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again, the "you're liable" argument is just an excuse that comes from the mean spirited workshy idle bastards that inhabit these isles in their millions. I'm almost certainly personnaly more likely to be sued for ****ting a workshy gobshite with a snow shovel for whinging than i am for clearing paths.
Interestingly, there are also local businesses that do the sensible thing and clear their carpark as necesary, and those that don't..... guess its not just individuals that can be mean spirited and apathetic.
And as for the individuals that "yes the main roads are allright but I can't get off my estate".......get ****ing digging then until you can!
Having ranted about the idle bastards, may I say in balance that the majority of my patients turned up last Friday, and the first two even offered to help clear the car park with me ( i hadn't quite finished and was about to start gritting having cleared) having been sensible and set of in plenty of time for their appointments.
Consequently, our carpark has been free of snow and ice throughout last week, and safe for patients and staff, unlike my local GP practice....kind of ironic given how many broken hips and wrists they will be arranging after care for next week! It astonishes me local businesses that i have popped into in recent days, including a "leading" local bike shop, that have staff sitting around doing nothing, and slushed up carparks that turn lethal every night with ridged and rutted icepack for the lack of 20 mins with a shovel.
Didn't our dear leader say that you won't be sued if you clear the snow in front of your house.
Think the whole being sued thing is just so it gives lazy people an excuse to do nothing.
No point, neighbour has this
[url= http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8214/8408372769_aa17653417_n.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/rocketdog/8408372769/ ]23/342 23/1/2013 snow plough[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/rocketdog/ ]rOcKeTdOgUk[/url], on Flickr
Needs a change in the law in UK to make it a responsibility.
Quite right, let's make it THE LAW and increase the power given to PCO's and they can slap a fine on your front door while you sleep. Afterall, we'd need to levy a fine to pay for the H&S training for the PCO's and to give them all tennis rackets for their feet in the snow, otherwise the PCO's might slip over and sue the council.
It's lucky we have THE LAW to save us otherwise society would crumble.
I make ours passable and level but not clean of snow- reason being, I spent a winter on crutches once and discovered that the dangerous bits of pavement were the ones that had been cleared then iced up- the snowy bits were no bother at all but many tarmac bits were almost impassable.
I particularily appreciate the people who dig a foot wide stripe down to the tarmac, then throw the snow to one side and build a wall that nobody who isn't 100% able bodied can get over, that's good. Not as good as the folks that dig out their driveways and throw the snow onto the pavement though.
It's lucky we have THE LAW to save us otherwise society would crumble.
What we needs is some laws to outlaw illegal behaviour - then we can eradicate crime!
Similar to sprocketjockey above a company I worked for used to store the sandbags/sand in the back of the warehuse incase of flooding in the village, so once or twice a year we'd be in there for a few hours filling them.
There were articles/notices in the local free paper telling people where they could come to lend a hand etc. But apparently the entire village only had 5 minutes to spare on the way home from work on the one day they needed sandbags.......
The next year they were distributed to OAP's only.
[i]That's because Germany's society is superior to ours in every way. [/i]
Except for a couple of slip-ups last century...
Snow clears itself. Why shovel it?
I always use to clear our drive and the full pavement in front of the house, I was pretty much the only one in the street to do it.
Now I live in the country, I only do our paths and my parents' who live nearby.
I had a pleasant surprise when I got home from work during the worst of it, neighbours had not only cleared the road outside but also my driveway and a path to the front door!
Nice people in my village!
I had a pleasant surprise when I got my bike out this morning. That nice mother nature lady from down the road had cleared all the snow 🙂
I just leave it, come June there is usually very little trace of it left.
This is a subject I have been tackling for three winters in our town and I'm now starting to make some progress, with some shop keepers clearing their bit of pavement and more volunteers spending time clearing pavements and then gritting them.
Mr Agreeable appears to be one of the few people that have heard of Snow Wardens, I am the local Snow Warden and it means that I now have the support of the town council with equipment and we have an agreed plan for the town centre that means people can get to the shops, the traders maintain their business and hopefully there are less broken wrists, hips and ankles.
I have had most of the responses listed above when clearing snow, I just accept it's largely a thankless task but it only takes a few thankyous to redress the balance.
Last year gritted and cleared the car park at home, a few neighbours thanked me the older ones at risk of falling.
Then another neighbour moaned about me leaving a bag of salt outside,as it looked unsightly and could be a tripping hazard, DESPITE IT BEING ORANGE, TIGHTLY AGAINST A WALL BUTTRESS, AND THE REST OF THE CAR PARK BEING LIKE A SKATING RINK DUE TO ME NOT HAVING GRITTED IT YET.
Checking in from the Great White North..
Some of these comments are unreal, I had no idea neighbours could be quite so ridiculous with 'tripping hazard' comments and so on.
Here in Ontario, the bylaw is that you clear it within 24 hours of falling, this can be tricky...as it snows alot...and you have really a small window to clear it before it freezes and is like chipping rocks.
So it's the homeowners/renters responsibility to clear the footpath surrounding the boundaries of their property. Being that footpath is a universally standard width here...and concrete...not higgledy tarmac, it's pretty easy. Then just salt the cleared concrete.
$1000 fine and up if you don't.
If it's real heavy my elderly neighbour tends to crack out his snowblower and do ours for us but usually I'll do his if it's light fall. Canadians are much more neighbourly..as a general rule.
p.s. I should add that so long as I clear a small path and the steps aren't lethally icey, postie hasn't ever complained.
I went out and brushed a path on the pavement past my house while it was soft and before it had been walked on and compacted, so was a quick and easy job. I have received no thanks so far either.
I then piste bashed it 😀
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Serious question - what happens if you are on holiday when it snows if there's a law saying you have to clear it? Or unable to clear it for another genuine reason?
A few years ago when we had proper snow I just started clearing a footpath. Then some others joined me.
Then a couple of days later we decided to dig back out to the main road so people could get their cars in / out. Can't remember who started that but once there were 3 or 4 of us digging all sorts of people came out to join in. A couple of older ladies who nobody would have expected to join in brought out flasks of tea and biscuits. Took a good few hours, but also built some good community spirit. Even a couple of people without cars joined in! We cleared about 200 m of street so you could drive in and out to the main road that the council cleared.
So just lead by example and others will join in.
Took a good few hours, but also built some good community spirit. Even a couple of people without cars joined in
I so love community spirit, its such a pity others dont feel the same or its below them to clear the street for themselves and others.
so if it only takes you 20mins to do the whole street whats the problem?
I do it usually. I just don't like the fact that if I didn't no-one else would.
Snow clears itself. Why shovel it?
Well, if you clear it when it's fresh, it's easy and you get clean tarmac underneath. If you leave it, it tends to melt and re-freeze into ice which is a lot more durable, and it hangs around for a week or so. I live on a hill and if it ices up no-one can get out at all, driving gods, winter tyres, landrovers, nothing.
I spent a winter on crutches once and discovered that the dangerous bits of pavement were the ones that had been cleared then iced up- the snowy bits were no bother at all but many tarmac bits were almost impassable.
Improperly cleared then. The pavements we didn't clear are now under 1" of wet ice. The cleared ones are fine, cos we cleared them properly.
The nearest I've come to falling over this winter is after walking aling a grippy bit of snow onto cleared pavement then to black ice as polished as glass.
Personally I think that paths need salting. I'd happily help spread the stuff if it was provided to us to spread
The pavements by us did not stay as grippy snow.
Yes now the situation has reversed but I think you have to accept that scrapping without salting can make paths dangerous
the salting thing is a huge deal. Some a week after the road has been cleared the pavements are still terrible. There is no sytem to clear them. Not all go past people houses
I'm supposed to do it in France, so I do. I've got a big tub of salt too for the infamous verglas.
Sorry really can not see the point. It either melts the same day, or its snows again and you have wasted your time, or you have cleared it and then melt water freezes.
its all been left where we live, and still perfectly safe to walk on.
molgrips - MemberImproperly cleared then. The pavements we didn't clear are now under 1" of wet ice. The cleared ones are fine, cos we cleared them properly.
Nah- think this comes down partly to the sort of weather you're dealing with, but when it gets cold, you can't prevent ice forming, salt only lowers the freezing point. Frozen snow is better than frozen tarmac. Unless you believe that absolutely every bit of tarmac was improperly cleared.
Grit and sand helps underfoot but isn't that much use to a walking stick or crutch.
I cleaned the pavement and road outside the house because I have a snow shovel and it took just thirty mins. I nicked half a shovel of grit from the local estate too to keep it nice. The neighbours kids built a snowman on my lawn with all the snow I cleared 🙂 Enjoy winter.
I cleared the pavement outside mine as it was icy and my road is inhabited mostly by coffin dodgers.
The man opposite me had cleaned his driveway to perfection. You could not tell it had even snowed , it was that clean.
A hour or so later his wife fell over on the pavement practically outside his house as she walked home from the bus stop.
I was peeling a potatoe in the kitchen sink and some concerned motorists stopped and helped her up / home.
If he hadnt been such a twunt he could have cleared 1/2 mile of pavement in the time it must have taken him to clean the driveway and car, and his wife wouldnt have ended up on her backside.
Nah- think this comes down partly to the sort of weather you're dealing with,
Fresh snow - yes, lovely and grippy. However if it nips above freezing, it gets slushy which is not good. However when slush freezes you get serious ice, which then doesn't melt much the following dya when the temp nudges above freezing.
If you are expecting it to stay below freezing for a good while then there's a case for leaving it. Having said that, if it stays below you'll just uncover dry tarmac which itself will be grippy.
On our road, our shovelling did leave a little slush behind, but when that froze it melted again immediately because it was just a smear.
It’s unlikely that you’ll be sued or held responsible if someone is injured on a path or pavement if you’ve cleared it carefully.
Given that the local highways department are liable for the state of the road and path it is extremely unlikely you will be sued. Time to crack on.
Last year loads of people cleared the roads around my estate. The snow had to go somewhere so it ended up in neat piles beside the road.
Great you think, but it created basically a one way system around the entire estate, you couldn't pull over to let cars come past the other way as there was always a big pile of snow/ice. And those piles stayed a long time after most of the rest disappeared.
This year nobody has really bothered. Cars have driven over a lot more of the road and cleared the problem a lot quicker rather than being forced to trundle down one track.
Again that's people not knowing how to do it. I piled the snow in places I knew it would not obstruct cars.
Then there's the fear of some local council jobsworth coming round stating that you've created a public hazard by moving the snow and issuing a fine for fly-tipping or some-such nonsenseI'm sure people would like to be more self-sufficient and take the initiative but the enthusiasm's been ground out of us through ridiculous council red-tape and stuff.
This is the problem. People actually believe this crap. 90% of these stories you hear about are not true or vastly exaggerated / have particular circumstances, but creating misleading stories is what some areas of the press love to do.
I must admit I like the Snow so it stays around my house. But then, as soon as it snows my car doesn't move and I use the train.
How can we get people to shovel snow?
STW and nobody has said people on jobseekers should be doing it!?
I've only seen one big yellow bin of grit appear this year! Can you phone up and request one, or do the council just drop them where they think they're needed? Where are people getting grit from otherwise?
Edit: you can get a 25kg bag from home base for under a tenner, will get one and a big old shovel for next time!
Our local council website says the grit bins are there for anyone to use, as long as it isn't on private property. So pavements or roads are fine, but not your drive. For the drive I bought a couple of 25kg bags of grit for maybe £8? Only just finished the first bag on its second winter because I couldn't be bothered getting grit from elsewhere to do the road. Council site also has a phone number to ring to request a grit bin if you think you need one in your area.
Don't buy supermarket plastic snow shovels. They all break and hold up all the snow shovelling. Those black plasticky ones on the end of a stick. Proper useless, snap after a few shovels. Whoever designed them needs a proper kicking.
zilog, our local council's policy is to cite grit bins where they have identified a specific risk, typically steep slopes, tight bends and council owned stairs on main walking routes. During adverse weather they were happy to issue grit to anyone that turned up to collect it from the recycling centres.
Kevevs never had a problem with out orange plastic one. You must be using it wrong.
I like snow. Please don't shovel it away like rubbish.
Put it in Igm's backyard everyone! Poly the blACK ONES ON A BROOM HANDLE ARE CRAP, Had to use them to shovel snow in ASDA a couple of years ago, they all BROKE. AVOID people! The extendable red ones with the alu handles for £8 though? You probs got one of them Poly. Posh!
Long thread and I've only read page one, so I'm sure this has been said... But, there are a few serial-snow-shovellers on our street. The second the snow starts lying, they're out there sweating and red-faced, throwing snow everywhere.
Then it snows again two hours later and they're off again. Ad nauseum.
What's the bloody point? I can understand it if your street is on a steep hill, or if the snow is deep enough that cars can't otherwise move but for most of us, it's a wasted effort.
One wifie up the road keeps shovelling whilst I sit in my car waiting. As I approach, she casts nervous glances in my direction but just shovels faster, as if this is the last chance in the world for her to clear her six square metres of road. GET OUT OF THE FEKKING ROAD YOU DAFT ZOMBIE TWIT!! Maybe she thinks it's good exercise or something? She could stand to lose a few pounds right enough.
My kids School caretaker has one of [url= http://www.saltsupplier.co.uk/snow-ploughs/polar-tuff-wheeled-snow-plough.html ]THESE[/url]. He cleared most of the playground in no time at all.
I'm waiting for Aldi to have them in. 🙂
I watched some knob head come very close to hitting my car trying to move his new S-Max on the junction outside our house on Friday night. So at 10pm I took a large Rhino tub on the kids sledge to a grit bin a few streets away. An hours work & the junction was clear & gritted. Better than siting in front of the TV. Not one miserable git has said thanks though. Tossers.