plowing and sanding there is done by contractors with different types of vehicles in different colours with different lights. There was a lack of consistency, or as the ministry called it in the Winter 2015 issue of its seasonal publication Road Talk , a lack of “brand identity.”

This led the department to create a standard for all snowremoval equipment. In 2013, the ministry conducted in-house research and tests to determine how to increase visibility. Several tests demonstrated that “the best conspicuity panel is a checkerboard pattern in fluorescent yellow-green and black.”

winter of 2013-2014, the ministry decided blue and amber LED lights should augment the conspicuity panel in an “H” shape to show the height and width of the vehicle to other drivers. The research also suggested “that the existing roof lighting on snow removal vehicles be replaced with an amber and blue LED light bar.”

According to the ministry, research demonstrated that blue stands out the most both day and night, and also that a combination of coloured lights is more attention-grabbing than a single colour. •

Michigan Department of Transportation, “Green Means Slow,” http://www.michigan.gov/documents/mdot/ WhenGreenMeansSlow_544477_7.pdf (accessed March 29, 2018).

Michigan Department of Transportation, “When Green Means Slow: Winter maintenance vehicles getting green lights to improve visibility,” http://www.michigan.gov/mdot/0,4616,7-151-- 398805--,00.html (accessed March 29, 2018).

Michigan Department of Transportation, “When Green Means Slow,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUCHgrktrK8, video, (accessed March 29, 2018).

Ontario Ministry of Transportation, “Re-Establishing a Brand,” Road Talk, http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/publications/pdfs/ road-talk-newsletter-winter-2015.pdf (accessed March 29, 2018).