And that's causing the pump.
Well, when we set up this topic, it was cold, it was snowy, and now it's going to be
50 degrees tomorrow, but I think that's a great time to talk about snow plows and emergency
vehicle safety when you don't have to think about it.
I think that's the best time to talk about it.
We're going to talk about it with Patrice Brunette is here.
She's a highways and parks superintendent and Robert Thomas highway shop supervisor, and
also actually works for the Ploughtrucks.
Yes, that's a big vehicle to run, you know, not too bad.
It's big.
It's big.
It's big.
And you got the plan.
You got people waving their fist at you when you drive past their house.
They get mad, especially if you have to bury the driveway.
You know what I do?
I wave and say thank you.
I really do because because I wouldn't want to get up early in the morning.
And have to because when you go on the roads, nobody plowed him yet.
Yeah.
So you got to go schlep there with the snow and everything and then get the plow truck
out and then have to put up with fist waving and anybody will throw anything at you.
They haven't done that.
Nope.
Okay.
Not yet.
There's a couple of eggs at your widget.
Big, you know what?
You want the street.
If they don't plow the street, then you complain that they didn't plow the street.
When they plow the street, you complain.
They plow it in front of your driveway.
What would you like them to do?
It has got to be done.
And I live on a main street too.
So after I get those shoveling, it comes back again.
We talked briefly off the air about, you know, when you have a snow emergency cars camp
beyond the street, you know, in the main streets, people parked there.
That means you got to go around them.
And then when they move their car, all that snow is there.
If they would have just followed the rules, everything would have been nice, but people
don't follow rules.
All right.
This is part of the Racine County Traffic Safety Commission's Staying Safe Program.
You can go to their site.
I don't know what it is.
But if you Google Staying Safe Racine County Traffic Safety, you will see exactly what
we're talking about right now.
They have all these things lined up there for you.
All right.
Now, the first one is this something we're going to talk about because somebody rear-ended
you truck.
Don't want to follow too close behind snow removal vehicles equipment.
How they do that?
How they, I mean, how close will they, you don't stop on a dime, do you?
Well, not with the 60,000-pound truck, so I'm not stopping on a dime, so how do they
do that?
They're just following too close.
I mean, on all of our trucks, we have signs that they stay back 200 feet.
Oh, the signs.
They be nothing.
Again, nobody reads anything these days.
So did they destroy their car?
A little bit, not too bad.
It was just a hood.
They didn't destroy your car, the truck, though.
I needed some repairs.
Did it really?
Yeah.
Yeah, and bent up my solter, and that's about it.
How old was the person?
A kid or an older person?
No, he's an older gentleman.
Like me?
A little bit younger.
Staying safe, huh?
OK, so how do you decide?
Have you guys decide when it's time to take the trucks out?
Because when it's, do you take it out while it's still snowing, where do you wait till
it ends?
How do you do that?
Well, well, when we go out on the road before, hopefully, before when it's forecasted,
we want to get ahead of it, so that we, because it takes four hours to get around
to a plow out, and then we don't come back into everything's cleaned up.
You know, I always thought, and I don't know if this is even possible.
They do it on football fields, but they put heaters underneath the turf.
Sure.
Because, and it's not obvious, though, it's the real turf.
They stick it under there.
And so somewhat the field gets unfrozen, and snow melts a little bit on the hash marks.
It's not even possible with our roads to do something like where it just melts the
snow automatically.
I think it's too expensive.
Because that's a lot of infrastructure and a lot of cost to that.
We have the courthouse as heated steps, and they're expensive to run and expensive maintain.
We have those pads you put down, our back porch we do it on the back of the house, the heat
pads you put down, and it keeps everything dry, so we didn't go sliding down the steps
at 100 miles an hour, crack our skulls.
So we have those, but you can do it for your entire side.
It's very expensive to do it, and you got to plug it in, and people got to steal it,
and then there's the brine you could put down, right?
Yep.
What does that do?
It just gives us some pre-treatment options.
So we'll go out when the roads are dry, and we know that something's coming, and it melts,
it keeps them melted a little longer, so I guess it's more time to respond.
So if it's something small, it might, we might not have to come in because the brine is
taking care of it, because it stays on the road, and then we also pre-treat our salt
with the brine to stop it from bouncing so much when it hits the road, so I'll wet down
and I'll stay on the road and set bounce into the shoulder.
I'm like, when I got pelted with the salt, I was cleaning my windshield and I came up,
and you hit my car and everything, it wasn't bad.
Okay, so you decide how many inches of snow on the ground does that have to be before
the plot truck comes out?
Anytime it's covered in the road or out, it's all, it's okay.
So.
We got it in Racine County.
Bobby.
We got about 100 trucks.
Whoa.
Yeah.
What do you store all the salt?
Well, we have a couple salt domes and state sheds, and what do you get it from?
We get it from the walkie, it all depends on the hardware store, so I, no, we get it
in bulk.
I know.
So.
Where do they come?
What do you get that's kind of salt from?
I mean, is it manufactured to dug out of the ground to salt mine?
Our salt comes from under Lake Erie.
So they truck it, we bulk order, truck it down, it comes down, and then we get it as
needed throughout the winter.
So order 1,000 tons at a time and then have it delivered.
Whoa.
You never ran out, did you?
No.
No.
You know, I, I want to get to all the stuff on you, but I got some other stuff I want
to talk about.
The, the big snow storm, which was on the groundhog day.
Oh, I remember.
Yeah.
I remember that.
Was it 2011 or something like that?
Yeah.
And it was, it was horrible and I, I left the house at about four in the morning to get
here by 530 and I would live 10 minutes away, 12 minutes away.
So I left the house and it was following a police car and eventually I couldn't see
him anymore.
I don't know where he went.
I don't know if he went up to the sky, went off the bridge, I don't know what
happened.
And then I couldn't see the main street bridge.
I couldn't see where the end of the bridge was.
So I started the panic because you can't see anything.
Am I going to go off?
Am I going to hit the railing?
Another car coming at me.
It couldn't see anything.
I started the panic.
I got down six straight and I got, you know, I got on the main drag, I got on 20 and
I get to Ohio and I turned down, there's no way to get to the other side of Ohio.
It's just, it's the berms too high and I couldn't get out of the victory avenue.
So I begged the guy at Walgreens, the manager, can I park my car here and he said, yeah,
pull it around the side and park the car there.
I walked nine tenths of a mile because I tracked it later on in 50 mile an hour winds.
The snow was up to my knees at font time and I got there at the building and our news
director Tom Carco met me and he said, get in here quick.
My wife packed food clothing.
I don't know how long she thought I was going to be here, but I'm glad she packed the clothing.
Yeah.
But when the the plow trucks were out all the time, but they couldn't keep up with it.
He was just too much snow and the berm along in front of Walgreens was so high, it was
up to my shoulders.
I had to throw my stuff over into the street and climb over the berm for my body over when
they didn't realize was my heart was failing.
One month later, I was having open heart surgery, the doctor said, I can't believe you made
of the life.
That's no.
But the trucks were out there.
They didn't stop.
Trucks don't get stuck.
Do they?
No, they do.
They do.
What do you do when a truck gets stuck?
I call for help and pull me out.
Wow.
How can you can't use a tow truck for that though?
I use tow truck and another pull truck.
Whoa.
We have graders and we have ash caches that will come out and pull us out if we get stuck.
Okay.
So when you're when people go behind a plow truck and it's I always like doing it because
then I get a fresh, clean road when you go behind a plow truck, it makes sense.
The problem because when you guys do abrupt maneuvers stopping, banking, turning and the
people behind you don't pay attention and then end up in the back of a plow truck.
Is that the only time you ever got hit?
Yeah.
Oh wow.
That's not bad.
How many years have you been doing it?
I've been doing it for six years.
Okay.
I usually plow the inner state.
What do you drop?
My phone.
You know, if this was school, you know what the teacher would say, give me the phone.
Yep.
You'll get it back at the end of the day.
Give me the phone.
You ever drive a truck?
No.
I've only I've been in them, but I'll pass it to her side only.
I'd be like if we could to be a passenger one of those things.
It's very cool.
It's a whole different perspective.
When somebody's shoveling the drive for you, give them a thumbs up when you plow it
back on.
No.
It's got to be done.
What do people expect?
You're not going to plow their driveway.
I mean, you got to come back after the snowstorm and come plow them plow the driveway.
That's what they want.
Yeah.
I come plow my driveway now.
It's the Racine County Traffic Safety Commissioner.
We're talking about snow plow and emergency vehicle safety.
Patrice Brunette is here.
Highways and parks.
Superintendent Robert Thomas is here.
Highways shop supervisor.
You in charge of all the plow trucks for what?
For maintenance and take care of them all.
Make sure they're all good and ready for the next snowstorm.
What are the trucks doing?
It's not snowing.
I mean, during the spring, summer and fall, what are they doing?
They do all kinds of stuff.
Paving.
I'll do it.
Multiuse for them.
Okay.
All right.
I want to hear some of the stories.
Let's get to some of the things here first though.
Slow snow plows are in service to maintain road conditions for safe travel.
Give them a break and I'll tell you, and I know people, you start screaming at you guys
using curse words and everything when you come by and plow them back in.
Would you rather the street not get plowed?
I mean, then you're going to complain to street twerren plowed.
I mean, this plus isn't minded, and the world's not perfect, you know?
Remember the slow down move over law for highway maintenance vehicles, equipment, including
tow truck operators, not only for police and fire vehicles.
Really?
We have to pull over for you guys, too.
Huh?
I think everyone now.
I need disabled vehicle.
Anybody that's stopped on the side of the road, you got to move over.
Yeah.
Got one ticket in my entire life.
One ticket.
I was doing a day.
I was driving a demo car for this radio station, and I'm getting on to the freeway.
He's going about 75 miles an hour, the cop had a car pulled over right at the end of
the acceleration lane, and this car didn't accelerate well.
So I'm accelerating, and I couldn't get into traffic because they're going 75 miles
an hour.
And the cop pulls me over.
He says, I saw you.
He was up on the hill.
I got to give you the ticket.
I said, where do you expect me to accelerate?
He said, first of all, he should be ticketing all the cars going 75 miles an hour in a 65
zone, because it was in Milwaukee.
And he said, give me the ticket, fought the ticket.
One.
Oh, good.
I couldn't pull over.
I didn't know where they want me.
And you can't get into traffic going 50 miles an hour and they're going 75.
Yeah.
Anyway, I digress.
All right.
So in other words, pull over.
Anybody try to get ahead of you on a snow, snowy day?
Oh, yeah.
All the time, especially up on the interstate, everybody's in the hurry to do 90 miles
an hour and it's snowing.
You know what?
And when I go to work in the morning, there's always somebody.
And I leave the house at 515.
There's always somebody right on my tail because they're late for work and I'm not going
to speed.
I'm not late for work.
I'm going to get here a half hour early because you're late for work.
So I got a speed and get into trouble.
Not going to happen.
All right.
Another digressing.
Do not attempt to pass or follow a plow too closely due to visibility issues.
Plows cannot travel as fast as other vehicles during heavy snow events and active plowing
operations.
Have a snow stone where you couldn't, the snow was so deep, you couldn't plow through
it.
Or did trucks just get through it?
No, our truck's pretty much pushed through it.
I mean, we just push it all to the right and make a way.
And if it gets too deep, we bring out the big iron and we do a job moving all the snow
if we have to.
Now tell me you didn't hear about the Homer Simpson episode when he was Mr. Plow.
Oh, yeah.
I heard about that.
Did you ever hear about that?
Mr. Plow.
That's my name.
My name again is Mr. Plow.
He bought a plow truck.
He was going to make money selling out plowing stuff out.
Any of that jingle, Mr. Plow.
That's my name.
That name again is Mr. Plow.
And he had to jack with Mr. Plow on it.
I knew every guy who drives a plow truck knows that jingle and on that show.
When plowing or shoveling your driveway, do not put snow into the street.
It's against the law that puts snow into the street.
All right.
Here's my question.
What do you put it?
When you plow on your driveway with your snow blower, I mean, you got a choice.
You can put it back on the sidewalk.
You can put it in the street.
Now, what do you put the snow in your yard?
You mean in my front yard?
Yeah.
What's tough when you're doing a snow blower, because it's the snow blowers don't throw
it like, you know, a hundred thousand feet.
They throw it a few, maybe two feet, three feet away.
And I know it's against the law, but sometimes I don't know where to put it now.
I usually put it on my neighbors right in front of his street there, because the plow
truck's going to come by and move it down the street.
If I do it in front of my house, they're going to move it right back in front of my driveway
again.
So I do it in front of his and they make it somebody else's problem down the block somewhere.
That's what I do.
Anyway, that's just the way I work it.
I want to hear some of the complaints you've received.
Oh, we get it.
A ton.
Oh, let's give some.
I want to hear some of them.
Well, we have a lot of new employees this year.
So we've done more mailbox repairs, probably already than we have in like last year.
It's weird.
Mailboxes hit her on the street.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's not typically us hitting it.
It's the weight of the snow that we're throwing and they'll just like obligate mailboxes.
So we get a lot of calls about their mailbox and when they can get their mail and everyone,
no one wants to go to the post office to get their mail.
So everyone's like chomping at the bit that they want to done like ASAP.
So but I mean, we got a lot to do and they take a lot of time and the ground's frozen.
So sometimes they do temporary ones and I never thought about that mailboxes.
Yeah.
So that's been a challenge this year.
Now, I did notice when I was going home on, I think it was 16th, 14th street, whatever.
I noticed the grass was ripped up on the, on the street just before, you know, between
the sidewalk and the street, I sense the plow truck just ripped it up.
When you hit something with the plow, there's the plow, you know, go underneath and give
away or just stops the truck.
No, it moves.
It moves to the ceiling.
If you're hitting a mailbox, mailbox, it breaks off and goes, but you hit a sign.
It tends to make a racket.
You guys have a scorecard in the truck, one mailbox, two more blocks.
No.
One side view mirror, two side view.
No.
Okay.
Just checking.
I don't know.
Give me some more complaints.
It's a lot of it about your plown people's driveways back in and on the snow that we leave
in their driveways or that we do, they have to go to their sidewalks again.
So we get a lot of people like, oh, I'm elderly and I can't, you guys put all this two
feet of snow in.
There's just nothing we can do.
Like the snow has to go somewhere.
Our job is to get it from the center to the shoulder and there's nowhere to put it.
It's not like we can take it with us or put it in the back.
So you know why I couldn't do your job?
I never had a job where I had a deal face to face with the public because I would get
on the phone once she's called and I'd say, what, what, what, I mean, I don't know what
to say.
It's a horrible thing when you're elderly and you can't shovel the snow by yourself.
And you know, it's the best thing to do is get a kid on your block on call, you know,
give him 20 bucks, give him 30 bucks to clean you out and just keep him on call.
He's your go-to guy.
Some teenager that needs the money and they'll plow you out.
And we get kids all the time, knocking on our door, do you want us to shovel?
No, I gotta, you know, I'll do it myself this time.
But yeah, if it's deep, come on, I'll pay you, I'll pay you 30, 40 bucks to go plow
me out.
Give me some.
We got another two.
Give me a minute.
Um, we've broken windshields before.
On cars.
How do you do that?
Just the way to the snow.
We're on the interstate, maybe going a little too fast and for conditions and we blew
it over the, the center wall and broken windshield.
Really?
Yeah.
And never thought about that.
Yeah.
So I view mirrors that that can understand.
I tuck mine in all the time, but a lot of people don't and, you know, you can get too close
and they can happen.
But you're not supposed to park there, so that's what do you say that to people?
Um, but I actually don't get a lot of those, so I would say, well, what are you doing
there?
That's what you get.
Next time, don't park.
See, that's why I can't deal with the public.
Well, it doesn't get you anywhere.
Okay.
Give me one more.
Oh, another one.
What else do people complain about?
Oh, sometimes they'll complain about obviously how often we're going past, right?
Because they want us there every half hour and we're there once every, once every four
hours or once every three hours because we got a whole loop to do.
So everyone's like, where's the plows at?
They're not out.
Give us time.
We will be there.
We got multiple streets to do.
We got a thousand lane miles to do.
We will be there.
We just can't be there every half hour.
I sense you do the streets in alphabetical order and I'll tell you why I sense that because
we live on victory Avenue here, this radio station.
It never gets plowed until like two days later.
And I think it's because it's V for victory.
I think you guys do it in alphabetical order.
I can just guess.
And the problem is it's, it's a kind of a small street here.
It's not that big a street.
Sure.
Now do you guys play, you don't plow alleyways, do you?
No.
I guess up there, everybody do their own alley.
Yeah.
We don't have alleys where, where our roads are, we're west of the inner state.
We have all the county and state roads, so we're not doing the city roads.
But people call up, where's the truck?
I got snow on my street.
Constantly.
Yeah.
See, that's why when I live on, you live on a main street, like they come by every few
minutes.
I hear them all that long.
Which is good.
Right.
You know, you want the street cleared.
And when I get out on the street, I don't want to do like that groundhog day thing or
I can't see anything.
I couldn't even open my garage that year, like at the snow was all hooked to the right
roof.
It was two feet, 24 inches of snow.
And while I was at work, my wife was digging and when I got home, going into their
met was like a tunnel.
It was over six feet high because all the snow blew.
It was windy and everything, and it all piled up by the gate.
And I don't know how she dug us out there.
I don't know how that happened.
All right.
Quick review here.
Quick review.
Do not follow too closely behind snow removal vehicles, equipment, do you have a sign
back there?
Says stay away.
Yeah.
It's all in reflective lettering.
Oh, is it OK?
Stay back 200 feet.
You should have a squirter back and squirt them with something, you know, when they get
too close.
Well, OK.
Now you're thinking, be watchful for rut maneuvers and stopping, backing and turning.
Snow plows are in service to maintain good road conditions for safe travel.
Give them a break.
Remember the Emily Elf, your money to plow their driveway.
Anybody have a throat?
A couple of bucks.
Yeah.
No.
OK.
I would remember these.
Remember to slow down, move over for highway maintenance vehicles and equipment just like
police and fire and ambulances.
Yeah.
You're not attempt to pass or follow a plow too closely due to visibility issues.
Well, I was going to travel those fasts of the vehicles during heavy snow events.
Take you a long time to stop those things.
Yeah, for the most time.
Not like a semi, but, you know, no, a little bit shorter than a semi.
Yeah.
I'm plowing your shoveling your driveway.
Do not put the snow into the street against the law.
Stay back a minimum of 200 feet.
Never tailgate behind snow removal vehicles and equipment.
And you got that guy who rammed your vehicle.
Yeah.
Well, you guys are good having you in here.
Unfortunately, well, fortunately, it's going to be 50 degrees tomorrow, so I have to worry
about it.
But this is good to know while you don't have to worry about it.
Right.
But you're ready.
You get calls right through two o'clock in the morning, one o'clock in the morning.
Yeah.
And you're out there.
Oh, he's almost like radio.
OK.
We are lucky.
The people who plow our driveways here and our, we got the whole block here.
We own the whole block.
So the snow people who do our parking lot have to do the entire block.
All the sidewalks.
Yeah.
We own the whole block.
Yeah.
And we have all the sidewalks.
And sometimes I'll come in and I hear it in the distance.
I hear the snowblower go.
And there are the other side of the neighborhood.
Blower and other stuff.
Patrice Brunette, highway and park superintendent, Robert Thomas, highway shop supervisor.
And I want to thank Tom Knitter, who puts us all together from the receiver.
I've seen county traffic safety commission love having you guys in every month.
You got this is important stuff.
And if you're tired of the snow, you can do what my daughter did, moved to Florida.
But then you got hurricanes and things like that.
So every time it's snow, she calls me, you got snow, huh, hurricane blew the roof off
your house.
My snow will be gone in two hours.
I'll just shovel it and the sun will come out.
You have to wait weeks because I'm with the picture roof.
So thank you guys for coming in.
I know it's early in the morning and you don't have to smell you don't have to
plow anything today.
So yeah, that's good.
Thank you guys for coming in.
Okay.
Thank you very much.