The Onspot Blog

Which is the perfect road surface treatment to increase traction?

To keep transportation – and society – running, authorities have different strategies for keeping roads open and driveable in harsh winter conditions. Snowplows keep the snow masses away from the road, and often some kind of surface treatment is used to increase traction when roads are icy and unsafe. But, which is the perfect road surface treatment? The simple answer is... None! Every method of surface treatment is a compromise between effectiveness, cost, handling and side effects. Let's have a look at some methods.

Traction devices allow you to travel safely on slippery roads and in adverse weather conditions. Most people who use these devices navigate in less than optimal conditions because it's their job.

The winter weather is upon us and it’s time to begin thinking about maintaining traction on icy road surfaces. The U.S. Department of transportation has compiled the following list of tips for keeping your tyres in good working condition.

Whether you are picking up household waste in isolated villages, driving children to school early in the morning, or delivering to customers awaiting their orders, drivers are almost always on the road. The open road can be great, but sometimes, the conditions can change to much less than favorable in a matter of minutes or even a couple miles.

You’ve done the research and decided that increasing traction is important. The following four questions can help you determine if Onspot Automatic Snow Chains are the right solution for you.

Why response time must be reduced

For rescue operations ‘response time’ is one of the measures for effectiveness. In emergency situations response time should be as short as possible as this could be crucial for saving lives or properties at danger. Accordingly, much effort is put into reducing response times. But actually, what is response time?

Guest Blog, no 3 from the Haaks

Watch this video when Onspots help us conquer a slippery hill!

Some products are so functional and effective that there is little potential to improve them. The violin, for example, got its design by the Italian master violin-makers in the 17^th century. Countless efforts have been made to challenge its basic construction in order to improve it, but in vain. The violin is so close to perfect that no one has come up with a fundamental improvement during the last 350 years.

Tire chains are not that old – they were patented in 1904, and ever since they have proven to be very effective for increasing traction.

Maybe you’ve been there? The road is becoming icy and slippery and you ought to get out there to mount the snow chains. But you’re in a hurry, so mounting time would cost you another hour of delay or so. And besides, you don’t feel like leaving your warm cab for the freezing cold roadside… So, is there a trick to get traction anyway? Actually, there is a trick that many experienced drivers know of. Yet, it’s a controversial trick. Here’s why!

Guest Blog

In this week's post we'll get a glimps of how it is to work in the expedite industry as a team truck driver. A way of working that is quite common in the USA, but not so familiar to us outside the USA. A team truck driver drives with another driver. While one driver operates the truck, the other rests or sleeps. Drivers on a team can work out their own schedule and hours. Using a driving team allows a truck to be on the road continuously, resulting in faster delivery of the products on board. This week's writer, Linda Caffee, is an industry leader and a well known team truck driver in the USA. She will share her experience from the roads on the Onspot blog. We think that Linda's experience is of great value for all of us in the haulage industry.

/The Onspot team.

Why a truck driver?

Getting started as truck drivers was not as easy as it sounds. After twenty years as a diesel mechanic Bob decided he wanted to start driving trucks instead of working on them. I, Linda at the time worked at our local county courthouse and we were facing the “empty nest syndrome” as our youngest daughter was heading off to college. The idea sounded appealing and we started our research.