Why is my road still icy?
No guarantee can be given that roads will always be completely clear of ice or snow.
- On average 87% of weather forecasts are accurate. This means that throughout a normal winter there could be 10 days when ice forms on the road when it was not forecast and roads remain untreated.
- On average precautionary salting routes take two and a half hours to complete. If we are responding to a late change of forecast, or we have to wait for rain to clear before we can salt, road temperatures may fall by five degrees per hour causing wet roads to freeze before they are salted.
- Peak hour snowfall - when rain turns to snow coinciding with peak hour. Early salting cannot take place as it would be washed away and spreaders become delayed causing congestion.
- Rain can wash salt off roads leaving them prone to re-icing.
- In severe cold weather below -8 degrees even salt will not prevent ice from forming.
- Dawn frost can occur on dry roads when early morning dew falls onto a cold road and freezes. It is impossible to forecast where and when this may happen.
- It takes time for salt to become effective after roads have been salted.
When do you salt the roads?
With such a large road network it would be unrealistic and uneconomic to attempt to treat all roads. Decisions on what roads to salt are based on the importance of that road, priority being given to those roads carrying the highest volumes of traffic and where the risks of accidents are greatest.
Precautionary salting is carried out on all A and B roads, key local roads such as those serving industrial areas, shopping centres, and significant roads in towns and in rural areas.
Decisions are made based on local daily forecasts and on road temperatures rather than air temperatures. Salting is likely whenever road temperatures are forecast to fall below one degree and ice is expected to form.
Salting is normally expected carried out after the evening rush hour or before the morning peak hour.
We do not supply salt for households but it can be purchased from builders' merchants or you can use dishwasher salt.