Are the roads being gritted during this cold snap?

DaveBH

Drove along the N11/M11 tonight and I could have sworn there was grit (or something!) on it.
Just wondered if anyone knows if the councils are gritting during the cold spell and also what do they use? Salt? Sand?

Can anyone enlighten me?

Thanks

Danbo!

Yeah South Dublin county council have been gritting the roads alright, not sure about dun laoighre/rathdown. One thing though, the grit trucks spread grit from the back of the truck and the right side, so as to cover the opposite lane as well. Learnt that when my car got sprayed the other night passing a gritting truck heading in the opposite direction, no damage though.

DaveBH

What do they spread? Are they little stones or sand? I'm assuming it's not salt like our UK counterparts?

Danbo!

Not sure, looks like fine pebbles, kind of a sandy colour

Berty

Its a mix of sand, small aggregate and in some cases glass. Its not supposed to stick to the road as such.

Unlike in the UK where they have salt to melt the ice here we have grit desgined to stick to the tyres of vehicles and go with you providing extra grip between the threads of your tyres.

Not all roads here were built with sufficient wearing courses so the grit provides a medium between this on more "inferior" roads.

ambman

Drove

From cavan to dublin this morning and no sign of any grit and the roads were terrible:eek:

craiginireland

noblestee wrote: »

Yeah South Dublin county council have been gritting the roads alright, not sure about dun laoighre/rathdown. One thing though, the grit trucks spread grit from the back of the truck and the right side, so as to cover the opposite lane as well. Learnt that when my car got sprayed the other night passing a gritting truck heading in the opposite direction, no damage though.

Yup that happened me today on the N7

Carawaystick

Salt is used, I've seen tide marks on the M7 after prolonged cold spells, and I think I got a leaflet from the tax office with my tax pin before explaining they were salting the roads.

http://www.nra.ie/NetworkManagement/RoadWeatherInformationSystem/
http://www.nra.ie/NetworkManagement/Maintenance/WinterMaintenance/

According to the first article NRA uses 50000 tonnes of salt yearly. That's quite a lot.

For example, compared to Finland, which has a larger road network (13264 total km of national routes vs. 2739 kilometres National Primary and 2676 kilometres National Secondary in Ireland). The salt consumption in Finland appears to be roughly 100 000 tonnes annually.

Maybe this myth about no salt in Ireland should be scrapped?

Edit: I couldn't find stats for whole of the UK, but e.g. one particular county, Cheshire, spreads 15000 tonnes of salt on 1930 kilometers of roads (total county road network is 4,830 kilometers). So it does appear Ireland salts pretty much the same per unit of roads as County Cheshire of UK.

Jonnykitedude

Its salt this is were we get it from along with Uk and some of the USA

http://www.irishsaltmining.com/

Alun

Jonnykitedude wrote: »

Its salt this is wear we get it from along with Uk and some of the USA

http://www.irishsaltmining.com/

There was a small piece on this place on the BBC program Coast a while back. It's quite an impressive place, absolutely massive inside, they even rent out space in the already worked-out areas for archive storage .. it's nice and dry down there because the salt absorbs all the moisture from the air.

McSpud

Don't know if the roads are gritted but seems in Dublin they are gritting the cars. Driving through Blackhall tonight & despite me in the bus lane & full lane between me & gritter he sprayed it across my bonnet.

oisindoyle

Yea the gritters can be quite dangerous.I was behind a truck the other day ,it was gritting in the afternoon!! and spraying the stuff everywhere .Wonder could you sue the DCC if your car was damaged.

Gran Hermano

And if you want to see whether the main roads are treated:
http://www.nra.ie/RoadWeatherInfo/Map/data/htm/WeatherTable.htm

rubensni

oisindoyle wrote: »

Yea the gritters can be quite dangerous.I was behind a truck the other day ,it was gritting in the afternoon!! and spraying the stuff everywhere .Wonder could you sue the DCC if your car was damaged.

Of course you could, but it would be tough to prove that they were negligent as the whole point of the spreading is to prevent accidents! It's a fairly fine grit, well ground up.

Either way I'm getting a car wash tomorrow. I was stuck behind one yesterday for about 20 miles, car is covered in the stuff.

Alanstrainor

pfffft this thread is a year old. Can't see a reason for this to stay alive tbh...
Closed.
You can start a new thread about gritters if you wish.