Why doesn't the UK Snow Plough??
Why doesn't the UK Snow Plough??
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Discussion

Marcellus

Original Poster:

7,191 posts

235 months

Sunday 19th December 2010
quotequote all
Just been out in the village clearing the snow from the pavements and there's about 3inches on the road, all quite soft stuff.

Anyway half way through my efforts I hear a snow plough coming along and thought that it would be good as that would be the road scraped clear too!!

But no, the snow plough drives straight through just chucking out salt/grit out of the back.

In France they would be scraping the snow too as this is the most effective way to clear the snow and then grit/salt at the same time.

The pavements are now nice and safe for everyone to walk on but the roads are a danger so I got to wondering why we in the UK don't copy the snow clearing technique of our European counterparts?

It's obviously not that we've not got the facilities to do it?

Mr. Potato Head

1,164 posts

235 months

Sunday 19th December 2010
quotequote all
Too many speed bumps round here.

anonymous-user

70 months

Sunday 19th December 2010
quotequote all
Snow pluffs are great for smoothing a flat, compact surface on deep snow, to then allow studded/snow tyres to work well.
Skimming over wet slush to leave a few mil of frozen snow (and destroying the edge of the ploughing blade and the road surface beneath in the process) just makes life difficult.

captainmatt

475 posts

182 months

Sunday 19th December 2010
quotequote all
Marcellus said:
Just been out in the village clearing the snow from the pavements and there's about 3inches on the road, all quite soft stuff.
Face it OP, this is who you want to be:


NiceCupOfTea

25,424 posts

267 months

Sunday 19th December 2010
quotequote all
Because the sea weed.

K77 CTR

1,632 posts

198 months

Sunday 19th December 2010
quotequote all
There's lots of snow ploughs in Hampshire, doing a pretty good job and salt spreading afterwards.

richcorsavxr

966 posts

188 months

Sunday 19th December 2010
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probly something to do with health and safty

WeirdNeville

6,021 posts

231 months

Sunday 19th December 2010
quotequote all
Crossflow Kid said:
Snow pluffs are great for smoothing a flat, compact surface on deep snow, to then allow studded/snow tyres to work well.
Skimming over wet slush to leave a few mil of frozen snow (and destroying the edge of the ploughing blade and the road surface beneath in the process) just makes life difficult.
This.
You plough a road once snowfall is measured in feet, to get down to a compacted snow surface that is fit to drive on with the correct tyres.
If you ploughed a UK road now (with the exception of some bits of Scotland) you'd just take up the road surface too.

With repeated gritting and a few people drivin over it to mix it, roads will clear soon enough.

Dangerous2

11,327 posts

208 months

Sunday 19th December 2010
quotequote all
but the quantities of snow we have in some places now together with the prolonged below freezing temps mean that a change of straetgy to ploughing is probably the best option. Certainly on pavements the best thing to do in this kind of weather is to clear it completely or to leave it as it is and put gravel (not salt) down to provide grip. people are still gritting pavements and in this weather it just turns them into a right slughly, slippery messy mess.

and my boiler is broken.

Pugtor

35 posts

199 months

Sunday 19th December 2010
quotequote all
I was out 10pm-1am then 4am till 9.
It was pretty deep in places and i managed to make it even without winter tyres wink:


Conian

8,030 posts

217 months

Sunday 19th December 2010
quotequote all
Pugtor said:
I was out 10pm-1am then 4am till 9.
It was pretty deep in places and i managed to make it even without winter tyres wink:

we salute you smile thank you, sincerely.
does anyone pay you for it?

cheadle hulme

2,496 posts

198 months

Sunday 19th December 2010
quotequote all
Pugtor said:
I was out 10pm-1am then 4am till 9.
It was pretty deep in places and i managed to make it even without winter tyres wink:

Even with the long hours, I still want your job.

jdbecks

2,829 posts

214 months

Sunday 19th December 2010
quotequote all
the roads where not that bad yesterday, just the idiots driving on them..The amount of tail gaiting I saw yesterday, mixed with a van driving up my arse...I was close to doing something out of "Falling Down" but it was a bit cold outside.



Edited by jdbecks on Sunday 19th December 12:28

Pugtor

35 posts

199 months

Sunday 19th December 2010
quotequote all
I was out with a mate so i didn’t get paid but he is supplied the snow plough and gets around £30 an hour
to do as much as necessary to keep his route clear. He was out for 20 hours straight in the last bit of snow.

Roop

6,012 posts

300 months

Sunday 19th December 2010
quotequote all
On road that have cat's eyes, the snowploughs rip out the cats eyes and bugger up the plough blade at the same time. Here in CH, we don't have cat's eyes for this reason - the ploughs can go right down to the road surface.

This said and in all honesty I'd much rather have cat's eyes than a fully cleared road in the Winter. The road marking here are atrocious and you really do miss the cat's eyes.

Pugtor

35 posts

199 months

Sunday 19th December 2010
quotequote all
cheadle hulme said:
Pugtor said:
I was out 10pm-1am then 4am till 9.
It was pretty deep in places and i managed to make it even without winter tyres wink:

Even with the long hours, I still want your job.
It is good fun until you are on the steeper hills in 4wd with the diffs locked and it starts to spin as it not the easiest thing to regain control of if you did start sliding backwards.

anonymous-user

70 months

Sunday 19th December 2010
quotequote all
Pugtor said:
cheadle hulme said:
Pugtor said:
I was out 10pm-1am then 4am till 9.
It was pretty deep in places and i managed to make it even without winter tyres wink:

Even with the long hours, I still want your job.
It is good fun until you are on the steeper hills in 4wd with the diffs locked and it starts to spin as it not the easiest thing to regain control of if you did start sliding backwards.
Yeah, and when you finally manage to get one stuck, you need a REALY big tractor to get it out ;-)

Marcellus

Original Poster:

7,191 posts

235 months

Sunday 19th December 2010
quotequote all
Pugtor said:
It is good fun until you are on the steeper hills in 4wd with the diffs locked and it starts to spin as it not the easiest thing to regain control of if you did start sliding backwards.
As this Swiss plough driver found out;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKxy5Vst7Mo

WeirdNeville said:
This.
You plough a road once snowfall is measured in feet, to get down to a compacted snow surface that is fit to drive on with the correct tyres.
If you ploughed a UK road now (with the exception of some bits of Scotland) you'd just take up the road surface too.

With repeated gritting and a few people drivin over it to mix it, roads will clear soon enough.
In my experience, as commented by someone from Switzerland, they scrape down to the road surface and then spread salt/grit... the few mm left by the snow plough delt with by passing traffic.. not that there is much through my village but enough to be effective.

Stu R

21,410 posts

231 months

Sunday 19th December 2010
quotequote all
Ploughs have been out twice this year round here (north east). Took a fair bit of accumulation for them to bother though, and it was only major town roads.

Prof Prolapse

16,163 posts

206 months

Sunday 19th December 2010
quotequote all
They do. Your local council just need to get their arse in gear and get it organised.

We've got tractors clearing roads here. As I understand it the council provides ploughs gratis and tells them roads to prioritise to keep clear. They get paid for their time.

It's irregular but it's good when done. They also do clear the roads with speedbumps.

Then again we get regular heavy snowfall. You probably don't, so that could be the catch!