“The best car safety device is a rear-view mirror with a cop in it.” – Dudley Moore
I know the weather forecast threatens us with snow but it seems like we get rain and ice. I’m not complaining because in Syracuse we averaged almost 120 inches per year. We even hold the number one spot for snowfall averages in the US. Yippee!
Both snow and ice are difficult to drive on but slowing down is crucial. Using the “thingy” that turns on your directional so the people around you know you are turning or changing lanes would also really help from causing quick reactions or accidents.
Just yesterday I was coming to a stop sign with my kids in the vehicle. A guy was driving too quickly to make his turn onto my road. The black ice was clearly visible.
I stopped my vehicle 20 feet before the stop sign and sure enough he came around sideways and would have hit my car. I could see the look of surprise on his face and he tried to regain control.
Owning and driving an environmentally-friendly and gas-efficient vehicle does not make you a smarter driver.
Clearly slowing down would help all of us to minimize accidents on the roads and keep our families safe.
The other dangerous black ice is in parking lots and on curbs and stairs. A friend at the chiropractic college in NY had his feet go out from underneath him and landed on his bottom hard.
To this day he continues to have problems from the toll that impact caused on his spine. Probably could have owned a wing at the college.
So most of us use some kind of salt product to melt ice and keep good footing when we walk to our homes and vehicles. Which salt product is best? That’s what we’re going to get into.
Salt helps to lower the freezing point of water, which we know to be 32 degrees Fahrenheit. It is also easier to melt ice before it forms than after you have ½ inch on your driveway. Certain salts do this faster and with less damage to your concrete and lawn.
The basic principle to melting ice is the more ion particles your salt breaks down to in a watery liquid form; the harder it is for that substance to refreeze. NaCl has 2 ions; a sodium and a chloride ion, but CaCl2 would become 3 particles, 1 calcium and 2 chloride, and lowers the freezing point more than NaCl.
Rock Salt is very popular, it’s pretty cheap and can break down ice and snow fairly rapidly. Sounds like Rice Krispies Cereal when it hits ice and really burrows quickly. I think it’s great for thick ice because it works down into the ice, weakens it and allows for much easier breaking apart.
We had a terrible problem at our house in Odenton after the big 2010 snow storm. Waves of snow were melting outside our 3rd story roof dormers and became an ice damn. A lot of heat loss at the dormers was causing melting of the snow.
Rock salt helped break it apart somewhat but not before it pushed its way into the house, melted and destroyed 2 floors. We were out of our house for 6 weeks living in a hotel with an 18 month old and new born. Erie Insurance stepped up and took care of us. However if I could have held a flamethrower out the window I would have too.
The downside to your lawn is that because salt attracts moisture
