Are the roads still salty?

[topless360]

I'm trying to decide what to take to Sunday Service next week. Are they still throwing grit onto the roads in this weather (3 or 4 degrees at night)?

Anybody on the inside know what the cut off temps are for them not to grit? I'm sure I've seen them out in these temperatures previously.

[SidewaysSi]

Here in SE London the roads are still very "white" so I have not taken the Caterham out. They seem to grit as soon as the road temp (lower than air temp) drops to anything sub zero.

Don't think they have actually gritted the roads for the past few days but given we have not had much in the way of rain, it hasn't been washed off.

[Rich1973]

Have you tried licking one?

[bomb]

Rich1973 said:

Have you tried licking one?

He is asking about the roads, not windows.

[sunnydude959]

bomb said:

He is asking about the roads, not windows.

I thought he was talking about my...

[ecsrobin]

I've seen them gritting the last few days in Notts although don't know they temp cut off.

[bobbo89]

Depends on your exact location. Where I am we've not done a full grit for a few days but we have had night patrols out putting salt down on high ground and areas where you get a lot of run-off.

I'm still putting off taking my old Beetle out until we've had a week of no-gritting and some heavy showers to wash away what's still standing.

[sherman]

Gritters still going about in edinburgh.

Also saw on the matrix board on the m8 tonight. "Is your car prepared for winter"

[R1gtr]

Plenty of Salt on the road in the Highlands.
Beautiful day so gave the car a wash then went out for a blast after dinner, had a high speed play with a lovely sounding Astra VXR,and got home to find my car as filthy as it was this morning!

[topless360]

I'm in Shropshire. Good point about road temps being lower than air temps.

Part of me thinks life's too short to worry but the other part is thinking just wait a few more weeks. Looks like I may just take the Honda unless it warms up real soon.

[Gafferjim]

They monitor the met office (on a better met office site than we as Joe Public can see) and will grit the motorway if the temperature is falling and likely to fall further than 4ºC. they gritted in our area on Friday night, don't think they've been out tonight though.
There are also strategically placed sensors that tell just how much salt is still on the road surface, this helps to decide how much salt is required to be spread.

[Glade]

In Leeds they're not... when there is grit down the roads seem to absorb moisture and are more slippery. The dampness seems to hang on for longer.

You can really feel it on the bike, and at the moment the roads are not slimey up here.

[aw51 121565]

Bolton Council last gritted on Wednesday evening - well, that was the last update from their "gritting updates" email service. It's currently 2.5C here - it was 1.6C an hour ago - and there is frost on the cars outside. It rained pretty heavily on Friday (yesterday - just!) so I'd say there isn't much salt on the roads now . As long as the roads are dry, I'd be happy to take my classics out tomorrow (today? ).

OP, whereabouts in the country are you? The devil's in the detail as to if the salt has gone .

[richelli]

Although not local. I was on call on Tuesday night and I think the council needed to get rid of their quota of grit as I seen half a dozen gritters during my 90 mile call out to barrow in cumbria from Carlisle. It was cold but I didn't think it was that cold.

[ohtari]

Here in NI they don't pay that much attention to the forecast, as shown a couple of weeks ago...

Hard frost/black ice on the M1 (Northern Ireland), resulting in half a dozen fairly bad accidents in a 5 mile stretch. Think fire brigade using the jaws of life bad...

The 6pm news was suspiciously quiet of the carnage though

[powerstroke]

Glade said:

In Leeds they're not... when there is grit down the roads seem to absorb moisture and are more slippery. The dampness seems to hang on for longer.

You can really feel it on the bike, and at the moment the roads are not slimey up here.

This!!! Perfectly dry clean roads turned into skating rinks
And I'm amazed the green lobby hasent said something about the pollution of rivers and watercourses by evil salt !!

[Krikkit]

Does one venture out onto a potentially salty road really matter?

[Riley Blue]

Last Wednesday I went out in my Riley for the first time this year. It was dry when we left home but started to rain around 1 o'clock. By the time we got home again, the car was coated in salty 'goo' so it was straight to a jet wash for a good hose down.

[ben5732]

Gritters still out in Cheshire.

[s m]

topless360 said:

I'm in Shropshire. Good point about road temps being lower than air temps.

Part of me thinks life's too short to worry but the other part is thinking just wait a few more weeks. Looks like I may just take the Honda unless it warms up real soon.

If you really want to know whether they've gritted since the last heavy rain on Friday, login to Twitter and search on #wmgrit

You can see the updates from @ShropCouncil who will likely do the gritting in your area