Grrr... Gritters... Any comeback??

Demon

Demon

Demon

Soldato
Joined
22 Oct 2002
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Near Cheltenham
I was on the way down to Plymouth on the w/e, I was on the M49, a dual lane motorway, just coming up on a griiter, which wasn't spraying at the time.. when I am about 2 metres from his rear end, and doing a good 30MPH more then him (He was probably doing 50MPHish), he switches on the grit.. which hit me full on..

When I cleaned the car yesterday, there are loads and loads of stone chips on the bumper...

I don't suppose by any chance that justice would ever be on the side of joe public and I can ask for compensation, or is it just bad luck??
 
i got hit by one dumping its load on the road coming the other way on an NSL road.. found 3 chips down the drivers side :(
 
If you got the plate of the thing you can probably do somthing along the lines of driving without due care and attention.
 
William said:
If you got the plate of the thing you can probably do somthing along the lines of driving without due care and attention.
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What on earth gives you that idea?

'I am arresting you Mr Gritter driver for.. gritting while driving'

If anyone needs arresting for driving without due care and attention it would be the sort of person who drives only 2 metres behind a truck on the Motorway :p
 
Not so much the gritting, more the fact that he was only 2 metres away and presumabley overtaking when they turned the grit on, they could have waited 15 seconds, or checked that there was nothing near before turning it on?

If you were tailgating a gritter then its fair play that they dumped sand on you. :p
 
Ask yourself, would it have made ANY difference if he had the gritter on and you were 2 miles back, catching him up and overtaking?
I would have thought, if you were 2mtrs behind him and he switched the gritter on, you would have only caught 1/2 second of grit as you passed him?
Conversly if you passed him from a greater distance with him gritting, there would have been much more grit 'spray'.

Due care and attention, dont be daft, perphaps he saw you in his mirror, and switched the gritter on late, assuming you would have passed him by the time it sprayed?

So basically, bad luck, chin up, its a car not a limb, get over it ;)
 
2 metres is a tad close but even if youre several car lengths back youre still going to get peltered with the grit :o

best thing to do if you find yourself in this sort of situation on the motorway is to pull back then wait for a numpty to try and over take the gritter. at this point, pull out and stick behind him so he provides you with cover :D
 
regardless of whether the gritter driver is right or wrong you wouldn't be able to prove it anyway, very annoying but you have next to zero redress
 
I can't see that you have any comeback against a gritter for, as Fox puts it "gritting while driving". Learn from your mistake and pass gritters slowly.

And when you say you were 2 metres from him do you mean you were tailing him like some kind of tit or were 2 metres behind in the other lane?
 
[TW]Fox said:
What on earth gives you that idea?

'I am arresting you Mr Gritter driver for.. gritting while driving'

If anyone needs arresting for driving without due care and attention it would be the sort of person who drives only 2 metres behind a truck on the Motorway :p
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And you wonder why people bash you??? FYI, I was overtaking him, I pulled out in plenty of time probably 50 metres behind him..

I agree with the relevant part of the reply that he wasn't driving illegally, but he did cause damage to my car whether knowlingly or not, there was absolutely nothing I could do, had he been gritting before I approached him, I'd have gladly just sat way behind him (The M49 isn't that long), but he just turned the grit on as I came alongside his rear-end.. maybe on purpose, maybe not..

Looking at the design of the gritter, It poor, it sprays very high, it should be a horizontal thrower below bumper height, not a big fountain..

ho hum..
 
i was under the impression they turned on the big flashy light before the grit starts to flow, but i've only ever seen them start up once or twice. I think it would be pretty damn hard to proove if he had intentionally turned it on as you passed
 
It's a similar situation to potholes although i don't know if gritters are highways agency or the council. Take pictures of the damage, incude these with a polite letter explaining your version of events and send it to the agency/council. You'd be surprised, they'll either tell you to sod off in which case you've only lost the cost of the envelope or they'll suggest some form of compensation. Worth a try. I've had numerous bent wheels replaced over the last 5 years by sending them a pic of the offending hole in the road.
 
Gritters do my head in. The salt not only takes the paint off, but then procedes to turn the car into a rusty heap.

If people don't know how to drive on ice, who the heck gave them a licence?
 
I know it sounds stupid, but from experience, and what friends of done, you can pretty much tell the council that aliens wearing NKDC Hi viz vests came and smashed all the windows on your car and they will more than likely offer to pay any repair bills.

They certianly paid for a new windscreen on my granada when they were resurfacing the road and a huge stone kicked up and smashed it.
We got that i suppose because we were all following the recomended 20mph speed limit and the cars were still being damaged.
 
Gritters are a bloody menace and I've yet to be convinced of their value. They all turn out in the evening and cover the roads with salt which then gets swept away by the traffic so that, when the reall freeze happens in the small hours of the morning, there's hardly any salt left. I reckon the sheer volume of traffic on the type of main roads that get gritted does as much to clear any residual ice as does any remaining salt, but that's just my opinion.

I once came up behind a gritter sitting in the middle lane of the M6 Toll doing 40mph. It was only two miles to Norton Canes services so I decided to stay behind him for the duration and then stop for a coffee rather than plough past the hailstorm of crap it was chucking out.
 
I was stopped at some traffic lights with a gritter next to me going in the opposite direction. He had just pulled up in traffic too. That was funny I tell you......
 
Vertigo1 said:
Gritters are a bloody menace and I've yet to be convinced of their value.
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drive on an untreated A-Road and crash, you'll get the point then pal. :rolleyes:

I once came up behind a gritter sitting in the middle lane of the M6 Toll doing 40mph. It was only two miles to Norton Canes services so I decided to stay behind him for the duration and then stop for a coffee rather than plough past the hailstorm of crap it was chucking out.
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Ever considered that by sitting in the middle lane, he covers the whole carriageway with his crappy useless salt? Also, had he been doing 50+ mph, the gritting would have been far less effective?


Demon said:
I'd have gladly just sat way behind him (The M49 isn't that long),
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Would have been the smarter move in the long run I suppose....

but he just turned the grit on as I came alongside his rear-end.. maybe on purpose, maybe not..
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Expect the un-expected. :rolleyes: Try thinking ahead, anticipate what could happen before it happens eh?

Gritter trucks don't travel on motorways for fun, they also, drive to an area thats been deemed in need of gritting, then, they start gritting. ;)

Truck Drivers eh? :o :p
 
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I've had my car gritted a few times this winter, just one of those things.

IMO they go a bit ott. There was a long stretch where there wasn't so much as a frost and yet they kept on gritting and gritting and gritting and then some numpty comes on the news and says "we're getting low on grit" well theres a bloomin suprise!

I thought it was a new government incentive to turn all the roads completely white whilst working in conjunction with screenwash manufacturers :p
 
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