In the great pantheon of thankless jobs, driving a plow truck ranks right up there with public restroom attendants. They get no love.
The Leader rode along with Alberta Highway Services foreman Rod Vajna the morning of January 15, following a snow storm that had his crews doing double time through the night.
When we met up with Rod at 8:30 am, he’d been up since 3:00, having slept only a few hours the previous night, as workers from the Slave Lake yard rotated shifts battling the forces of nature.
Vajna is a foreman who is back in the rig for one more day, filling in for a new guy who starts tomorrow. “It takes a special kind of person to want to do this job,” Vajna explains. “These guys are all really dedicated to the work.” And the work is not easy. Lest anyone think that riding in a heated cab all day is all there is to it, think again.
Getting a class 1 or class 3 license is just a formality: Simultaneously plowing, winging, sanding in a pattern while working a proper line at 70km/h is more of an art form.
“I’ve had guys who have driven truck for years walk out after the first day of plowing, their hands shaking,” said Vajna.
Plowing is a different animal. There’s a lot of instinct involved and the variables are constantly shifting.
And, plowing really can’t be taught, though there is training. It’s a skill that is gained over seasons, measured by kilometers traveled, or tons of salt deposited. Or, as any trainee will admit, the number of road signs taken out in the line of duty.
Speaking of salt, the Slave Lake yard will drop 3000 tons of salt over the surrounding highways this winter. West to Assineau at the MD 124 sign, another 35 K east of town down highway 2, and up 88 to 754; that’s a lot of seasoning, but it’s a long, bland road.
Sitting in the passenger seat, high above the other traffic still doesn’t give you the feel of how to gauge the hidden center line. It’s more of a Zen thing.
Vajna has done this for seven years, so he doesn’t skip a beat when oncoming traffic appears a little too oncoming. He’s right on center. He’s twitching a joystick for the wing, flipping switches to direct the sander and watching mirrors, all the while casually relaying anecdotes that appear daily on the company’s answering service.
“Every day we get complaints. Every day we hear from people that think we are slacking off, or have deliberately ignored them,” says the foreman. Vajna, excuse the pun, takes these with a grain of salt.
“We get people calling to tell us there is ice on the road. People phone to tell us the roads are wet! We get complaints that oncoming traffic sprayed the windshield of the caller,” he deadpans. He recalls a minivan-driving senior who relayed their displeasure with his cleaning of the roads by flipping him the bird, while passing him uphill.
The humor is not lost on Vajna, nor is he jaded. The crew at Yard 224 just doesn’t have time to worry about petty complaints or redundant information. Theirs is a 24/7 operation. By the time they get to the end of the line, the beginning needs servicing again.
That’s how it is with Alberta’s winter roads. They could spend time counseling irate drivers, explaining to them the physics involved with spreading a few trucks over several hundred kilometers during a whiteout, but what would be point? The snow just keeps falling.
Your tax dollars at work.
The business of maintaining highways is costly. Each barebones truck clocks in at around $100 grand. Once they are outfitted with all the gear and controls, you are looking at another $75,000. And they don’t last long.
The 25,000 kg rig hauls around 12 tons of sand, salt and calcium while scraping thousands of pounds of steel blades down the road in ridiculous conditions. Maintenance is a constant, and salt plays havoc with the electrical systems.
The plow blades each weigh 450 pounds and need replacing about every three weeks. They are equipped with carbide tips; super strong steel that extends the blade’s life considerably. Even so, last winter Vajna says they went through 450 blades, each at a cost of $1200.
So, driving a plow truck isn’t glamorous. The drivers have long given up hope of any recognition for their tireless work at the front lines of road safety. Its likely, they didn’t ask for it in the first place. Still, the next time you feel like saluting a plow truck driver, consider using all five fingers.

Copyright © 2000 The Lakeside Leader. All Rights Reserved.
No part may be reproduced without written permission.

View our Privacy Statement.
Send website suggestions to the Webmaster