Gritters grip
Grimly Curmudgeon
I was wondering...
How do gritting lorries get grip? Almost by default, they are travelling
along roads which need grit or salt and (this is the daft bit) the grit
is shed behind them.
I envisage a team of two workers, standing on a platform built onto the
front of the truck, shovelling grit/salt under the wheels as it goes,
much like the sand boxes on steam locos. ;)
Nightjar
> <not a serious question>
> I was wondering...
> How do gritting lorries get grip? Almost by default, they are travelling
> along roads which need grit or salt and (this is the daft bit) the grit
> is shed behind them.
Road grit needs to be put out before the ice forms for best effect.
Colin Bignell
Kipper at sea
Four wheel drive and dif lock axle
Sidney Endon-Lee
Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:
> <not a serious question>
> I was wondering...
> How do gritting lorries get grip?
Snow tyres? And chains if really bad.
Steve Walker
It's the wrong question. As other have answered it, I'll go no further, but
the real question is, when the weather is unexpectedly bad and gritting
hasn't started in time ... how do the gritter drivers get to work?
SteveW
F
> How do gritting lorries get grip?
BBC News have just shown an image of one on its side...
--
F
Dave Liquorice
> How do gritting lorries get grip?
They sometimes don't and slide off the road or get stuck in drifts.
Remember along with the salt they are putting out the back they also
have a plough on the front, there might be 2' of snow(*) in front but
where the wheels are less than an inch. Our ploughs have very knobbly
tyres with tread depth aroud an inch.
(*) 2' of wet sticky snow may well stop a plough or at least give it
something to think about. Same depth of dry snow won't be a problem.
I'm thinking of a plough with a pointy blade not a straight shove it
to the nearside one. They also use momentum to get through drifts,
>10 tonnes of truck moving at 30mph takes a bit of stopping...
--
Cheers
Dave.
Dave Liquorice
> Road grit needs to be put out before the ice forms for best effect.
That as well, it's not really grit either but lumps of dirty salt. It
takes time and traffic to melt the snow/ice. You can grit onto a
ploughed surface but if there isn't much traffic it won't have much
effect. You need the traffic to mix the salt into the snow/ice/slush.
--
Cheers
Dave.
Dave Liquorice
> when the weather is unexpectedly bad and gritting hasn't started in time
> ... how do the gritter drivers get to work?
Ours walk... anyway there is no reason for "unexpected bad weather"
forecasts out to 24 hours a pretty good and at 6 hrs accurate.
--
Cheers
Dave.
Jules
They're nearly always 6x6's over here (the wilds of Minnesota) with very
deep treads on the tyres. Always combined plough / spreader trucks.
Every once in a while they'll send a grader through too; I'm not sure if
they just call on those when the ploughs are running flat-out, or if
there's some function they do that the ploughs can't (they never have grit
spreaders on the graders, so they just clear snow/ice)
As Colin says, getting grit down before the ice seems to be key - and then
repeating as much as necessary (they'll usually do a run past our place at
least once a day, whether it's snowing or not)
cheers
Jules
Jules
> It's the wrong question. As other have answered it, I'll go no further, but
> the real question is, when the weather is unexpectedly bad and gritting
> hasn't started in time ... how do the gritter drivers get to work?
Do they have a fleet of 4x4 work vehicles that the drivers get to
borrow and take home? You can get through pretty much anything that nature
can throw down with a 4x4, albeit sometimes slowly.
ARWadsworth
"Steve Walker" <st...@theend.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:q260uxizouh5$.1r6oqdx4c65ye.dlg@40tude.net...
Then they don't get to work on time and the roads do not get gritted in
time.
This is then followed up in the newspapers with stories from annoyed
motorists blaming the council for not gritting the road and how they had "to
walk and it's so unfair I pay my council tax etc etc"
Adam
Adrian
like they were saying:
> It's the wrong question. As other have answered it, I'll go no further,
> but the real question is, when the weather is unexpectedly bad and
> gritting hasn't started in time ... how do the gritter drivers get to
> work?
A friend of mine looked into getting on the on-call gritter-driver rota
for his local council.
The answer is "They've got to be able to walk to the depot"...
John L
<443f4f98-7158-4950...@e27g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>,
Kipper at sea <keith...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
> Four wheel drive and dif lock axle
And about 11 tons of weight when full.
And it's usually new-ish snow, which even my dear old Corolla can have a
go at, when it hasn't been mixed and polished by a lot of other cars.
(Aside, and apols to cross-group colleagues): I asked in the
uk.rec.cars.maintenance group which car would be better for snow: our
Corolla or our titchy Suzuki Alto (which has tiny wheels). The consensus
was that little wheels go better. Hmmmmmmmmmmm I thought. On the days
when I've braved the roads I've stuck with the heavier, wider-wheeled
Corolla. (And the main answer was: if you're a crap driver, it doesn't
matter which you use. (Fortunately I'm a brilliant driver -- as any
fule kno.))
John
Steve Walker
I've been checking the forecasts here regularly over the last few days and
for our area they've been universally wrong. On Monday night they were
forecasting intermittent snow showers and rain - while this was still the
current forecast, it started snowing heavily and two inches arrived.
Through the rest of the night, another six inches arrived (no rain). In the
previous couple of weeks, we've got snow when the forecast said it was
going to be dry, heavy snow when it's supposed to have rained, etc. We
basically seem to be better off if we plan for any sort of weather at all,
except what they're forecasting :(
SteveW
Bruce
<allsortsn...@howhill.com> wrote:
>
>On Wed, 06 Jan 2010 00:17:15 +0000, Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:
>
>> How do gritting lorries get grip?
>
>They sometimes don't and slide off the road or get stuck in drifts.
I saw one on its side today.
Jules
> (Aside, and apols to cross-group colleagues): I asked in the
> uk.rec.cars.maintenance group which car would be better for snow: our
> Corolla or our titchy Suzuki Alto (which has tiny wheels). The consensus
> was that little wheels go better.
Living in a snowy part of the world, that subject gets discussed a lot.
The general conclusion is usually that it depends on the type of snow;
wider tyres with low pressure can be suited to certain types, but thinner
tyres can do better on other stuff.
RWD does better than FWD, and 4x4 does better still. Tracks are even
better :-)
cheers
Jules
Gareth
On 06/01/2010 16:27, Jules wrote:
> RWD does better than FWD, and 4x4 does better still.
Perhaps this also depends on the type of snow but from what I've seen
RWD cars (mostly BMWs) seem to have a lot more trouble than front wheel
drive.
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
To reply to me directly:
Replace privacy.net with: totalise DOT co DOT uk and replace me with
gareth.harris
Dave Liquorice
> ... from what I've seen RWD cars (mostly BMWs) seem to have a lot more
> trouble than front wheel drive.
That's down to the drivers of BMW's not RWD. B-)
--
Cheers
Dave.
Dave Liquorice
> The general conclusion is usually that it depends on the type of snow;
> wider tyres with low pressure can be suited to certain types, but
> thinner tyres can do better on other stuff.
Yes, the float or dig difference.
Big wide tyres and lower ground pressure will reduce how far you sink
but at the expense of not reaching the tarmac so you have to rely for
grip on whatever the tyres to surface can do. Narrow tyres will tend
to dig down and find a firmer surface, if there is one or you might
did to far...
--
Cheers
Dave.
Dave Liquorice
>> Ours walk... anyway there is no reason for "unexpected bad
weather"
>> forecasts out to 24 hours a pretty good and at 6 hrs accurate.
>
> I've been checking the forecasts here regularly over the last few days
> and for our area they've been universally wrong.
Where have you been checking? There are some diabolically awful
"forecasts" that it would be a waste of a bullet to shoot. Many are
automated with no sanity checking, some imply a far greater
geographic relevance than is really there. Plug our postcode into
some and you get a forecast, but it's based on Carlisle Airport, 20+
miles away and 1400' lower!
These aren't the "weather products" that the councils (should!) be
using to predict the gritting requirement. Not only do they take
forecasts/warnings from the Met Office etc any decent coucil also has
it own network of sensors that give actual road surface temps etc.
--
Cheers
Dave.
Harry Bloomfield
> On 06/01/2010 16:27, Jules wrote:
>> RWD does better than FWD, and 4x4 does better still.
>
> Perhaps this also depends on the type of snow but from what I've seen
> RWD cars (mostly BMWs) seem to have a lot more trouble than front wheel
> drive.
That would be the BMW drivers, rather than the BMW RWD cars.
--
Regards,
Harry (M1BYT) (L)
http://www.ukradioamateur.co.uk
Dave Liquorice
> You can get through pretty much anything that nature can throw down with
> a 4x4, albeit sometimes slowly.
2 foot of snow would most normal 4x4s. So without a plough blade or
digger it's out with the shovel. Digging through a 2' bank of snow
even just taking the top foot off to allow the 4x4 through will be
hard work and *very* slow.
You can get plough blades to go on the front of Defenders but I doubt
they would deal with much more than a foot. You just need to much
force to shift deep snow.
--
Cheers
Dave.
Owain
> It's the wrong question. As other have answered it, I'll go no further, but
> the real question is, when the weather is unexpectedly bad and gritting
> hasn't started in time ... how do the gritter drivers get to work?
They take the gritters home with them the night before.
Owain
The Medway Handyman
Wonder if the Tax Man claims thats a perk & taxes the buggers?
--
Dave - The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk
ARWadsworth
"The Medway Handyman" <davi...@nospamblueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
news:5B51n.22806$Ym4....@text.news.virginmedia.com...
There was a good scandal in the local rag a few years ago when a gritter
diverted from it's route and gritted a rather large pub car park in return
for a few beer tokens for the lads.
They were seen by a nosey councillor and reported.
Adam
Mike
<davi...@nospamblueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>Owain wrote:
>> On 6 Jan, 13:19, Steve Walker wrote:
>>> It's the wrong question. As other have answered it, I'll go no
>>> further, but the real question is, when the weather is unexpectedly
>>> bad and gritting hasn't started in time ... how do the gritter
>>> drivers get to work?
>>
>> They take the gritters home with them the night before.
>
>Wonder if the Tax Man claims thats a perk & taxes the buggers?
Well I worked for 5yrs for a Council ... and drove the gritters ..
never once was anyone allowed to take one home !!
I think Steve W was perhaps was just making a suggestion.
As far as getting to the depot was concerned .. as Dave L says, the
forecasting was pretty accurate and communications with areas upwind,
kept us informed of exactly where the snow was and how fast it was
approaching.
Mike P
Dave
>> <not a serious question>
>> I was wondering...
>> How do gritting lorries get grip? Almost by default, they are travelling
>> along roads which need grit or salt and (this is the daft bit) the grit
>> is shed behind them.
>
>
> Colin Bignell
Nice to see you posting, how are you feeling?
Try telling that to our local and county councils. Roads that look OK
are like black ice when you try to brake on them. I have had three panic
attacks this week on braking on what looked like salted roads, to find
that they were very slippy and it was not black ice either.
Dave
Dave
> On Jan 6, 9:04 am, "Nightjar <\"cpb\"@" <"insertmysurnamehere> wrote:
>> Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:
>>> <not a serious question>
>>> I was wondering...
>>> How do gritting lorries get grip? Almost by default, they are travelling
>>> along roads which need grit or salt and (this is the daft bit) the grit
>>> is shed behind them.
>> Road grit needs to be put out before the ice forms for best effect.
>>
>> Colin Bignell
>
How will that make the roads less slippy?
Dave
Dave
Where do you get your grit/salt from?
Dave
Owain
> > They take the gritters home with them the night before.
> Wonder if the Tax Man claims thats a perk & taxes the buggers?
If they're not allowed to use the vehicle for personal use, and they
don't use it for commuting (from home to place of work) then it
shouldn't be taxable.
Owain
Andy Champ
>
> (Aside, and apols to cross-group colleagues): I asked in the
> uk.rec.cars.maintenance group which car would be better for snow: our
> Corolla or our titchy Suzuki Alto (which has tiny wheels). The consensus
> was that little wheels go better. Hmmmmmmmmmmm I thought. On the days
> when I've braved the roads I've stuck with the heavier, wider-wheeled
> Corolla. (And the main answer was: if you're a crap driver, it doesn't
> matter which you use. (Fortunately I'm a brilliant driver -- as any
> fule kno.))
>
I left my MR2 (mid engine, semi track tyres, cold engine tickover at
2000 RPM, known for snap oversteer) at home and took my wife's little
FWD 1.0 "shopping trolley". _much_ easier to drive. But TBH it was all
the other idiots that really caused me trouble.
Andy
Colin Wilson
> >They sometimes don't and slide off the road or get stuck in drifts.
> I saw one on its side today.
Maybe they were running out of grit and were trying to get out the
last scrapings :-p
Owain
> "The Medway Handyman" wrote:
> >Owain wrote:
> >> They take the gritters home with them the night before.
> never once was anyone allowed to take one home !!
> I think Steve W was perhaps was just making a suggestion.
I think it was me rather than Mr W, and I refer to this article about
Highland Council:
Mr Guest said: "Some of our gritters take their lorries home with them
at night so that they don't get stranded the next morning."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8418457.stm
Owain
Steve Walker
I've checked on a number of different sites and they've all said pretty
much the same. As I'm fairly close to both Manchester Airport and Woodford
Aerodrome and everything is pretty flat around here, you'd expect forecasts
for this area to be pretty reliable.
SteveW
The Medway Handyman
But if they take the gritter home - as has been suggested - that would be
commuting from home to work.
The bastard tax man will always try & get his hand in someones pocket.
dennis@home
"Gareth" <m...@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:Y9CdnQLa675hXdnW...@brightview.com...
>
> On 06/01/2010 16:27, Jules wrote:
>> RWD does better than FWD, and 4x4 does better still.
>
> Perhaps this also depends on the type of snow but from what I've seen
> RWD cars (mostly BMWs) seem to have a lot more trouble than front wheel
> drive.
BMWs appear to have more trouble than any other car front or four wheel
drive.
I expect its the drivers rather than the cars.
One of the doctors at my wife's practice has a BMW, I have driven up and
down the drive several times today without trouble but she just can't drive
her BMW up the drive.
I have done it in front wheel and rear wheel drive cars today with no
problems.
I have got stuck on a car park in a smart car today, just wouldn't go
without sliding.
Its impossible to select anything other than first/reverse to start off
which makes it very hard to control on ice.
The automatic clutch makes it even worse BTW.
dennis@home
"Dave" <dave...@btopenworld.com> wrote in message
news:Bs6dnedsb6VenNjW...@bt.com...
> Kipper at sea wrote:
8<
>> Four wheel drive and dif lock axle
>
> How will that make the roads less slippy?
It makes it easier to go too fast.
They are generally heavier too so take longer to stop on ice.
>
> Dave
>
Jules
> On Wed, 06 Jan 2010 08:27:30 -0600, Jules wrote:
>
>> You can get through pretty much anything that nature can throw down with
>> a 4x4, albeit sometimes slowly.
>
> 2 foot of snow would most normal 4x4s. So without a plough blade or
> digger it's out with the shovel. Digging through a 2' bank of snow
> even just taking the top foot off to allow the 4x4 through will be
> hard work and *very* slow.
Yes, hence the 'pretty much' - but that much snow is reasonably uncommon
in the UK, though (although it sounds like it's getting close in places -
but it'd also have to be 2' of snowfall since the last plough/grit run,
and I'd expect them to be doing passes pretty frequently)
> You can get plough blades to go on the front of Defenders but I doubt
> they would deal with much more than a foot. You just need to much force
> to shift deep snow.
It's possibly one of those 'depends on the type of snow' things.
My brother-in-law had a plough blade on one of his trucks and it'd cope
with a couple of feet no problem (and heck was it fun to drive ;) - it
had a hydraulic tilt / lift on it, so the trick was to take the top 18" or
so off in one pass and then go back to tidy up.
One of our neighbours ploughs our driveway out for us these days - he's
got a 4x4 quad bike with a blade on it, and even that's coped happily
with a foot and a half on a few occasions (very low pressure tyres with
some serious tread on them).
cheers
Jules
Frank Erskine
<davi...@nospamblueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>Owain wrote:
>> On 6 Jan, 19:34, "The Medway Handyman" wrote:
>>>> They take the gritters home with them the night before.
>>> Wonder if the Tax Man claims thats a perk & taxes the buggers?
>>
>> If they're not allowed to use the vehicle for personal use, and they
>> don't use it for commuting (from home to place of work) then it
>> shouldn't be taxable.
>
>But if they take the gritter home - as has been suggested - that would be
>commuting from home to work.
Only to a _regular_ place of work, such as a factory, office etc. If
his place of work varies then the 'commuting' bit doesn't apply.
--
Frank Erskine
Owain
> > If they're not allowed to use the vehicle for personal use, and they
> > don't use it for commuting (from home to place of work) then it
> > shouldn't be taxable.
> But if they take the gritter home - as has been suggested - that would be
> commuting from home to work.
No, home to work would be from home to their depot, which is their
designated workplace. Travelling from home to a remote work site away
from the workplace is not commuting.
Owain
Reentrant
approaching a fairly gentle hill near me and being told "you'll never
make it".
--
Reentrant
Jules
>> As Colin says, getting grit down before the ice seems to be key - and then
>> repeating as much as necessary (they'll usually do a run past our place at
>> least once a day, whether it's snowing or not)
>
> Where do you get your grit/salt from?
Y'know, I'm not sure. Someone gave me this URL though which explains a bit
of the science:
http://www.saltinstitute.org/Uses-benefits/Winter-road-safety/How-does-road-salt-work
... and that would suggest that it's something other than "just salt" that
they use around here, because the temperatures are often too low for salt
to work (although it's a relatively-warm 0 degrees F outside today)
cheers
Jules
Dave Liquorice
> Yes, hence the 'pretty much' - but that much snow is reasonably uncommon
> in the UK, though (although it sounds like it's getting close in places
2' outside as I type... and we had a similar amount last year.
Admitedly 2" would be considered "an awful lot of snow" in many parts
of the country...
> - but it'd also have to be 2' of snowfall since the last plough/grit
> run, and I'd expect them to be doing passes pretty frequently)
Doesn't American snow drift? 2' of drift can form very rapidly and it
doesn't have to be snowing, the wind just picks it up from exposed
areas and dumps it in the gap between the walls/hedges each side of
the road.
When it's really drifting up here the ploughs just drive around the
roads about every hour, even then any one in a normal car would have
problems 15 to 30 after the plough had passed. Best to wait and
follow it...
>> You can get plough blades to go on the front of Defenders but I
doubt
>> they would deal with much more than a foot. You just need to much
force
>> to shift deep snow.
>
> It's possibly one of those 'depends on the type of snow' things.
Agreed, the sticky wet stuff they get a low levels that makes a good
construction material is far harder to shift than a freshly formed
drift from fine dry powder snow. A plough with the latter can be
almost useless as the stuff behaves like a fluid and flows around the
plough like water around a boat.
--
Cheers
Dave.
Fredxx
"Owain" <spuorg...@gowanhill.com> wrote in message
news:2b869f22-6c80-4262...@34g2000yqp.googlegroups.com...
I thought home to work was tax free with a company "van". But if it was
used for anything other than commuting, or for work, ie any private use at
all, you would incur tax on �3,000, plus fuel allowance of �500.
Frank Erskine
No - "home to office" is your own responsibility and use of a company
vehicle for that is taxable. HOWEVER, if you can convince the taxman
that you only travel directly home-to-office occasionally and that
most of your home-to-work journeys are not via the office, you can get
away with it.
Obviously the same applies for the return journeys (office to home).
BTDTGTTS.
--
Frank Erskine
Fredxx
"Frank Erskine" <frank....@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:9ubhk5l74d57gunje...@4ax.com...
That isn't my understanding, but my interpretation of the rules may be
wrong.
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/eimanual/EIM22800.htm (EIM22800 - Van
benefit from 2005/06: commuter use requirement) which says:
The commuter use requirement is satisfied at any time if -
a.. the terms on which the van is available to the employee at the time
prohibit its private use otherwise than for the purposes of ordinary
commuting or travel between two places that is for practical purposes
substantially ordinary commuting, and
b.. neither the employee nor a member of the employee's family or
household makes private use of the van at the time otherwise than for those
purposes.