Learning to drive a snowplow

by Michele Regenold

Megan Kroeger, 14, slides behind the wheel of the snowplow simulator and turns on the “engine.” The sound of a diesel truck engine starting up fills the trailer. The driver’s seat and steering wheel vibrate.

Megan looks through the simulated windshield at the snow-covered highway. She grips the steering wheel, takes a deep breath, and reaches for the accelerator.

“I know you’re going to put your seatbelt on,” says Scott Robinson, a snowplow operator with 10 years of experience and one of the Iowa Department of Transportation’s trainers.

Megan laughs and straps on the seatbelt. Then she eases the truck down the ramp and onto a four-lane divided highway. She’s had a learner’s permit for three months.

“Find the centerline and work from the centerline out,” Robinson tells her. He stands a couple of steps behind Megan’s shoulder.

She maneuvers the truck into the right lane and slowly picks up speed. She can see traffic in her rear view mirror and out her side window as a car starts to pass her.

The snowplow simulator “can do everything a real truck can do,” Robinson says. That  includes turning around, spreading salt, sliding into a ditch, and getting rear ended by other drivers.

“Nobody’s crashed this one yet,” jokes John Haas, executive officer in the Iowa DOT’s Office of Maintenance.

The simulator looks like a game at a video arcade. It has a driver’s seat, a steering wheel, and a 180-degree display that simulates the windshield and side windows. It has all the controls of a truck—a seat belt, accelerator, brakes, turn signals. The sound effects, visual effects, and physical effects are all synchronized. If the truck spins out, the driver hears it, sees it, and feels it.

The simulator is installed in a trailer that gets hauled all around the state. The Iowa DOT has trained about 600 people so far using the new simulator.

When a driver trainee is in the simulator, the trainer can monitor his or her progress from a computer at the other end of the trailer. The trainer can also add obstacles—like a deer or a stalled vehicle—that the driver has to react to. Or the trainer can change the scenario from daytime to nighttime, or from four-lane to two-lane, or urban to rural.

Other hazards that snowplow drivers face, in real life and in the simulator, include

• poor visibility due to a blizzard, high winds, and/or nighttime plowing
• icy roads and bridges
• aggressive drivers
• slow or fast vehicles

In the simulator, drivers get a chance to react to hazards—and make mistakes—that it would be too dangerous to practice on in real life.

Robinson says the simulator lets snowplow drivers practice “decision driving” in stressful situations. Both new and experienced drivers benefit from the practice.

In addition to training in the simulator, each new Iowa DOT driver/operator is paired with an experienced operator. The new operator rides along for several snow events and then drives with his or her mentor in the truck. The mentor decides when the new operator is ready to go it alone.

Operating a snowplow is tough duty. The first shift of a new storm can last up to 16 hours. After that, shifts run no more than 12 hours until the storm is over and the roads are cleared.

Operators are assigned specific routes that they plow. Robinson, for example, plows Interstate 35 in Iowa from mile marker 111 in Ames north to mile marker 128. It takes Robinson about one and a half hours to complete one circuit, depending on how much and how heavy the snow is.

After one full circuit, he returns to the maintenance garage to refill his truck with salt or brine and has something to eat or drink himself. Keeping the snowplow driver well fueled is important for everyone’s safety.

Megan has gotten the truck up to 40 miles per hour, the standard for plowing on the Interstate. She realizes she’s coming up on a slow semi. She glances in her rear view and side view mirrors.

“Signal your intentions,” Robinson says.

She flips on the turn signal and pulls into the left lane, barely missing the semi. It was going slower than she thought.

Once she’s past the semi, a car zooms up on her right. It’s trying to pass on the right. It bumps Megan and she spins into the median.

The truck comes to a stop in the snowy median. Megan is breathing hard. “This is so terrifying,” she says.

The truck is okay. She kept it from sliding into oncoming traffic. And bonus! She’s not stuck. She won't have to call a wrecker.

“Get yourself out of there and keep going,” Robinson says.

Megan checks for traffic, signals her intention, and pulls back onto the Interstate. She has a job to do and she’s going to do it.

About the job: Equipment (snowplow) operator

Basic requirements/qualifications

You have to be at least 18 years old to become an equipment operator for the Iowa DOT. You need a class B commercial driver’s license (CDL), and you have to get a class A CDL soon after being hired.

Competition for these jobs is pretty stiff. Quite a few people in their forties or fifties change careers and come to work at the Iowa DOT as equipment operators. At the Iowa DOT, the equipment operator position is the entry-level job for all technician jobs in maintenance, construction, and materials.

The position is year-round. When it’s not snowing, operators help maintain their equipment. They also do some outside maintenance like replacing guardrails. In warmer weather, operators help with work like road repair, sign installation, and mowing.