Abstract: A snow plow blade detection and compensation system and method operable to detect when a plow blade is attached to the vehicle and then, when the driver is in plowing mode, take appropriate compensating actions. The systems and methods may include: (1) computer vision based recognition of plow blade position, wherein object recognition from a forward looking camera and computer vision system may be installed on the vehicle to recognize that the plow blade is in the down position; (2) proximity sensing system indicating that the plow blade is down, wherein multiple sensors may be used to indicate that the plow blade position is down; (3) direct input of plowing status, wherein vehicle Interfaces indicate that a plow mode is active; (4) drive pattern recognition; and/or (5) audio recognition, wherein microphones detect sound characteristics of “scraping” sounds, inferring that the plow blade is on the ground and pushing snow.