OT - How to make a complaint about road icing that won't be ignored?

[geoff]

Standards must be maintained

[geoff]

In message , Roof writes

Aha - returned with better attitude

[The Natural Philosopher]

No. obviously less. Instead of minor cits and bruises, they can just bring in the odd part.

[Matty F]

The Council should put up a sign that says "ICE". Then it's up to the drivers to have whatever they need e.g. chains or grit.

[whiskeyomega]

For what it is worth I was told yesterday by a neighbour at the bottom of our hill that he got onto Truro and then Redruth and they allowed him to get some grit from their depot. He was using it sparingly because he didnt get an awful lot but he put it down in the danger spots.

Our place is so bad the bus wont come down and neither would the recycling lorry yesterday. So I( have made a complaint , in writing and copied it to the local councilor ( who happens to live at the top of the hill). I live half way down the valley side.

[dennis]

Up until a few years ago they gritted all the roads around here (tipton). Then it became difficult to drive gritting lorries down the roads because of the increasing number of cars parked inconsiderately. There were also an increasing number of complaints about the grit damaging the parked cars. The council stopped doing it.

[D.M.Chapman]

Coming down the A2 Jubilee way into dover last night I noticed plenty of bins at the side of the road.

That's a pretty scary place to be spreading grit by hand :) I assume it's to help when the trucks from the port get stuck (which they do...)

Darren

[dennis]

I have driven up to a house, parked, got out and then when I slammed the door the car has slid down the camber into the kerb. I put some grit there so I could get out later.

[Mark]

What for blind drivers who have not yet noticed that it's been snowing and the temperature has dropped well below freezing. ?

-

[Rod]

There's a couple of those near here. Seems that drivers get so used to ignoring them in the summer, they stop believing them.

[Owain]

It shouldn't be too hard to make a sign like those advertising hoardings that comprise a row of triangular elements that rotate in sync to change the displayed image. To change between two elements could be done by a +/- 120deg rotation which could probably be done with one of those wax cylinder automatic greenhouse ventilator mechanisms set to about 5 deg air temp. Wouldn't even need solar power, although photovoltaic would be another option.

Owain

[Andy Champ]

In our case because although we have asked for a grit bin the council won't supply one.

This is not helped by their decision to put a marked parking area opposite the end of my road. Where the down hill arrives at a T junction give way.

Andy

[Dave Liquorice]

I think Matty meant a temporary sign not a permenant one. Round here several of the road signs have drop down flaps that reveal the words "ICE BOUND". After that the ROAD CLOSED signs and barriers come out and remember if you drive past a ROAD CLOSED sign your insurance might be invalidated.

An awful lot of people don't know how to drive on snow/ice. The

3000rpm and manic wheel spin is far to common. If your wheels are spinning you have far less traction than none spinning. You can get away with some low speed spin, the tyres will tend to dig down and hopefully find traction but not the manic spinning.

[Matty F]

Yes some kind of automatic sign would be best. Or cheaper would be to get local residents to put the signs out in winter and take them away on certain dates. I avoid travel in the early morning when there might be ice around. But I've never seen ice on the roads at any time in Auckland NZ!

[ARWadsworth]

Not much that you can do on this ice, apart from not using the car.

[Jules]

They have this "calendar parking" thing in our nearby town - folk are only allowed to park on one side of the road on odd-numbered days, and the other on even - the whole point being to allow road-sweepers to do the job in the warmer months, and the ploughs and gritters to do theirs in the winter (we're snow-covered for about 6 months of the year)

Out here in the sticks everyone has driveways and it's illegal to park on the roadside - which is good, because the ploughs are a lot bigger and don't let anything get in their way :-)

cheers

Jules

[Jules]

It's fun in a 2wd pickup with no weight over the back wheels :-) (it's common here for people to buy a few big bags of whatever happens to be cheapest at the start of the cold season, purely to use as ballast)

cheers

Jules

[Dave Liquorice]

Yeah but you get proper snow, 2 foot in a single night proper snow, not piddly 2 centimeters that brings most of the UK to a halt.

[Dave Liquorice]

FFS! they almost end up underneath the car) and the front wheels start to turn the backend ovetakes the front with the back wheels not revolving. They still wouldn't have much control but coming off the brakes and a *tiny* bit of go pedel and they might have avoided everything.

It takes quite a concious effort to take your foot off the brake when sliding in a direction that you don't want to go and even more so if that direction has something hard in the way. On ice and snow you may not even be aware that the wheels have locked until you think about what you are doing with the controls, the direction the steering is pointing and the direction you are going. BTDTGTTS, on snow down hill, gentle braking, drifting to the near side, full lock to the right. Eh? Oh I'm braking, take foot of brake and instantly the car heads in the direction the front wheels are pointing fortunately there wasn't anything coming up the hill...

[Dave Liquorice]

Yeah but RWD as well. Most cars these days are FWD when front end come unstuck due to wheel spin you also lose steering...