Drive heavy equipment and vehicles with adjustable attachments to sweep debris from paved surfaces, mow grass and weeds, remove snow and ice, and spread salt and sand.

“Drive heavy equipment and vehicles with adjustable attachments to sweep debris from paved surfaces, mow grass and weeds, remove snow and ice, and spread salt and sand.” is a core task performed by Highway Maintenance Workers. Among the occupation's 19 rated tasks, workers place it 13th by importance (#7 most important). About 100% of workers say it is relevant to their job.

This is a single occupation-specific task statement from O*NET. The figures below describe how central the task is to the job and what independent studies measure about AI and this kind of work — not a prediction that the task will be automated.

Work activities this task rolls up to

O*NET groups concrete tasks into broader work activities shared across many occupations.

• Operate construction or excavation equipment. in Controlling Machines and Processes

AI exposure

The OpenAI / Eloundou “GPTs are GPTs” study rates this task E0. No direct exposure — current language models give little or no time savings on this task.

Exposure measures whether a model could meaningfully speed the task up — it is an estimate of overlap with model capabilities, not a measure of whether the work will be done by software. The study's intermediate score (β) for this task is 0.00. Automation potential label: T0.

Other tasks in this occupation

• Set out signs and cones around work areas to divert traffic. · importance 4.5
• Flag motorists to warn them of obstacles or repair work ahead. · importance 4.4
• Perform preventative maintenance on vehicles and heavy equipment. · importance 4.3
• Drive trucks to transport crews and equipment to work sites. · importance 4.3
• Erect, install, or repair guardrails, road shoulders, berms, highway markers, warning signals, and highway lighting, using hand tools and power tools. · importance 4.2
• Clean and clear debris from culverts, catch basins, drop inlets, ditches, and other drain structures. · importance 4.2
• Haul and spread sand, gravel, and clay to fill washouts and repair road shoulders. · importance 4.1
• Inspect, clean, and repair drainage systems, bridges, tunnels, and other structures. · importance 4.0
• Remove litter and debris from roadways, including debris from rock and mud slides. · importance 4.0
• Dump, spread, and tamp asphalt, using pneumatic tampers, to repair joints and patch broken pavement. · importance 4.0
• Apply poisons along roadsides and in animal burrows to eliminate unwanted roadside vegetation and rodents. · importance 3.8
• Measure and mark locations for installation of markers, using tape, string, or chalk. · importance 3.7
• Paint traffic control lines and place pavement traffic messages, by hand or using machines. · importance 3.6
• Perform roadside landscaping work, such as clearing weeds and brush, and planting and trimming trees. · importance 3.6

See all tasks on the Highway Maintenance Workers page.

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

• O*NET 30.3 U.S. Department of Labor / National Center for O*NET Development
• “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130 OpenAI / academic

Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

@misc{singulariki-task-18784,
  title  = {Drive heavy equipment and vehicles with adjustable attachments to sweep debris from paved surfaces, mow grass and weeds, remove snow and ice, and spread salt and sand.},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/tasks/task-18784}
}