Warning early eve Black Ice on Roads, Pavements

[observer]

Perhaps everyone could dress up like the Michelin man, with inflated tyre inner tubes, so they wouldn't hurt themselves when falling over; larger ones could be wrapped around cars - or is that an over inflated idea?!

[Dizzy]

Nice one Evils..... sorry should I be laughing

 

Know what you mean though as it caught me by suprise too when I walked out on the 'wet' floor.

 

All I'll say about the cyclist though is 'was he stupid' If it had already happened once you think he would have got the message eh

[observer]

Might have been Rod!

[Dizzy]

 

Joking aside over this mornings conditions though.

 

Just heard on the radio that there was a 50 car pile up on the East Lancs.

 

In all fairness to the council and highways bods though how on earth can you do anything about unexpected rain that immediately freezes on on impact with the road surface especially when the weather warnings just said the temperature would rise to +5 today.... or have I just answered my own question

[Dizzy]

My wheelie bin lid was frozen solid with a rim of thick ice at 6pm.

The inside of my car windscreen was also frozen .. weird.

 

Puddles were starting to freeze and a lot of BLACK ICE already forming.

 

Not good .....

 

No sign of a gritter having been round here at all... but then again they rarely do our road unless a near fatal accident occurs

[wolfie]

At 7am this morning the roads in Warrington were treacherous. Driving through Widnes to Runcorn the roads were well gritted and no problem.

[Eagle]

Leigh have got their finger out again.

[Dizzy]

I'm happy to say I wasn't up at that time nor did I have to venture out in my car.. PHEW

 

What is it with WBC and gritting.. or should I say 'lack of gritting'.

 

Surely by now they must realise how they are failing to cope already wheras other councils are seeming to manage ....

 

We're all doomed if we have a repeat of last years prolonged snow and big freeze

[Bazj]

Just had my car running sideways down our close...... god I love rear wheel drive (with traction control off of course!!)

[Dizzy]

Boys and their toys Bet you did it on purpose

 

I used to spin my car 360+ deg on ice on a certain local carpark and road near work I have grown up a lot since then though

[Bazj]

Of course I did it on purpose.....

 

The traction control on this thing won't let the car wheelspin for long on snow, so turning it off is the only solution!!

[Dizzy]

At least you are enjoying yourself

[Dizzy]

Do WBC have a snow plough

[Peter T]

Do WBC have a snow plough

 

I think so, but do they have anyone trained up to use it?

[Evil Sid]

question is with four inches of snow last night how will they get to it to get it out

[Dizzy]

Warrington apparently has 5 snow ploughs

 

Possible use of fire vehicles as snow ploughs ? joined up working?

? Warrington currently has five snow ploughs that are standard type ploughs manufactured to be used on purpose made gritting vehicles. Contact can be made with fire authority to identify if they have access to snow ploughs for use on their vehicles however, we would have to negotiate appropriate support with them. It is likely that even with agreement the fire service would have to put dealing with fire and rescue call outs as a priority over dealing with snow events.

? We are exploring alternative smaller plant that can be safely used to snow and ice clearance and this will have to be evaluated alongside other risks that removing ice and snow could present.

[Dizzy]

Oh and if you think more roads or pavements should be gritted... forget it.

 

Priority roads for gritting ? main roads / bus routes / other potentially dangerous locations ? routes need to be clarified

 

? There are five primary gritting routes that are available on map layers. These include all main A roads and roads serving hospitals, fire stations and secondary schools. Also included are roads that carry three or more buses per hour.

? There are also secondary grit routes that include roads that service hospices, industrial estates and primary schools and also roads that carry less than three buses per hour.

? Currently there is no capacity to increase the length and add additional large stretches of roads into the existing gritting routes. The five routes currently are being used to full capacity taking up to 4hrs to drive a route with a full load of grit in the wagon being spread whilst driving around the roads on the agreed routes. National guidance

? If further roads were requested to be included then a further prioritisation criteria for roads that should / shouldn?t be included would have to be agreed. Typically to increase the length of the routes that could be requested to be gritted would require additional investment in terms of extra gritting vehiclesTo make a route cost effective a route should be 50 ? 60 km in length to make the plant and route worth the investment.. This would however also require additional salt and labour / maintenance budget to run the additional vehicles and provide further coverage. Typically this would be an additional ?60k per annum to run an additional route during a normal winter. During a severe winter an additional this would be an additional ?100k per annum per additional route.

? Typically a new gritting machine would cost ?120k new to buy with some routine maintenance costs. Alternatively to lease a vehicle this would cost of the order of ?15k per annum. So overall an additional gritter would cost a minimum of ?75k per annum.

 

Pavements ? can these be included

 

? Consideration to include pavements could be given however; there are cost implications to this option.

? Currently the pedestrianised areas of the town centre are gritted by the town centre wardens that hand spread the area by using the salt from grit bins.

? The total length of footways is over 2300km. Conventional spreading by hand would take too long to pre-treat all of this length of footway. Considerable investment would therefore be needed to increase the labour and buy in smaller plant and spreading equipment needed to pre-grit footways in advance of any ice forming on the pavement. Costs are still currently being explored with regards to plant and type of products that are more suited to pre-treating ice on footways.

? By way of comparison the additional labour that was redeployed from pothole repairs to snow clear around schools and district shopping areas for a five day period cost ?50k. So typically snow clearance will cost ?10k per day to deploy 10 number two man teams across the borough to do localised clearance of snow in and around shopping areas, schools and high use areas.

? It would therefore be recommended to treat footways on a priority basis based on usage and access to services. Typically this could be footways serving schools, hospitals and to district shopping centres. Cost implications would still need to be considered and these are being investigated currently to allow members to consider such options.

 

Typical

 

Reading this I would like to question the cost analysis?

 

Maybe I have got it wrong but if the gritting of the primary routes only takes 4 hours then WHY do they need to buy more gritters at a cost of ?120k or lease one at ?15k + ?60k operating costs = Total ?75 per annum.

 

And how on earth did it cost ?50k for 5 days work to clear snow around schools and district shopping areas last year

 

How much are these employees being paid per hour

 

I can feel a rant coming on................ so I'm going to take some deep breaths

 

you can read the rest here

 

http://212.248.237.112/CmisWebPublic/Binary.ashx?Document=11032

[Peter T]

What a load of tosh!!!!.

If the pothole repairers are already getting paid, why would it cost anything to redeploy them whilst they are unable to repair potholes.

What do the binmen do when they can't collect refuse?

Why not use the Probation teams to help?

WHY isn't there sand and grit on street corners, or doesn't it matter that the old and vulnerable are unable to get to the shops?

 

Where there's a will, there's a way.

Get the councillors clearing the footpaths and do an honest day's work

[Dizzy]

Rattled you too I see

 

No wonder nothing gets done round here eh.

 

Nothing other than paper reports to the exec and others that is containing all the expected 'typical' findings, recommendations or 'we cant do because' reasons based on overegagerated costs, scenarios and not one ounce of common sense eh.

 

Give me some grit and a spade and I'll do the shoping areas and around schools for starters... care to join me anyone.. of course we will only charge 1/2 of last years costs (say ?25k) and should be finished in a couple of days...

[algy]

Do WBC have a snow plough

Funny you ask that we have just heard a strange loud scraping noise coming from the A50 Knutsford Rd sounded like the blade of a snow plough scraping the road?.

[Dizzy]

A road in deserate need of resurfacing soon then

 

Just been out to my car and I think they must have actually gritted our road recently

 

The side mounds of snow/slush which has been dispersed by all the passing cars is now frozen solid (so not a chance of moving the cars tomorrow) but the actual road itself is not actually that bad.

 

After 18 years of endless phone calls and only ever having been gritted a handfull of times due to funding and other 'typical' excuses .... I think they've actually done it for once

 

Now if they grit the bottom junctions of all the adjoining sloped side roads too that will stop all the cars sliding out onto the main road

 

Mmmm maybe we are being too harsh on them and they are indeed doing extra roads at the moment.........all will become clear tomorrow I guess

[Peter T]

Aren't they supposed to do it before it snows?

[Dizzy]

Maybe they did although I didn't see any traces of grit anywhere

 

Very odd as ours is usually one of the worst roads due it's location

[observer]

All the MAIN roads were clear today.

[Dizzy]

Getting better by the day then it seems... credit where credit's due and of course we will all continue to look out for them 'slipping' up