Found this on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/PetitionToHaveCnesReviewWinterGrittingPolicy
The insurer of a car which went off the road in Uist this week told the owner said that if the council is not gritting properly – as they suspect after talking to the police – the council will get the bill for replacing the £20,000 vehicle. They said they had successfully pursued local authorities before.
If the Council gritting is not safe (i.e. they are fulfilling their statutory obligation,s) then take them to court rather than messing about with petitions.
Alternatively you could always …………. LEARN TO DRIVE!!!!
In the village where I was brought up we lived 3 miles from the main road and 13 from the nearest town. No gritting was done at all in the village and only minmal amounts outside about a 2 mile radius of the town. But guess what? We learned to drive in it! We reduced our speed and followed instructions on what to do if you got into a skid. We never called off work because of bad weather, even though it could take an age to get there, if we couldn’t drive, we walked (yeah, 8 miles there and 8 miles home); and the snow was far worse than I have ever seen on this island.
Hope he wins – my wife and I have had 5 windscreens in the past 5 years on 2 vehicles not down to the frost but the near gravel the Council delivers as ‘grit/salt’. My local bus driver has had 2 expensive windscreens this year alone and a neighbours insurance company will refuse him if he claims for a screen again in the next 6 months. Might as well mention replaced sets of springs on each vehicle due solely to the abismal state of the road maintenance. Lewis roads are more suitable to armoured vehicle training than civilian traffic.
looking forward to the reintroduction of a beach on the road sometime around february.Its always a thrill to play spot the intact cats-eye on the drive to the metropolis,as the annual event of snowblading takes place when an inch of snow falls.This and the prize for spotting the longest continuous tarmac gouge makes the winter seem bearable if not expensive
How, when the gritter drivers move at incredible speeds, does any grit manage to effectively coat the roads at all? I hear it costs £50,000 per daily “grit”. A huge amount when several consecutive days ‘freezing’ are involved. Does anyone monitor the job being done by the contractors? Millions of pounds spend without some sort of regulation of the service being provided would seem a bit careless? If ONE road gets gritted (say it freezes in Harris), does the whole island get ‘done’, or is it targeted to affected areas?
Either way, they’ve been pretty busy this past week.
Stay safe….drive at a speed appropriate to the conditions…like Tina.