DELAWARE and NEW PHILADELPHIA, OH – The Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) is updating its snowplow trucks with green strobe lights to help prevent accidents. ODOT is also prepping its bridges using salt brine as area weather stations predict winter road conditions and frost.

Starting with the snowplows, ODOT said it’s the first state to use the green lights on its trucks. ODOT said studies show green lights are easier for people to detect than other colors, so the department is adding the green strobe lights to the vehicles’ existing amber lights to create a unique color pattern that motorists are more likely to notice.

For prepping area bridges, for example in its 11th district, ODOT uses information from 10 Road Weather Information Sensors (RWIS) stations across seven counties, along with data from meteorologists, to detect when the temperature drops below 32 F and send crews out to prep bridges to prevent black ice and frost formation. ODOT added that it can take 10 times more salt than the amount used in a salt brine solution to break up hard pack snow on bridges and roads once it’s formed.

Examples of other public entities that use salt brines include Minnesota's Department of Transportation and Sparks, Nev.