Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Maybe it's me

I'm sitting in my home office watching the folks, who the town contracts, take care of our roads and I have some observations...

And for the record, I have never plowed or sanded a street in my life...

But as I watched this morning you start to wonder...why in the world would you sand before you plow ?  If you do that don't you just plow the sand to the side of the road ?  Do we pay them by how much sand they use ?  Just wonderin

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Job security? They use this method to insure max kill on lawns; after all, they are greens keepers in the summer.

Or, maybe they’re just real dumb!

Anonymous said...

The theory is that a base of sand/salt mix will keep the snow from compacting and sticking to the road thereby making it easier to plow up and get down to bare asphalt. It seems a waste but does work. MA drivers are very demanding and want to go 50 mph in a blizzard. Look how much salt the state uses on highways. Go to midwest and they dont plow until 2 days after it stops snowing!!

Brothers Keeper said...

I would agree if there wasn't already a couple inches on the ground...I think they were late with the sand/salt...I've also seen them plow bare asphalt for an hour or two...I'm guessing we pay in 4 hour shifts..

I cover NC as a territory...if a storm is coming, the state sprays down a water/salt brine solution...a day before the storm !!...the locals laugh...they know it's long gone before the snow flies...

Flew through BWi yesterday...they have some snow...