State and Provincial Laws

Even if they don't close the roads, many truckers will pull over. It's one thing to make that commute home from what ever you are doing within a 100 miles from home, it's quite another to buck winds and snow for 8 to 10 hours. The single biggest reason for closing roads in your area is visability and the fact SUV drivers will not slow down. If those guys would just use some common sence, there is absolutely no reason to close the road. The part that gets me about these SUV's is half of them are being driven by women going to mimamum wage jobs. Man someone must be desperate to get them out of the house.

I was thinking a bit about this subject after I posted last evening. I know Nova Scotians are getting bad on this not slowing down on icey, snowy roads in poor visability, but their not quite as bad as Ontarians. I was thinking what is the difference. Well of course your roads are straighter, but its more than that, then it hit me. Nova Scotians are just getting bad on the new super highways with no obsticals in the ditches. There is the answer, what you need is a few granite rock the size of a pickup along the ditches, and by gosh, I'll bet they will slow down when the driving gets bad.

This visability item is another matter that intrigues me also. We had winds like this on the east coast, and snow didn't blow around like it does here. Down there many on the storms end with a south wind and rain or near rain condition. This puts a crust on the snow, then it doesn't move around.

What we need Mike is a snow blower that diverts part of the snow by a heat source, melts it and blows it out as water, thus sealing that blowing snow in. A guy could probably get a Canada Council Grant for developing something like that. The other thing we could do Mike is go into the rock business. Talk governments into lining the ditches with granite. Just think of the benefit, people would learn to slow down, and OPP officers would have a lot more time for other duties during inclement weather. Why they could even go to Tim's.

There is a section of highway out to Windsor (NS) which was recently twinned due to the number of accidents which seem to be due to excessive speed for the conditions. All of the guard rails are fitted with new collapsible ends and poles designed to shear off.

There have several days when the school buses couldn't run lately so they are cancelled and all the non-bus students still have to go to school walking on the unplowed roads and sidewalks to arrive at an unplowed schoolyard to attend school where they are not supposed to learn anything because the bus students are not there.

The best one is using farm tractors for snowplowing. I went to try to license my tractor for the road (I don't have a truck or trailer) and the lady at the motor vehicle department tells me if it's licensed as a farm tractor I can't drive it down the road to go plow snow, but if I license it as a general tractor I can't tow a trailer or implement with it. Oh well I can't afford the insurance anyway. SAm in NS