06/01/2026
Some good information here about travelling in icy conditions
We have seen so many people complaining that roads have not been gritted, so here is a bit of reality and context, especially for rural and hilly regions.
First up, not every road can be gritted.
Councils have priority routes, main roads, bus routes, hills, hospital routes and key connections.
If you live on a side street, estate road, lane or anything off the main network, it probably has not been gritted and was never going to be. There simply are not enough gritters, drivers or hours in the day to cover every road.
Grit is also not magic. Salt does not instantly melt ice. It lowers the freezing point of water and relies on traffic moving over it to work it into the surface. If there is very little traffic, the road can stay icy even if it has been treated. Temperature really matters too.
Grit works best just below freezing and starts to lose effectiveness around -5.
Once you get closer to -10, it barely works at all. The outside thermometer is currently showing - temperature which means even gritted roads can still be treacherous.
There is also a bigger issue people do not like to talk about: driving skills and how cars have changed.
Automatic cars do not give you the same level of control in icy conditions.
You cannot properly use gears to control speed in the same way you can in a manual.
Going downhill in an automatic often means you are relying almost entirely on the brake pedal rather than engine braking through the gears. On ice, braking is exactly what causes wheels to lock, slide and lose grip, which is why people suddenly find themselves skidding with very little ability to recover.
In a manual car, you can select a higher or lower gear, use gentle engine braking, control power delivery and slow the car without touching the brakes as much. That level of control simply is not there for many drivers now.
Add to that the rise of electric cars, which do not have gears and modern vehicles that are far heavier due to batteries and safety systems. More weight means more momentum, and on ice, momentum is not your friend.
Combine that with instant torque from electric motors and people who do not understand how power is delivered to the wheels, and things can go wrong very quickly.
Also, a lot of newer cars are rear wheel drive, and it is concerning how many people don't know that their car is rear wheel drive; it is more concerning that they don't know what it means.
Many drivers have never driven a car without traction control, stability control, hill start assist, and countless other systems thinking about them. When those systems reach their ice limits, the driver suddenly has to take over, and many people have never learned how. They do not understand how to correct a slide, how to ease off power, how to steer into a skid, or how gears and torque affect grip on ice.
A lot of people have also never been taught about gear braking, controlling speed before a hill, reading road surfaces, or knowing when conditions are simply too dangerous to drive at all.
So if you are not on a main route, assume it has not been gritted. If temperatures are extremely low, assume the grit may not be working anyway. And if you are driving, slow right down, leave huge gaps, and accept that modern cars do not make you immune to physics.
Winter driving needs patience, skill and common sense, not just salt on the road.
We know as we find ourselves in these situations on a regular basis.
