The World and salting roads

[Duffyjr]

Around here on the highways they use a salt brine which does a good job but it has to be worse than chunks of salt since its a liquid. Around town they use a sand gravel mix at intersections which isn't good for windshields.

This is one reason why I never buy brand new vehicles. I'm not paying 30k+ for a vehicle and put it thru these conditions.

 

[Bamaro]

I wish they could eliminate all usage of salt on the roads. Its terrible for cars and streams. Its probably wishful thinking. However, it needs to be severely cut back and used smarter.

 

[grampi]

Originally Posted By: FordBroncoVWJeta
If I ever become president. I would ban road salt. It justs eats up cars and is a waste of tax payer money. If you want to drive 80mph right after it snow, well I believe in natural selection.


I'm with you on this...they could put down sand and make the roads passable, and save everyone A LOT on vehicle rot...but I'm sure someone will chime in and tell us why salt MUST be used...

 

[grampi]

Originally Posted By: Kruse
Originally Posted By: Jarlaxle
Originally Posted By: Kruse
Originally Posted By: Nate1979
If you got rid of salt and required use of snow tires problem solved.


How many winters have you spent in the Midwest? I'm guessing none.
They might be great on snow, but snow tires aren't any better than other tires when the road is a complete sheet of ice, which we have here quite often. And when I say bad ice, there are winters here where the ice accumulation will break power lines or the electrical line poles. BTW, I hate road salt or the new brine solution just as bad as anybody, but I will admit it will usually keep the ice off of the highway.


I would happily buy a set of studded snows to not have the roads salted!


I could probably agree with that. However, it seems that our legislators feel that studded tires tear up the highways. It used to be that studded tires had to be off of cars by a certain date. IIRC, some states even outlawed them completely.


Semis are much harder on our roads than studded snow tires are...

 

[KrisZ]

Most countries in Europe that have snow fall use salt on the roads. The further away you get from major cities and highways the less is used and a lot of times salt is substituted with sand. It's no different than in NA.

 

[BeerCan]

Originally Posted By: Silk
We don't use salt on New Zealand roads, they might use some sort of grit maybe. There is often snow in the South Island and central North Island, snow dumps a few times in winter, but it's not a huge problem....although I don't live in those areas so don't know if getting stuck in the snow would upset my day.

Salt air causes rust in cars here, those from the South Island (where it snows) are in far better condition than those in the North Island, and cars in Auckland rust far more than any other parts of the country, it being a narrow area between the Tasman Sea and Pacific Ocean. I lived on an island off shore from Auckland and cars were very prone to rust, motorcycles too - from the salt air (licking my house windows, they tasted of salt), but also the gravel roads, the local stone was high in manganese, and motorcycle engines, hubs and rims would corode.


LOL what would possess you to lick your house windows?

 

[Panzerman]

When I first moved to Florida. A guy asked me if I ever drive on Icy roads. I said of course, yes, Iam from Pennsylvania. He said I just want to warn you, when it rains here in Florida, these roads get just like ice. I realized at that point alot of people have no idea about real road ice. I have never had trouble standing or walking across a wet road in Florida.

 

[AuthorEditor]

I was once in Atlanta with freezing rain and major highways became almost impassable with endless wrecks and piles of vehicles spun out on every curve. They don't know how to salt roads down there! Here in upstate NY we deal with real winter and plenty of snow, but often the worst is freezing rain/sleet combinations. No winter tire will do you much good, and if the roads weren't treated nobody could move for days. There was a bad winter a few years ago where my street in a small city had maybe 4 inches of solid ice on it over pavement due to intense snow getting hard packed over and over. Without salt and grit it would have been impassable for months.

 

[KrisZ]

I think many people commenting that salt is not needed, probably think of snow fall during winter the same as rain. That the sunshine comes out after the storm and melts everything away. Well, that's not how it works in places that have real winters.
A lot of times, right after a big snow storm, a cold front rolls in and can stay like that for weeks. Plus, once the snow is packed by vehicles, it cannot be plowed.

Last few winters were very cold and there was no melting period between snow storm. The new snow was simply piling up on top of the old one. The roads and highways would be un-drivable for the majority of the winter.

 

[MNgopher]

I've posted this before, but will put out it out there again as someone who works in the snow and ice removal industry (among others).

It all comes down to expectations on level of service. Period.

We've presently trained our current road users that we will have the roads down to bare pavement, and keep it there, in a matter of hours after a snow/ice event. I say this at least for the area of the country I live in, others may be different. (And despite this, we have some who think this isn't adequate and that we should have it to bare pavement during the event)

In order to deliver that level of service, which generally allows people to drive as if its summer, on bald all season tires, we have to use deicing chemicals. Bar none, salt is the most cost effective solution when looking only at the cost/effectiveness of the material and ignoring the external costs (such as corrosion to cars). Our budget for snow/ice removal efforts is already large enough and if we spend another dime, we're accused of not using the most cost effective material for the job.

If we could change peoples expectations on level of service, we could deliver a liveable solution with much less salt. It would require accepting personal responsibility (ie: drive for conditions and equip your car with proper winter tires). It would require less snow removal equipment (ie: more lane miles for each piece of equipment) and accepting non-bare pavement at times - particularly through our cold months - namely Dec/January, where the sun here has little to no heat value when it rarely shines (and when it does in January, it usually means its below zero here).

Beyond that, I could get into our matrix for what we use when, application rates for current and expected road conditions, calibrating our spreaders, pre-wetting the product, using liquid deicers where appropriate, like bridge decks, the merits of single axle trucks versus tandems, wing plows and location on the truck, the use of tow plows, etc... As an example, here is one of our trucks that went into service in 2015:

The simple reality is there is no silver bullet and no one size fits all approach. Every material has tradeoffs. There is no such thing as free lunch.

 

[AuthorEditor]

Here's a typical ice coating on a car in the winter--imagine what that makes roads like without salt. You might have coatings like that coming down day after day. One winter our street was so bad we would form human chains to reach cars parked in the street where the ice was better due to the salt--unable to stand on the sidewalk between the house and the car.

 

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted By: Ben Boyle
I note that most of the people in this thread who say there should be no salting of the roads don't lives in locales that really have the weather that warrant it.


Not quite the case. Personally, as someone who's lived in the snow belt since before I was driving, the salt needs to be cut back. A lot.

They don't need to ban salt outright, but what needs to happen is this: only salt under conditions where it's absolutely required and will actually help. For example, salting a lightly snow covered road when it's -5* F is worthless. It can't melt the snow fully, so it just makes icy slush that's worse that what you started with. When it's 25* and you have an intersection full of icy slush, add some salt and it'll melt into water.

And beyond a reduction in salt, to keep morons from crashing constantly because they can't drive when the roads are more than just wet, snow tires should be mandatory in the winter months with VERY stiff fines for those caught without ($500+ if you're pulled over without them, $1000+ if you cause an accident due to not having them). And maybe some better driver training too.

 

[Yah-Tah-Hey]

Originally Posted By: mjoekingz28
Foreigners and Aliens please chime in.

In the USA we have the midwest and New England that uses quite an amount of salt year after year. I think it is kind of used as needed the rest of the country, but am not too sure. Maybe the Colorado Rockies salts the roads in the winter, or maybe they just shut down the roads. Again, I don't know.


I have also heard tornadoes do not really occur much, if at all, outside of the USA. The South gets a fair share, as does Texas and Oklahoma and the central plains..


Back to it,

Does Russia, Switzerland, Germany, Australia...........any of you, get rusted vehicles from the city, state or some company salting the roads to help tame ice?
.Colorado knows how to handle snow and roads are seldom closed.

 

[MNgopher]

Treated salt can and does work down to about -5F. It doesn't work as well, but it still does have some effectiveness. Regular salt is done at between 10 and 15F.

Proper application is to remove the bulk of the snow as ice as possible and then apply. Part of why our trucks have under belly plows (and the wing on the back of the truck to catch the belly plow.)

If you are leaving icy slush behind, you are doing it wrong...

 

[VNTS]

We live in a Least Common Denominator society filled with idiots,
couldnt imagine roads not being treated in my area. Most cant be bothered to put snow tires on and most drive with bald all season tires.

Throw in black ice, snow and I have a Subaru and I am invincible, and you get the picture.

too many soccer moms and Dads who dont have a clue about cars and winter driving to care. Heck, we now have the cops pulling idiots over who cant clean the snow off their roofs because they are too lazy and would rather play panzer driver thru a small slit on the windsheild.

 

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted By: MNgopher
If you are leaving icy slush behind, you are doing it wrong...


Upstate NY is the kings of this. They do a terrible job plowing (and sometimes don't even bother). And then they dump salt so heavily there's literally piles on the roads at times and assume that'll just fix everything. It's like salt is free and dragging the plow on the ground while you drive through costs a million dollars per minute.

 

[Kruse]

Originally Posted By: grampi

Semis are much harder on our roads than studded snow tires are...


No argument here, but...
I live near a large grain elevator that has a huge system for loading rail road train cars with grain. All of the other grain elevators within 20 miles of this elevator have had the rail roads pull up their tracks, so the other grain elevators ship their grain to my local elevator by semi trucks. All of the loaded semi trucks coming to the local elevator use the west side of the highway and all the empty semi trucks going back to their elevators (without train-loading facilities) use the east side of the two-lane highway.
Of course, the west side of the highway, the one that the loaded semi trucks use, is the one that gets tore up. The east side of the highway, the side that has the empty, light semi trucks use, needs very little repair. (FWIW, a couple of years ago I saw an elevator grain scale ticket where the semi was 30,000 lbs. OVERWEIGHT!)
Don't forget one little fact about the semi traffic. The local elevator that loads train cars pays about $500,000 per year in taxes. So they won't take the trucks off the highways. It's all about revenue. Putting on your studded snow tires gives the government little or no revenue.

 

[Jarlaxle]

Originally Posted By: KrisZ
I think many people commenting that salt is not needed, probably think of snow fall during winter the same as rain. That the sunshine comes out after the storm and melts everything away. Well, that's not how it works in places that have real winters.
A lot of times, right after a big snow storm, a cold front rolls in and can stay like that for weeks. Plus, once the snow is packed by vehicles, it cannot be plowed.

Last few winters were very cold and there was no melting period between snow storm. The new snow was simply piling up on top of the old one. The roads and highways would be un-drivable for the majority of the winter.


Pablum.

 

[Yah-Tah-Hey]

Automobiles aren't heavy enough to cause damage to newer roads. In Nebraska, it's the semis that tear up the roads.

 

[Jetronic]

Originally Posted By: mjoekingz28
Foreigners and Aliens please chime in.

In the USA we have the midwest and New England that uses quite an amount of salt year after year. I think it is kind of used as needed the rest of the country, but am not too sure. Maybe the Colorado Rockies salts the roads in the winter, or maybe they just shut down the roads. Again, I don't know.


I have also heard tornadoes do not really occur much, if at all, outside of the USA. The South gets a fair share, as does Texas and Oklahoma and the central plains.



Back to it,

Does Russia, Switzerland, Germany, Australia...........any of you, get rusted vehicles from the city, state or some company salting the roads to help tame ice?


It's what eventually gets all vehicles here in western europe... rust mostly caused by gritting. Typically you get 15-20 years these days though except (dare I say it?) if you buy american...

I bought and received my car in 2013. March 25th to be exact. I waited this long to get the car to avoid winter and salted roads but alas it started snowing on the way home. So my car gas seen salt since day 1. No rust on any part except the bare cast iron parts and the exhaust but that's just surface rust.

Brakes are usually the first to seize due to the salting. Some as soon as 1 winter...