Winter is coming

Winter is coming – a common phrase not only among TV viewers, but also among drivers.

The problems with snow and ice

Every winter drivers must face two major challenges that come with the cold season – snow-covered roads and icy roads. They make it harder or even impossible to reach destination because sometimes snow-covered roads become simply unaccessbile for most vehicles. Futhermore, icy and slippery roads increase risk of vehicle accidents and threatens to property and human safety.

Who is responsible?

When an accident happens due to bad road conditions everyone starts looking for the responsbile institution or company.

For example, in case of an accident due to a snowy, icy or uncleaned road, the city municipality or a certain road cleaning company will need to take responsibility. Meaning that at some point the insurance company will be in touch with them to cover up the accident costs. However, the city municipality or road cleaning company ussualy dennies their fault by affirming  that they have cleaned the roads as agreed.

However, here comes the important question – how to prove that roads were cleaned properly, when weather changes so fast during the winter season?

Telematics solutions

Certain fleet management solutions can help to clarify who is responsible and who is not. The most common solutions of  such type are:

• Snowplough blade position monitoring
• Gritter and spreader monitoring
• Real-time road condition monitoring

When a snowplough is equipped with a GPS tracking device, it can show not only where the vehicle at a certain time was, but also when the snowplough blade was put down and road was being cleaned. The same principle applies to gritters and spreaders – it can be seen when the mechanisms were working and what parts of the road were cleaned. Finally, when such road cleaning information is available, most municipalities makes this information open for public, so that people could choose the safest route – the one  that was recently cleaned.