Driving down the M5 last night had the chance to observe a number of tactics when a gritter occupied lane 2 at around 45mph. (*)
Following strategies were observed:
1) On the basis the gritter is probably only going a couple of junctions at most, hang well back and wait till it turns off.
2) As for 1) but with the addition of waiting until a suitable junction allows use of off and on slip roads to slide past. (No pun intended).
3) Blast past in lane 3 keeping speed differential to gritter as high as possible. Most popular.
4) Creep past in lane 3 making sure in firing zone as long as possible. Surprisingly quite a few. Errrm??
5) to lane 1 then on to hard shoulder and undertake as fast as possible. Almost as many as 3), definite favourite of the few trucks out and about. (What would have happened if they'd done it where that Merc Sprinter was broken down??)
Any other strategies? Any comments?
In case you wondered, my tactic was no 2.
(*) Ideal job for members of middle lane owners club.
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Mate of a mate works for the council, and according to him the correct policy for gritting motorways is to drive down the middle lane at 25mph, thus giving ample coverage of all 3 lanes. However the council policy and the workers policy are 2 completely different things. The workers policy is to open the gate at the back to its maximum, and then drive down the middle lane at 56mph (on the speed limiter) Reason being that they can do the gritting and then go back home and put their feet up in front of the fire as soon as possible, before the next call out.
BTW, the gritting patch mate of a mate covers is the M4, Junction 14 (Hungerford) to Juntion 16 (Swindon west) So if you find it icy on this particular stretch of the M4, you know the reason why!
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Might be a daft point, but isn't the council policy illegal? Minimum speeds on motorways and all that? (Unless I'm misunderstanding the rules here - I believe that 30 is the minimum unless you can't actually do that due to traffic?)
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Steve
I don't believe there is a statutory minimum speed for a motorway. It is intended for high speed travel, hence the exclusion of certain vehicle classes. If there was a minimum speed it would have to be signed appropriately.
That said slow vehicles are a risk and I suspect deliberate and therefore dangerous slow driving could be dealt with under other legislation (careless, inconsiderate etc driving?)
Regards
John S
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You may also find that having an orange flashing light can exclude you from all sorts of regs.
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I saw one the other day doing a good 70mph on a dual carriageway. I passed him, no problem with getting sprayed. Maybe he wasn't putting enough grit out for his speed.
PB.
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I came up the M3 M25 last night.
The new / car second hand car argument came to the front of my mind.
How many private owners of brand new cars could cheerfully breeze past a gritter as I can in my Rover?
The more cash you spend on a car the less useable it is.
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These are my own opinions, and not necessarily those of all Toads.
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Well the front bumper, grilles, and headlamp lenses on my Octavia are all plastic! And the bonnet (and the rest of the car, for that matter) is galvanised. And I've yet to hear of anyone gain a windscreen chip from passing a gritter. Won't the crystals of rock salt break up on impact anyway? I know I've found little pink "splat" marks on the front of my car before now.
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And why were they gritting last night anyway? The temperature was 4deg C above freezing at 6pm, rose to 6deg by 10pm, and was 9deg at 7am today, and still slowly climbing. And my local council makes a fuss about using the Icelert system to predict freezing conditions accurately!
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And why were they gritting last night anyway?
Weather report on teletext last night suggested a chance of a frost. No doubt another accurate weather report by Michael Fish, just like his 1987 Hurricane forcast he failed to predict!!
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"And why were they gritting last night anyway?"
DTD, look at the date and time of original post, talking about Saturday night about -4C at the time.
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Yup, but I was referring to Sunday night, or "last night" as it would have been on Monday, when I posted that...
Not trying to be pedantic or anything. ;-)
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FIF
Watched BBC 'Midlands Today' last week where they had an article on this very subject.
The official recommendation was that to hang back and be patient because:
1. They only do about 1 junction at a time.
2. Isn't it better to travel on the gritted road?
A side issue that came out of the interview is that they don't always use salt on the Spaghetti Junction; URINE has been used in the past!
Charles
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They had to be taking the......
Surely that would freeze as well?
No Dosh - but then who has?
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The urine contains UREA, which is almost the same as urea hydride (de-icer) that they put on planes to stop them from freezing.
It works even better when it contains recycled vodka.
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Well it warms up my wetsuit, ought to melt ice just as well.
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These are my own opinions, and not necessarily those of all Toads.
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Well it warms up my wetsuit,
Amphibians have some right filthy habits at times. Didn't mummy toad house train you :o)
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>> Well it warms up my wetsuit, Amphibians have some right filthy habits at times. Didn't mummy toad house train you :o)
Yeah but resovoirs are just too tempting! ;-) ;-) ;-)
--
These are my own opinions, and not necessarily those of all Toads.
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Jon - I think you must mean Urea Hydrate - can't imagine what U Hydride might be? - explosive perhaps.
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>>They had to be taking the......
>>Surely that would freeze as well?
Councils always do when it comes to increasing the Council Tax each year! Inflation last year 2.5% v Council Tax increase last year 12%
(Sorry Mark - Off Topic!)
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You think urea is bad - I heard of a council who wanted to use pellets made of elephant dung, as it was supposed to be more eco-friendly (no, this wasn't an April Fool). I'm all for a cleaner environment, but imagine driving behind that particular gritting truck ...
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PS - aforementioned substance was to be sourced from local zoo.
(In best Homer Simpson voice) Mmm, pellets.
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they don't always use salt on the Spaghetti Junction; URINE has been used in the past!
So that's why the snow is yellow around Birmingham!
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Anyone else hear the phone in on BBC Essex today?
Man from Clacton witnessed a gritting truck doing Clacton Prom with a Clacton roadsweeper truck about 100 yards behind?
Magic - just Magic!
Matt35.>> Driving down the M5 last night had the chance to observea number of tactics when a gritter occupied lane 2 at around 45mph. (*) Following strategies were observed: 1) On the basis the gritter is probably only going a couple of junctions at most, hang well back and wait till it turns off. 2) As for 1) but with the addition of waiting until a suitable junction allows use of off and on slip roads to slide past. (No pun intended). 3) Blast past in lane 3 keeping speed differential to gritter as high as possible. Most popular. 4) Creep past in lane 3 making sure in firing zone as long as possible. Surprisingly quite a few. Errrm?? 5) to lane 1 then on to hard shoulder and undertake as fast as possible. Almost as many as 3), definite favourite of the few trucks out and about. (What would have happened if they'd done it where that Merc Sprinter was broken down??) Any other strategies? Any comments? In case you wondered, my tactic was no 2. (*) Ideal job for members of middle lane owners club.
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