A tenner should do it - just to buy the highways people in Manchester a cheap radio so when the BBC issues a weather warning of heavy snow overnight, they think about sending out gritters.
The two motorways and several A-roads I was on at 6.00 till 7.00 this morning were simply lethal and unadorned by salt.
This is grossly incompetent and costs us all in extra premiums from the RTAs. Hopefully no-one has hurt.
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This is grossly incompetent
as is to be expected, and comes as no surprise.
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Think you might need to buy them a few brain cells each first as otherwise they won't have the intelligence to operate the radios!
Not gritting seems to be a common occurrence by cash strapped councils. You'd think they would have learnt from what happened in North Wales with those cyclists.
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and another tenner to maintain them - all I've heard whilst crossing the M62 this morning were reports of delays on the M66 due to a broken down snowplough blocking 2 lanes
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Well they were out in force on the M61 last night, I passed two.
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I do have some sympathy for the gritting departments. They have to second-guess the weather reports, have a massive road network to cover, and their grit salt is finite. There is the risk that if temperatures do not drop as low as expected, grit can be washed away by rain, wasting thousands of pounds worth of resources. Its the ones holding the purse strings to blame.
I know what you mean though; I've spent many occasions either sliding around or watching other cars doing so, thinking, "where are the flipping gritters?". Where I work is quite hilly and half an inch of snow can create gridlock in the town centre, the gritters then take hours to get around because they get stuck in the traffic. Its an annual event watching cars and buses slipping down the hill outside our office.
We always used to get a good amount of snow every year; in the early 90s a couple of local authorities ran out of grit due to over-application earlier in the season. Budget constraints meant that they could not afford more grit.
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We had some icy weather a month or so ago which had been forecast for the best part of a week, yet it caught the gritters napping. On my 25 mile commute there were seven separate accidents, two involving motorcyclists, and all on motorways or major A-roads.
I haven't had snap oversteer in a front wheel drive car at 20 mph on a motorway slip road bend that I can normally take in my sleep at 60 before. Gets the old ticker going a treat... The poor so-and-so in the Corsa who ended up half way up the bank with his boot modified by a tree would probably agree. The chap lying at the side of the road with paramedics attending to him, and a very bent Honda CBR just up the road would not, I suspect.
We have a responsibility to slow down and drive to the conditions, but this was just ridiculous. Even the matrix signs which report "caution - fog" even on 30 degree Summer days were switched off.
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Followed one (gritter) home from town yesterday evening, he was "gritting" for the whole of the 25miles we followed him, (belt turning, spinner spinning, beacons fashing) and not one grain of salt/grit emerged! when we turned off, he still carried on, obviously heading back to his depot in Whitehaven, a further 30 miles away! He probably thinks he's gritted his full 55mile stretch!. Then the council wonder why people "think" they haven't been out.
Billy
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