Grit - were we sold a job lot?

paulocon

Is it just me or is the grit that the authorities have been using this year of pretty poor quality?

Been on the roads the last few days and compared to last year, the grit doesn't seem to be having much of an effect. Had to abandon my car this evening and have heard similar reports from over the country - even the M50 was very dodgy in places!!

slimjimmc

I don't think it's poor quality material, more a case of them not using enough of it I suspect.

Was on a fairly busy motorway tonight and you'd think it had never been salted. Strangely the R-road which crossed the same motorway was perfectly de-iced despite carrying less traffic; lovely wet slush-free black tarmac across the full width of both carriageways. Same area, same weather, so I conclude the only difference was the R-road was properly salted.

Stonewolf

slimjimmc wrote: »

I don't think it's poor quality material, more a case of them not using enough of it I suspect.

Was on a fairly busy motorway tonight and you'd think it had never been salted. Strangely the R-road which crossed the same motorway was perfectly de-iced despite carrying less traffic; lovely wet slush-free black tarmac across the full width of both carriageways. Same area, same weather, so I conclude the only difference was the R-road was properly salted.

The guy who drives the truck probably lives on the road. Also remember that in order to grit/salt the road the trucks have to drive on ungritted/salted roads and therefore are allowed to bug out if they feel unsafe.

Chris_5339762

Where I am in Dublin they dumped a big heap of grit in the middle of the road and were letting cars spread it over time.

amacachi

Stuff on the footpath on O'Connell St. was great, left me ankle-deep in brown slush.

Ernest

Downtown yesterday there was no sign of any kind of grit or salt or snow clearance on most of the FOOTPATHS in Nassau Street or adjoining streets. You might think that those guys with the big awkward noisy vacuum cleaner devices with brushes that keep ketting in the way of pedestrians in normal weather might have been diverted to snow clearance or salting or gritting of pavements!! And is there not any regulation or law that requires traders to keep the pavement outside their premises clear of snow??

Stonewolf

According to Dublin City bye-laws (dating from 1899 but still on the books) all businesses and private citizens are required to ensure the pavement in front of thier places of business/residence are cleared.

Bullseye1

So these companies pay huge rates to these local authorities and these guys cannot even keep the pavement clear. And there is a law that the shop owner is responsible for maintaining the pavement? Who is responsible for this nonsense. You pay rates you should get something for it.

Taco Corp

Stonewolf wrote: »

According to Dublin City bye-laws (dating from 1899 but still on the books) all businesses and private citizens are required to ensure the pavement in front of thier places of business/residence are cleared.

I was wondering whether such a law existed. Some places did clear the path, but most don't.

The biggest problem regarding this is having some to enforce the law and how.

mdebets

Ernest wrote: »

Downtown yesterday there was no sign of any kind of grit or salt or snow clearance on most of the FOOTPATHS in Nassau Street or adjoining streets. You might think that those guys with the big awkward noisy vacuum cleaner devices with brushes that keep ketting in the way of pedestrians in normal weather might have been diverted to snow clearance or salting or gritting of pavements!!

There are not enough people in DCC to do this properly. Imagine how many miles of footpath are there in Dublin. These guys also would have to carry the grit with them, so they probably would have to return to depot to collect new fairly regularly, delaying them as well.
The only sensible solution would be that house owners and shops would be required to keep their pavement clean (like the law is for example in Germany)