COLUMBUS, Ohio — With the weather changing from rain to freezing rain, plows will be out on the roads making sure they're safe for you to drive, which means you need to watch out.
“It doesn't matter who you talk to, you can find any of our highway technicians, they will have either a story about being hit or nearly being hit,” said Matt Bruning, a spokesperson with the Ohio Department of Transportation.
When it comes to the number of snow plow trucks that have been hit since November, which is the start of ODOT’s season, they’ve seen a rise.
“This winter in Ohio we have had 35 of our snowplows that have been hit across the state. That compares to 46 for all of last winter,” Bruning said.
And with ODOT already being down about 50% of its drivers, Bruning says this does have an effect.
“It's not even just a shortage of drivers, but you know you have to have the equipment for those drivers to drive. So when you think about it in terms of the snowplow trucks for example, you know if someone has a snowplow truck and take that truck out of service, that just means all of the other trucks on the nearby routes are going to have to extend their routes to cover the effected route,” said Bruning.
ODOT asks if you encounter any sort of snowplow or emergency vehicle on the roadways, make sure to slow down, move over and don’t drive with any distractions.
ODOT says crews have spent close to 60,000 hours repairing potholes since Jan. 1. They say crashes involving those vehicles are especially dangerous because workers are outside of their vehicles.