It's a misty morning and you take off on your normal commute.

The curve ahead in the highway is one you've navigated countless times.On this day, however, you tap the brakes but your vehicle skids out of control.If you're lucky you escape with manageable injuries, unlike many drivers across the country each year.Over time, road surfaces can become prematurely polished, reducing friction and leading to wet pavement crashes.In the past five years, Pennsylvania has averaged nearly 200 fatalities and 500 major injuries involving slippery or wet pavement crashes. On a national level, more than 25 percent of highway fatalities occur at or near horizontal curves each year.Since 2012, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation has been battling the problem with high-friction surface treatments.While no Carbon County roads have received the new surfacing system, Monroe County is slated to see its first HFS treatment on State Road this construction season, according to PennDOT spokesman Ron Young."The treatments increase friction and enhance safety at locations that we know have had a history of wet pavement related crashes," Young said. "The skid-resistant properties are not something we can accomplish through applying conventional materials."The HFS treatment on State Road will take place between Route 115 and Sugar Hollow Road in Chestnuthill Township. A treatment will also be applied in Schuylkill County for the first time in 2015 on Route 61 between Schuylkill Mall Road and Darkwater Road in New Castle Township.Both projects are part of a $1,089,810 contract awarded to Interstate Road Management Corporation of Hazelton to apply the treatment at 27 locations across the region.Why no Carbon roads?PennDOT said statistics don't warrant an HFS treatment."There are no Carbon roads planned because our engineers feel there are no suitable locations with a high number of run-off-the-road crashes with wet pavement in a curve," Young said. "Since the product is quite expensive, they look for roads with those high numbers that have best chance of being corrected through HFS."In addition to the roads in Monroe and Schuylkill counties, an additional six in Berks County, nine in Lehigh County and 10 in Northampton County are planned for this year in PennDOT's District 5.Since 2012, 22 locations in the district have had an HFS treatment.Young said the traffic impact during the HFS application is minimal. One lane is generally shut down for two to three hours."We applied HFS to 12 sites in 2012. At those 12 sites, wet-pavement accidents, which numbered 119 in the three years prior to the treatment, were reduced to just three accidents in the first 15 months since the application," Young said. "Two of those crashes had other behavioral causal factors. One involved a drunk driver and the other a driver distracted by a cellphone."How does it work?The material is composed of a polish and abrasion-resistant high-friction aggregate that is bonded to the pavement surface using a high strength polymer resin binder.Wear-resistant aggregates, such as bauxite, provide increased friction on pavements."This helps to keep vehicles in their lane on slippery pavement around curves and allows drivers to stop," Young said. "The materials used to bond the aggregates together are designed to set quickly so there is minimal impact to the traveling public."When applied to locations that exhibit a higher propensity for wet-pavement curve-related crashes, have steep downgrades, or are approaches to intersections, the treatment increases friction and assists in preventing vehicles from skidding."It is especially effective at locations where wet-pavement crashes are common such as where drivers may brake excessively," Young said. "That includes going around curves, down steep grades or approaching an intersection."The first application of HFS treatment in Pennsylvania occurred in 2007 along Route 611 in Northampton County."The curve targeted for treatment was especially troublesome since cars regularly slid on the pavement into opposing traffic or the guiderail," Young said. "Many times, vehicles caused damage to the historic Delaware and Lehigh Canal that paralleled the road. As a pilot project, PennDOT agreed to have a contractor apply a HFS product on about 500 feet of roadway at the curve."Wet pavement related crashes at the spot dropped from 20 in the 10 years before the treatment to zero in the six years since it's been installed.