what part of NO are you having trouble with?
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RF - currently 1 Renault short of a family
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I've some sympathy Horatio but please remember your manners. smokie, BR Moderator
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Councils have a duty to maintain some roads, and the Highways Agencies (or either's appointed agents) others.
Under Section 41A Highways Act 1980 "a highway authority are under a duty to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that safe passage along a highway is not endangered by snow or ice".
Paramount in any wintry conditions is the need to drive and walk within the conditions that prevail. (Highway Code Rules 205 and 206)
A council could easily wriggle out of obligations, they keep records of the gritting runs and will say they are doing all that is reasonably practicable.
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Thank you Ishok.
I will explain more in a hope for a more pin-pointed reply.
If there are houses on steep hills and the roads and pavements are not de-iced. How are people supposed to drive to work? Or walk to the shops for food or to get to public transport?
If the nearest grit bin is a 1.5miles away on the opposite side of the valley. Do they not at least have a duty to provide Grit bins at more frequent intervals?
I asked about compensation for slipping, because if the council refuses to de-ice the road, people will either starve or slip as a direct result, given prolonged cold conditions.
So can nothing be done to get the council to grit. or provide grit?
Again, thank you for answering.
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"because if the council refuses to de-ice the road, people will starve"
Come again...?
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What part don't you understand?
No cars due to ice, no walking due to ice. deleted from here on
Come on Horatio, Smokie's already asked you.
Also other people, if you can't provide sensible answers to his questions that's fine, but don't shoot him down in flames just because you don't like the question. Have some respect please, otherwise we'll have to lock this thread and then no one wins.
Hugo - BR Moderator
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Horatio,
to be serious, NO they dont really have an obligation to keep the roads free of ice. They have a duty to maintain it, and attempt to keep it clear. No you cant sue them if they dont unless you can prove some form of negligence.
With reference to pavements the law recognises that its utterly impractical to keep every pavement free from ice, so they dont.
There have been cases where they tried to clear a pavement, made it worse, someone slipped over and claimed against the council. The council lost because their actions caused the slip, wehre if they had done nothing and the person slipped its just a weather related accident.
Basically you are stuffed.
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RF - currently 1 Renault short of a family
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There have been cases where they tried to clear a pavement, made it worse, someone slipped over and claimed against the council. The council lost because their actions caused the slip, where if they had done nothing and the person slipped its just a weather related accident.
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Sorry to digress but
I understand the same logic applies to a householder who tries to be helpful and clear the snow off the pavement ouside their property.
For this reason I now save my energy and avoid any claims.
It is a funny world we live in.
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Do councils have a duty to grit roads, & pavements? What if they are asked to come and do it?
AFAIK - roads yes though depending on the status of the road, pavements no.
Do councils pay out compensation to people who slip on ice on the pavements?
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Re above I assume not.
How does this differ (if the answer was no) from a payout to someone who slips on a banana skin?
I doesn't in my opinion.
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Highway Authorities are under a statutory duty to maintain the highway network. This general duty, as set out in the highways Act 1980, embraces winter maintenance. In addition to the statutory duty, highway authorities may take preventative measures against the accumulation of snow and ice. It is important to recognise in the context of a highway authority?s statutory maintenance duty that:
i) the highway authority is not obliged to take precautionary measures in anticipation of snow or ice;
HTH
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Just hidden most of the Friday afternoon sillyness, sorry if anything sensible was lost as a result.
It's now the evening, so serious answers only please... smokie, BR Moderator
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horation, I understand how frustrating the corrupt officials, high taxes and appaulling or non-existent services can be, but getting compensation would be very difficult, as you would have to prove negligence, and this is almost impossible to prove as your evidence will have melted, and the council will have plenty of paperwork they can show they made an effory, even if most is made up.
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Whilst at work one evening last winter, i took a telephone call from a male who had skidded his vehicle off the road into a ditch on an ice patch on a tight corner.
This was on a country road in the middle of no-where.
No injuries, vehicle was not damaged and the male was able to make his way home - just wanted to let me know about the ice and a potentially dangerous road because of it (what do you expect in winter i'm thinking) but I passed the details to the relevent County Council Highways Dept for possible gritting that evening who informed that the road was too isolated and not classed by them as a major route so would not be gritted at any time.
Not sure this will answer the original question, but i found it interesting at the time and remebered it reading this thread.
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My local council grit the main roads and bus routes. Other than that, tough?
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Where I lived in Manchester (Tameside council) they left a yellow grit bin on your street and you did it yourself.
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Our council publishes a list of roads that are gritted - main and through routes.
I thought it odd that two years ago, a gritter van came through out village with someone stood on the back, chucking grit on the pavement. I think it was to do with someone who moved into the village around the same time ;)
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My council has refused to supply a grit bin. I have written and requested one, their excuse "no room" - rubbish says I - They have smaller sized ones which are less than half the width of a pavement, and to top it off every house has a wheely bin outside the front door on the pavement, and a grit bin would have a smaller footprint than a wheelie bin.
I ended up a few years ago taking two metal rubbish (galv metal type) to the council road salting depot and keeping them outside my house all year round (cul de sac so it is not much of a problem). I topped these up as neccesary over the years. Last year I used one and threw it away because the bin had had it. Which left me with one bin. Today I used that up to help someone who was sliding down the hill, narrowly missing parked cars. 20 mins later they were able to drive away. Our street is the only street out of 5 here that is ICE free after a snow fall. Luckily our winters are not too severe!
Empty bin = go to depot to get refil. Not having been in the last two years because of above reasons. I asked for a refil expecting no problems, to be told I would have to go to B&Q! I argued with him for a short time - mentioning the nearest grit bin was 1.5miles away, and I did not want to "take theirs" (from the other grit bin) and eventually he gave in.
So I came here to find out what's what. Thanks to all the replies, some were interesting. I think I'll write to my MP.
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Seriously
Be very careful, by intervening yourself you lay yourself open to culpability charges if something untoward happens.
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RF - currently 1 Renault short of a family
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What's so special about gritting lorries and/or their drivers that enables them to drive safely on roads that have not been gritted?
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L\'escargot.
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Normally the 10ft wide snow plough on the front, next question.
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I saw snow ploughs come to grief and be abandoned in the mountains in Poland one New Year. And not the Barbie doll UK type, I mean seriously big ones.
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Normally the 10ft wide snow plough on the front, next question.
I was referring to icy roads, not snow. Next reply?
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L\'escargot.
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I suppose the councils could grit every road and every pavement in the UK - at a price - but the impact that would have on council tax doesn't bear thinking about. In my experience the gritter crews are hard working guys who do their very best under extremely dangerous conditions and tight budgets. They prioritise - and that's the best we can hope for.
I work in education and see at first hand the difficult decisions that have to be made when deciding how to spend a budget wisely and responsibly. The 'compensation' mentality is, however, doing more harm than good. I spoke to a teacher this week who came to grief with a Health and Safety inspector for having a cactus in his classroom (might prick the little dears) Then to make matters worse, they found his bottle of Baby Bio in the cupboard for watering said cactus. That took him into the area of 'storing hazardous substances blah blah blah.....'
This is where 'compensation' takes us - to a stage where precious resources are being diverted into farcical efforts to stave off litigation - rather than provide quality services.
Graeme
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Here you are Horatio, I hope this might answer your question:
The position of Claimants suing local authorities for accidents caused by ice on roads due to a failure to salt / grit has been further clarified in Sandhar & Murray v Department of Transport, Environment & the Regions QBD (Newman J) 19/1/2004.
The Claimants in Sandhar were unable to rely any breach of statutory duty under s.41 Highways Act 1980 following the decision in Goodes v East Sussex County Council (2000) L.G.R. 465.
As the accident had occurred before 31st October 2003 they were also unable to rely upon Section 111 of the Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003 (a highway authority is under a duty to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that safe passage along a highway is not endangered by snow or ice)
In Sandhar, Newman J confirmed that the local authority was under no common law duty to remove or prevent ice from forming on roads.
So, although Sandhar and Murray were out of luck on this occasion, there does appear to be a statutory duty under S111 of the Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003, but no duty at at common law (negligence in this case if they don't treat). The full Act should be available on the HMSO site (or whatever it is called now) although I have yet to check whether this includes pavements.
Setting aside the pros and cons (mostly cons in my experience) of compensation, with the huge council tax bills in my area and the vast sums raised from vehicle duty - only a small part of which ever gets spent on the roads - I don't think we should feel too badly about expecting value for money, ie some salt/grit on difficult roads and in good time on those few occasions in the year when the roads are bad. The pitiful pictures on the news today, where roads with very modest falls are blocked solid, suggests that it isn't really happening in the way that it should.
CG
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Thanks CG,
The compensation angle was just me looking for a way to persuade them to do something even only to give me free grit and/or provide a grit bin.
Section 111 seems to cover it, so why do councils still think they have no duty to do this even when specifically requested to come and provide grit for residential streets on steep hills, with cars sliding into parked cars?...which happens every year, but if we are to believe the weather reports this year could be worse.
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A few more thoughts:-
The phrase "so far as reasonably practicable" means exactly that. Councils are entitled to make a calculation of cost and benefit. If they can show they've gone through a process to identify what is reasonably practicable they still don't need saturation gritting
Here in Northants the Council publish details of the roads that are routinely gritted and those on the "b list" that wil be treated during prolonged severe weather. The latter includes most of this village off the through route to the A5 and many less well used lanes.
The blocking, by stalled/abandoned vehicles, of roads with modest falls is interesting as it replicates what happened in early 2004. Everybody feels that their journey is necessary and few stay at home as requested. The grit needs to go on at the right time, after the snow starts to fall, but the road ia is full of cars large numbers of whose drivers appear untrained/incapable of managing traction on loose snow.
Is it right to heap all the blame on the "incompetentence" of Councils/HIghways Agency as this morning's radio interviewees appeared to be doing?
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interesting point re Northamptonshire: the county is one of very few in UK that has an award-winning Highways Partnership with a private company of engineering consultants - Somerset, I believe, is another.
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interesting point re Northamptonshire: the county is one of very few in UK that has an award-winning Highways Partnership with a private company of engineering consultants - Somerset, I believe, is another.
The partnership with Atkins is, like the parson's egg, good in places. Good reaction on potholes, less so on a felled safety fence and unswept grit creating unecessary hazards on the cycle track/footpath out of the village.
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Of course when the road is too slippery for the gritter to drive on they simply reverse, and are therefore driving on a freshly gritted road. I have seen this done many times.
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Of course when the road is too slippery for the gritter to drive on they simply reverse, and are therefore driving on a freshly gritted road.
I think these drivers missed that briefing.
www.bbc.co.uk/norfolk/content/image_galleries/gall...l
www.ulsternet-ni.co.uk/larn0603/LARPAGES/LMAIN.htm
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Of course when the road is too slippery for the gritter to drive on they simply reverse, and are therefore driving on a freshly gritted road. I have seen this done many times.
But only for a short distance, I imagine. If they can manage to drive the rest of the route forwards until their lorry is empty of grit it begs the question of whether it was really necessary.
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L\'escargot.
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My local council grit the main roads and bus routes. Other than that, tough?
Our council got caught out down here in the west country!!
leaving many main roads and bus lanes without grit,
The bus company termiated buses leaving school children stranded after reports that buses had got stuck in ice on the main roads.
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I'd gladly pay a thousand times my annual RFL in order to have a gritter on stand-by at the end of every road/street!
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I'd gladly pay a thousand times my annual RFL in order to have a gritter on stand-by at the end of every road/street!
Slight exaggeration there methinks!
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L\'escargot.
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Exaggeration - moi??? Well, you know what I mean!
In the good old days when we managed to cope in bad winters, there was only a fraction of the traffic clogging the roads - so the gritters/ploughs could get through. Eeee .. in those days we could walk the few miles to work - not have to commute 80 miles in the car; and the kids would walk/bus to school, so the roads weren't clogged with vehicles doing the school run.
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In the good old days .....
In the good old days I remember the grit being shovelled (literally) out of the lorry which travelled at a leisurely walking pace! I would imagine that it was only the main urban roads that got gritted in those days.
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L\'escargot.
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All this reminds me of the man who wrote to our local newspaper after we suffered a very heavy hailstorm and it then froze over rock solid, a situation that lasted for a full week.
He complained bitterly that the local council had failed to grit all the town's 30 miles or so of roads and ranted and raved about inefficiency.
In actual fact the town has at least 10 if not 20 times the miles of roads the writer envisaged and, to their credit, the gritters' drivers successfully managed to keep most of the major routes at least passable.
Even so some of the bus routes had to be curtailed in more outlying parts of the town.
It's impossible to do every road and pavement in major conurbations and as for the posting earlier about steep hills not being gritted, I'm wondering exactly how this would be accomplished?
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Sensible gritting will deal with ice formation or a light snowfall. It won't cope with a heavy one, neither clear it, or stop it laying after the initial melt.
The London snowfall of a few years back, although the gritters could not get out for the traffic, I doubt they could have made much difference.
For me, the best is so much the idiots stay at home, and then I can have fun in my landrover.
A foot of snow if you please!
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In my city, it says they have 40,000 tonnes of grit ready.
It makes you wonder where it all goes, surely it would clog the drains, also makes you wonder if the rivers end up brackish!
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>>In my city, it says they have 40,000 tonnes of grit ready.>>
Someone is telling porkies...:-)
This is from the Highways Agency website:
* There are eight winter service depots in Area 8, which covers the East and East Midlands. This area covers parts of Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Buckinghamshire, Warwickshire, Oxfordshire, Leicestershire, Hertfordshire and Milton Keynes."
This is followed by:
* Normally, crushed rock salt is used. It is mined in Cheshire, although it can be imported from Northern Ireland, Europe and North Africa by ship. The salt stock storage capacity in Area 8 is 16,100 tonnes.
* Gritting vehicles can hold up to 9 cubic metres of salt (approximately 10.4 tonnes).
So, apparently, your city has enough grit available to serve a very large area of the UK...:-)
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The Highways Agency are totally seperate from the council though, the HA will only have to do a ring road in a city, and then so many of these have been secretly detrunked to enable them to be turned into normal slow local roads, they probably just mean motorways and some A roads.
If you search google.co.uk for "tonnes of grit" you will see similar figures for other councils.
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I'm aware that the HA is separate from the council but using Google the first report I found (admittedly from 2003) states:
"Stockport Council claimed to have handled the situation well.
Gritters had been out since Monday lunchtime, spreading between 300 and 350 tonnes of grit onto the roads at an estimated cost of £20,000.
Councillor Eric Pyle, executive member for infrastructure, said: ?We received information that we could expect a temporary accumulation of sleet and snow so we started gritting from Monday lunchtime.
?Gritters started on the main A-class roads and then moved on to the B and C-class roads.
?We had five gritters working throughout the night and members of our street cleaning and ground maintenance departments took part in hand gritting of footpaths, shopping centres, schools, old people?s homes and car parks.?
Another, for Sheffield, states:
"Sheffield City Council?s gritters will be out in force tonight laying over 550 tonnes of grit in preparation for expected snow.
"Every main road will be gritted before midnight and all secondary routes will be gritted before the morning peak. They will be working throughout the night and extra gritting crews will be starting at 6am."
You will be aware that Stockport is quite a large city yet still has enough salt (based on your city's figure of 40,000 tonnes), to operate approximately 120 times before needing to restock..:-)
Sheffield is even larger yet has enough for more than 70 nights (perhaps necessary in view of its location).
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