Reactive or Proactive; do you know the difference

I have been "scratching my head" for quite awhile trying to understand why more agencies do not fully employ proactive processes for both snow & ice control and fleet maintenance?  It has finally dawned on me;  too many of us have engaged in reactive behavour for so very long, we are conditioned to react; remember Palov's dog experiment?  It snows, we plow and apply chemical.  Truck breaks down we repair it.  Truck has dead batteries or no crank complaint,  we, may, test batteries and replace.  Of course, this happens when the truck is about to go out on a job, maybe even to plow snow.  Why did we wait until there was a no start complaint before we tested the batteries?  We know that batteries fail, right?  If you have worked in the business for any length of time, you can probably accurately predict the longevity of the batteries and many other truck components.  Let's review;  you know batteries have a finite life, right?  Your experience may suggest the life, in this application, is about two years.  Why don't you have a defined time frame for testing batteries?  Make it part of your PM.  You could have replaced the batteries mentioned in the previous story when the truck was out of service for regular maintenance and avoided a reactive repair and an angry operations foreman whose job was delayed due to break down.  Same for snow & ice control, we had snw this week.  It was predicted, temperatures were well below freezing.  The snowfall was light, 2-3" in many areas.  The day before the snowfall, temperatures below freezing, sun was out, roadway was clear and dry.  I would think, a perfect day for anti-ice application.  This was not the first snow event of the season, plus there had been several heavy rains, so pavement should have been free of rubber and oil residue.  Why did not agencies apply anti-ice chemical during regular work shift the day prior to the  trunkline.  The end result would have been less de-icer needed the next day, no packing/adhering of snow to road surface hence no ice buildup and faster "recovery time, and most likley, a huge decrease in accidents and slide-offs.   So, why was it not done?  Because we are way too programmed in the "reactive mind set"?  Everyone that reads this Blog should make a point of looking for situations where they can be proactive and evaluate every situation to determine if they could/should have been more proactive.  Every task you perform, ask yourself, what could I have done at the beginning to make a quicker, better, simpler outcome?   Think about it;  a 5,000 gallon tanker can do 20 gallon per lane mile anti-ice chemical application on a regular work shift (operator not making overtime wages) at the posted speed limit and cover 250 lane miles per trip in about 5 hours...............or............a tandem axle plow truck can carry about 10 tons of salt applying 200# per lane mile during a storm (operator could be on overtime) at 25 miles per hour and cover about 100 miles in 4 hours............you tell me which is the better option?  Same with the truck with dead battery?  Lose two hours of snow removal time due to reactive repair?  Or lose 0 time from snow removal as a result of proactive repair?   All that is required is a paradigm shift folks...............just because we have always "done it that way" does not necessarily mean we are "doing it the best way", especially with funding cuts and manpower shortages....