Let it snow? Not so much, where transportation is concerned this December. A shortage of snowplow operators could threaten the safety of US roads and highways in some states, as storms gather pace in the deepening winter.
A number of states, including Oregon, Ohio and Utah, are dealing with a shortfall in the supply of snowplow drivers normally needed to get the public through the season.
In some states, transportation officials have reported that they have not managed to fill dozens of snowplow driver vacancies.
Oregon officials have been unable to find employees who can operate snowplows, salt trucks and other winter maintenance equipment. The lack of personnel could spell trouble during periods of heavier snowfall.
“People are going to notice the difference when we get hit by a big storm,” said Don Hamilton, a spokesperson for the Oregon department of transportation, to Fox Weather earlier in December, at a time when parts of the state were already under winter storm warnings.
Utah was also advertising an unusual number of openings for snowplow drivers as jobs went unfilled throughout the state, a local ABC news affiliate reported.
And states in the midwestern region are also facing a lack of snowplow drivers. In Ohio, state officials are warning of vacancies that could affect the plowing of several main roads throughout the state, reported Axios, and last winter the state was hit with several intense storms.
Experts say that a combination of relatively low wages and harder working conditions has made the job less enticing for new recruits in a lively jobs market.
“This is really a funding issue,” said Doug Anderson, the incoming chairman of the National Coalition for Open Roads.
“The importance of funding winter maintenance also includes paying drivers a wage that can keep them in the plows.”
In addition to often-uncompetitive wages, especially in western states, snowplow drivers are seeing tougher conditions as winter storms have intensified over the years.
Anderson emphasized that the winter maintenance of roads is an economic issue. If major interstate highways have to close because of poor road conditions, it can cost the economy millions, while wintertime maintenance of local streets and highways also prevents traffic accidents.
Every year, more than 1,300 people are killed and 116,000 injured in the US while driving on snowy, wet or icy roads, according to the US Department of Transportation.
“They’re literally saving lives by being out there,” said Anderson of the snowplows.
He added that many local officials were working to make snowplowing more efficient and manageable for drivers, including by obtaining better equipment.
But a key solution to fixing the shortage of winter maintenance drivers is to increase wages, Anderson said, which also means increasing state and municipal budgets for wintertime road maintenance.
“Unless policymakers [as well as] legislative and procurement groups are willing to say, ‘Yes, we’re fully going to invest, we’re fully behind you’ [then] it just doesn’t make sense,” he said.