Indiana, PA – PennDOT is announcing the 45 miles per hour (mph) speed limit reduction with commercial vehicles in the right lane only on Interstate 80 in Clarion and Jefferson counties is being lifted.
With temperatures continuing to drop this evening and additional winter weather throughout this week, motorists are encouraged to:
- Turn on your low beams, even during the daytime to make your vehicle more visible to other motorists.
- Turn off the cruise control on snow covered, wet, or icy roads. Cruise control provides constant power to your wheels. In a situation where your wheels are spinning on wet, icy, or snow-covered roadways, you need to reduce power to regain control.
- If the road looks wet but there is no splash coming from the car’s tires ahead of you, it may be ice.
- On packed snow, decrease your speed by half. On ice, slow your vehicle to a crawl. In both scenarios, motorists should leave more space than normal between you and the vehicle ahead.
- Clear your vehicle of snow and ice before starting to drive including the windows, hood, trunk, roof, headlights, taillights, and signals.
- Always wear your seatbelt.
- Stock your vehicles with a windshield brush/scraper, food, water, warm clothes, blankets, cell phone charger, a small snow shovel, and any specific needs such as baby supplies, medication, and pet supplies.
- If you don’t have to travel, stay home.
- If you do have to travel, be patient with other motorists and the snowplows. If snow is falling at one inch per hour and a plow route takes four hours to complete, there will be four new inches of snow on the roadway at the starting point once the plow begins their next pass on that route. Motorists should always allow plenty of space when driving near plow trucks. Also, for their own safety and the safety of plow operators, motorists should never attempt to pass a truck while it is plowing or spreading winter materials.
- “Know Before You Go” by checking major roadway conditions at www.511PA.com. While PennDOT recommends not traveling during winter storms, motorists can check conditions on more than 40,000 roadway miles, including color-coded winter conditions on 2,900 miles, by visiting www.511PA.com. 511PA, which is free and available 24 hours a day, provides traffic delay warnings, weather forecasts, traffic speed information and access to more than 1,200 traffic cameras. Users can also find plow truck locations and details of when state-maintained roadways were last plowed. 511PA is also available through a smartphone application for iPhone and Android devices, by calling 5-1-1, or by following regional X alerts.
Although PennDOT crews have been treating roadways, the department’s primary goal is to keep roads passable, and they will not completely free of ice and snow. PennDOT will continue to treat roadways throughout the storm until precipitation stops and roads are clear.
While PennDOT recommends not traveling during winter storms, motorists can check conditions on more than 40,000 roadway miles, including color-coded winter conditions on 2,900 miles, by visiting www.511PA.com. 511PA, which is free and available 24 hours a day, provides traffic delay warnings, weather forecasts, traffic speed information and access to more than 1,200 traffic cameras.
Motorists can check conditions on more than 40,000 roadway miles, including color-coded winter conditions on 2,900 miles, by visiting www.511PA.com. 511PA, which is free and available 24 hours a day, provides traffic delay warnings, weather forecasts, traffic speed information, and access to more than 1,200 traffic cameras. 511PA is also available through a free smartphone application for iPhone and Android devices, by calling 5-1-1, or by following local alerts on X.
Subscribe to PennDOT news in in Armstrong, Butler, Clarion, Indiana, and Jefferson counties at www.penndot.pa.gov/District10.
Find PennDOT news on X, Facebook, and Instagram.
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MEDIA CONTACT: Tina Gibbs at 724-357-2829 or chgibbs@pa.gov.