Editor’s Note
Ever wondered why your Safety Service Patrol vehicle is different from the ones in the neighboring state or even from the one your fellow Safety Service Patrol driver has? Or why some patrols carry some types of equipment, while other patrols carry different types? The team at Safe Highway Matters did, so we decided to do some investigating. This quarter’s issue focuses on answering these lingering questions and takes a closer look at the best practices involved with selecting patrol vehicles and equipment.
As a result of our research (and the great responses we received from our readers), Safe Highway Matters was able to not only focus on the reasoning behind vehicle and equipment selections, but also the newest types of SSP equipment available and the kind of equipment some SSP drivers are still hoping to see be made available to their patrol. Special thanks to Vince Fairhurst of Washington State DOT, Robert Vidrine and Corey Rhodes of Louisiana DOTD, Rebecca Gibson of New York State DOT and Jay Postlewaite of the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet who helped us to understand the thought and consideration that is involved in selecting vehicles and equipment and the most important factors that influence those decisions. An additional thank you to the author of our feature article, Leo Rickertsen, for his work contributing to this issue.
In other news this quarter, we have added a section to our State Resources page that includes equipment lists and proposals. We also posted our very first video on the feature article, detailing the equipment available in the INDOT Hoosier Helper patrol vehicle. We hope you enjoy it and would love to receive your feedback.
Our social media pages continue to be updated and provide up to date news for those SSP professionals who prefer to keep up with us throughout the quarter. We very much appreciate the feedback we receive and the suggestions for future article topics, questions of the quarter, and more. So, please share with us and let us know what part of the industry you’d like to learn more about. Chances are, if we haven’t already started looking into that part of the industry, we will be eager to learn more about it too!
We look forward to hearing from you.
Wishing you safe travels,
Rita Gallagher
Editor in Chief