When to salt...

[bombermwc]

OK, so why does it seem that ODOT always seem to pick the wrong day to salt. They salt on the day that there is only snow, so there's traction on the road. But then not a single salt truck is in site overnight when it all freezes and leaves the layer of ice on the road. Thanks to ODOT for sucking yet again and contributing to all of the wrecks this morning. Come on guys...put some thought into it.

When you get snow, and it's warm enough to freeze on one day, and it's going to be below freezing the next, you get ice. THAT'S when it's time to salt.

Perhaps the hour it took me to make my 15 minute commute could tell you that. 240 is backed up from west of Eastern where a jack knifed semi is blocking the entire westbound side, so OHP has you driving on the shoulder (which has a sheer drop at that point) to get around it, all the way to Sooner. Bumper to bumper. Oh and another car died on the highway as well, so you have to drive off the road to get around it. Not to mention the fender benders on the way.

[okcisok]

I agree! The weather guys were saying last night that we would have freezing fog this morning. Not a sand/salt truck in sight!

[adaniel]

IMO salt and sand would have not made much of a difference when you have people driving the way they do. In my very short commute this morning, I saw people tailgating, speeding, slamming on their brakes at red lights and sliding (GENTLE pressure on the brake pedal, people!) and worst of all driving in dense fog with NO HEADLIGHTS! Am I supposed to sense your car through the fog with my psychic powers!

If anything, I think salt and sand would have made people get a sense of invinsibility. As in, "Hey there's sand on the road. Now I can drive even FASTER!" until, of course, they wipe out into a wall.

[MadMonk]

My commute was - fortunately - uneventful, but I couldn't believe the number of people driving without their headlights on this morning. Did they put stupid-serum in the metro water supply?

[Bellaboo]

I see the headlight less idiots all the time.....where are the police when you need them ?

[Bill Robertson]

They had blades scraping Hefner Parkway Monday morning. There wasn't any snow on the lane I watched it drive down for three miles or anywhere on the road. What a waste of money.

[venture]

Eh whatever to sand first of all. Sure it helps I guess...but it seems it more or less just gets cars dirty. Two inch snowfall where it melted fast shouldn't have really been much of a concern. One sweep to clean the surface should have been plenty. Monday evening with the forecast of freezing fog should have been spent putting brine on the streets to prevent ice from forming. Seems they just missed the memo or perhaps they really don't have that many brine trucks yet.

[RadicalModerate]

A few years ago, we were driving up to Minnesota and encountered a REAL snowstorm just north of the Iowa State Line. The snowfall continued--and got much heavier--all the way to St. Paul. Not one bit accumulated on I-35. The pavement was simply wet as if it had rained. For hundreds of miles. I don't know what the Iowa and Minnesota Transportation Maintenence people sprayed the highway with, but it worked lke a charm.

They also had the good timing to do the spraying of whatever it was BEFORE the snow actually began to fall.

(The side streets in St. Paul--where we got lost trying to find my brother-in-law's house--were a different story, but so it goes . . . And by the next morning, even those had been plowed and made passable.)

[bombermwc]

Because up north, the do have more man power and equipment to handle it. But they also have people that have a brain telling them when to run. And weathermen that aren't stupid when it comes to snow. Here, it's a 99% gurantee that they'll get it wrong.