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Look, On The Road! It's Super Plow
SEWilco writes: "The Minneapolis Star Tribune points out there's a high-tech snowplow being road tested around the country. It uses differential GPS, radar, joystick-controlled plow, rumble seat, and a heads-up display for zero-visibility driving. CNN and Nando/AP had related reports. I wonder if they'll automate a plow conga line." These will still be useful for a few more years as global warming advances...
got to get that thing an IR vidio camera projecting on the head up display. Great it can stay in the lane during a white out but can it see the hot little bodies of children playing in the snow? Every two or three years a child in alaska (who has usually tunneled into a existing snow berm to make a snow fort) is covered over when the plow comes through. somtimes they are found immediately, somtimes they are assumed to have been abducted but are found 20 yards from their house when spring thaw ("breakup") comes... Seems silly until you ask anyone who has grown up in the snow how many times they have had hazardous experiences with plows. Personally I have had a plow traveling at 45-50 mph throw a great gout of slush at me that burried me up to the waist. Un-fun soaked to the bone and trapped when it's 25 dedrees, dark and windy. And if they don't care about children in the road, a 2000 pound bull moose will rip the blade right off a plow. Just ask the Alaska Rail Road that in one 360 mile trip has hit as many as 17 moose.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
Cars behind him started to get stuck and the truck eventually sunk into the field too, before any of them realized they weren't on the road!
(Note that it rarely snows here and when it does it's only a few inches. That day saw 24 inches drop in 24 hours. The state doesn't have the equipment to handle that kind of snow. It was great fun!)