It has been taken away for alternative distribution! It is going to get thrown on the road somewhere and thus do some good! I am driving a 20 mile round trip every day on roads that have not been salted,gritted or ploughed once during this cold spell so I understand the feelings of these people. Who is buying salt at £200 a ton anyway? People might want a sack of it for their own paths and drives - who wants a ton?
|
AS
i agree with you. the quote re 200 a ton, possibly they bag it and sell = equates to 200 a ton.
just learnt that in germany, householders have a legal duty to clear the sone fron the pavement outside their home within several hours after it has stopped snowing. how they enforce this i do not know and then you get the frail that can't.
imo, if we start getting snow almost every winter, poss people on the street may want to create a group where they volunteer to clean up as the councils will not do it.
|
imo if we start getting snow almost every winter poss people on the street may want to create a group where they volunteer to clean up as the councils will not do it.
Where would you put all this snow, clear the road, clear the pavement, where does it all go?
If you clear the pavement outside your home and someone falls they can sue you, blame there's a claim
|
Today was a good day to clear away snow, its starting to melt and will be warm for next few days with no overnight freezing. Sometimes clearing snow from paths can make it worse if left wet to refreeze as ice overnight. As snow was mostly slush I swept it all down the road drain.
I cleared a shared driveway and the pavement out front. Never heard of anyone being sued, urban myth if you ask me, or used by many as an excuse to be lazy.
|
£200 a tonne... easy.
Go to a builders' merchant. It must be £3.50 for a 15/25kg sack. There's your £200 a tonne.
|
|
|
|
And if you don't clear it up and they walk on it is their choice and there is no claim!
|
|
|
|
In Germany this is indeed the case. The council is supposed to clear the pavements, but they can delegate that to you in the event that they don't manage to do it. In practice the pavements, in Dresden at least, remained mostly uncleared last January. Building caretakers, of which there are many, sometimes perform this duty too.
As to where to put the snow, if possible lob it in the garden. Why not?
|
|
that what i did today - put it in the front garden.
|
that what i did today - put it in the front garden.
You took snow off the public highway and public footpath and put it on your garden?
|
|
|
|
|
It has been taken away for alternative distribution! It is going to get thrown on the road somewhere and thus do some good!
One can hope. Yesterday afternoon on the A34 there were two gritting lorries half a mile apart from one another on the same carriageway chucking salt down like there was no tomorrow. Meanwhile most of the minor roads around Oxfordshire remained untreated. I travelled back along the A34 a couple of hours later and all the salt they chucked down had washed away. I realise the councils have been told to keep the motorways and major roads treated, but when the road doesn't actually need it, why waste the salt?
|
"If you clear the pavement outside your home and someone falls they can sue you, blame there's a claim"
OK, there has been constant suggestions about this since the first drop of snow - can anyone provide any concrete proof of times when someone has slipped on a cleared footpath and successfully sued the person who cleared it?
And I am not talking about an ambulance-chasing lawyer that threathens that this might happen, has it ever actually happened in court?
I am in agreement with previous poster, that this is just being used as an excuse for laziness.
|
I read somewhere yesterday (broadsheet Sunday paper) that local councils were responsible for pavements and their safety - they would be the ones sued even if a housholder cleared the snow outside their house.
|
... (broadsheet Sunday paper) that local councils were responsible for pavements and their safety - they would be the ones sued even if a housholder cleared the snow ... >>
I took the meaning to be that the homeowner who clears it could be sued!
some quotes from various news articles:
Health and safety experts warn: don't clear icy pavements, you could get sued
Lord Adonis has called on Britons to “do their neighbourly bit” by clearing pavements despite warnings from health and safety experts that householders could be sued for doing so.
Councils, who have a responsibility for public highways, say they have no legal obligation to clear pavements.
Institution of Occupational Safety and Health, the professional body representing 36,000 health and safety experts, gave warning that this could lead to legal action.
In guidance to its members, who advise businesses throughout the country, it said: “When clearing snow and ice, it is probably worth stopping at the boundaries of the property under your control.”
Clearing a public path “can lead to an action for damages against the company, e.g. if members of the public, assuming that the area is still clear of ice and thus safe to walk on, slip and injure themselves”.
Legal experts said home owners could fall victim to the same laws if they tried to clear an icy path but failed to do the job properly. John McQuater, president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, admitted: “If you do nothing you cannot be liable. If you do something, you could be liable to a legal action.”
|
too late to edit, but one quote left out a little bit, it should read:
"Under current legislation, householders and companies open themselves up to legal action if they try to clear a public pavement outside their property.
Institution of Occupational Safety and Health, the professional body representing 36,000 health and safety experts, gave warning that this could lead to legal action.
In guidance to its members, who advise businesses throughout the country, it said: “When clearing snow and ice, it is probably worth stopping at the boundaries of the property under your control.”
Clearing a public path “can lead to an action for damages against the company, e.g. if members of the public, assuming that the area is still clear of ice and thus safe to walk on, slip and injure themselves”."
see more at
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8443745.stm
Is it your civic duty to clear snow?
Edited by jbif on 11/01/2010 at 21:47
|
You are quite right jbif - and I can't find the bit I read! Must have misinterpreted it.
Hope nobody sues me (or Lord Adonis??!!) for giving wrong advice!
|
|
So no one has actually been successfully sued for doing this? Why in this country can we not get some legal figure to say "this is the rule" one way or the other, rather than, as with most of elf and safety, we have someone giving their opinion?
|
Who fitted a extra layer of frosted glass to our car last night?
You know it's bad when you have tried de-icer and resort to painting on neat washer fluid and leave it to work before you can make any impression with a scraper.
The roads in West Yorkshire this morning are more suitable for Torvil and Dean - scary stuff as one minute the road is fine, but a few meters on and no grip whatsover.
|
Who fitted a extra layer of frosted glass to our car last night?
Can't resist it
Have you tried warm water instead of de-icer?
|
Yes - tried tepid water with a splash of screenwash and it had absolutely no effect. Just ran off and began to freeze.
The heat from the engine melted the windscreen ice and it slid off in a couple of big pieces.
|
The roads in West Yorkshire this morning are more suitable for Torvil and Dean - scary stuff
Same in NE Derbyshire. On what is normally a quite quiet 15 minute drive to work, I saw 2 cars and 1 van that had smashed into lamp posts.
Two of them on were the same downhill dual carriageway slip road, must have hit with some speed. Scary.
|
Roads in Sheffield today are pretty bad, lots of ice especially on side roads. This morning my car was completely frozen up, took longer than usual to get all the windows clear, even with the ford heated windscreen. Several people on my road have got stuck, but I haven't had any trouble - usually the ones who are heavy on the gas pedal and don't keep momentum going which get stuck.
After getting some petrol this morning, I went home and then found out that there have been quite a few accidents near where I live, so I decided to not travel anymore today for safety's sake.
|
Cornwall is clear now (well, the West anyway) I took Mutley out for an hours walk and picked up his Lemon curds that were hidden by the white stuff in the garden when I got back.
I got to thinking that GBPLC is akin to a war zone (in a very small way) ten's of people dead, 100's injured, damage to roads, houses with burst water pipes etc., etc., etc.
It will eventually clear up in your area - trust me!
|
Where I work is on an industrial estate and I went out and hired a rubber tracked mini digger / bulldozer for the day from the next door builders merchant / hire shop yesterday and completely cleared our car park of packed ice and snow in a couple of hours and then offset the cost by clearing the neighbouring works / warehouse frontages of snow and ice charging a nominal fee.
Surprisingly cheap and effective snowplough £ 75 per day + vat . I had great fun driving it but I would not like to do it for a full time living, much too cold . Only trouble is this morning we had another 3 inches overnight and absolute chaos again in Sussex.
I literally slid off the drive sideways with SWMBO in her Yaris having decided to take her to work and not risk my Accord . Our residential road is two inches of sheet ice with three inches of fresh snow on top , main roads icy , slushy and packed snow in places The M23 was OK but Pease Pottage area and A264 was very icy.
The area round Gatwick on the A23 was gridlocked this morning so SWMBO walked the last half mile and I made it in to work after dropping her off half an hour or so late .
|
Very enterprising, helicopter, if only more people would show the same initiative.
Plenty of ice and snow still lying in the North East, despite several days of plus-zero temperatures.
Black ice is the main threat now, particularly on pavements and minor roads.
|
|
|
|
