Hybrid Sensor and Vehicular Network (HSVN) merges both Vehicular Ad hoc Network (VANET) and Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) to create a framework of collaboration between the two networks. The main objective of this collaboration is to provide real-time detection of dangerous road conditions for the improvement of road safety. To create a reliable HSVN, coverage and connectivity problems of WSN represent the most fundamental issues to ensure an effective road sensing and a robust data communication in HSVN applications. In this respect, we have proposed a distributed protocol for ensuring both coverage and connectivity of WSN in the framework of HSVN. The proposed protocol ensures the detection of any event occurring on the road and the connectivity between sensor nodes even in the case of sensor node failure. Also, the energy consumption is reduced by keeping only a minimum number of sensor nodes in active state. The WSN lifetime is extended by balancing the energy consumption among all sensor nodes and by allowing the sensor nodes to serve alternatively as a gateway which is responsible for reporting any detected event to the passing vehicles. Simulation results show that the proposed protocol achieves 100% of road coverage and energy consumption is improved up to 14%. The proposed protocol is reliable in the case of sensor node failure; coverage and connectivity are improved up to 13% and 87%, respectively, in the case of 30% of failed sensor nodes. These results indicate that the proposed protocol is promising as it outperforms the existing ones.