DelDOT is putting a new road treatment down in select areas in an effort to make roads safer, especially when they’re slick.
15 sites around the First State are in the process of receiving High Friction Road Treatments. The thin layer of specially engineered, durable, high friction aggregates make the road a bit bumpier, but DelDOT Community relations officer Greg Layton says the better grip it creates has lowered the number of skid related crashes elsewhere.
"Yes, it has," said Layton. " We have a contractor from Ohio that’s used it in Virginia and Chicago, where obviously it is much snowier and icier that it is here, and they’ve had success in places that they’ve used it.”
Layton adds it also have the benefits of not taking much money or time to use.
“It’s very cost effective. It’s about 32 dollars per square yard to apply this," said Layton. "And it takes a day, maybe two days at the most to coat and area with this and usually we only have to close a lane temporarily. We don’t have to close a road entirely most of the time. So it is very attractive from that standpoint.”
This first round of High Friction Road treatments includes 5 locations in New Castle County, one in Kent and 9 in Sussex.
