Drive, steer and accelerate as smoothly and calmly as possible and keep a close eye on the traffic around you and any road signs warning of trouble ahead. EcoGrit is an environmentally conscious company that would like to serve the people by offering them education, insight, “peace of mind” and the chance to make a positive difference on a monumental scale at a time when winter weather patterns are becoming more unpredictable. However, if you take extra care and leave yourself plenty of time to react to the surrounding traffic, then it is certainly doable. In the past, a popular way to clear snow and ice from the driveway quickly was to use rock salt or grit containing sodium chloride derived ingredients. The grit doesn't directly melt snow as it firstly has to mix with the snow to form a saline solution and lower the melting point.

Use a Snow Scoop and/or Yard Brush to remove fresh, loose snow so that grit can be directly applied to ice. There are some products such as ‘Icemelt’ which claim to work better directly on ice already formed. Section 41(1A) – "a highway authority is under a duty to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that safe passage along a highway is not endangered by snow or ice. Be aware that 'dawn frost' can occur on dry surfaces, when early morning dew forms and freezes on impact with the cold surface. It can also get into surrounding habitats and ecosystems, including ponds, streams and, ultimately, rivers as melted water runs off the driveway and into nearby soil and storm drains.Department for Infrastructure (DfI) road gritting staff are on standby 24 hours a day to monitor and react according to the weather conditions. Spreading grit at these times also means the roads are treated in advance of peak traffic flows, before the times where frost and ice will form, and when there will be enough traffic on the roads to help the grit mix with the moisture to form a saline solution. Saline solutions freeze at a lower temperature than water, so frost and ice doesn't form on the road, even though the temperature is below freezing for water. Rain will soon wash away all the grit before it can make any kind of impact, so be on the lookout for grey clouds before you get to work! The weather stations then beam back information to an intranet for officials to monitor, along with analysis by meteorologists using local weather forecasts.

Avoid throwing boiling water over ice or frost, as this can crack the surface and freeze over again fast, increasing the size of the ice-covered area. The applicable amount of grit is spread on the roads to ensure, as far as possible, that the salinity of any moisture on the roads is sufficient enough to prevent the formation of frost and ice.Spread the salt generously and evenly over areas that have a high level of footfall, or busy roads using a Salt Spreader.

It can also be walked into houses and commercial premises on people’s boots and shoes, damaging carpets, rugs and other types of flooring.A snowfall or heavy frost can play havoc with driving schedules as extra time is needed to clear windscreens, check tyres and generally make sure the car is safe to drive. This year, temperatures up to December have been relatively mild and gritting has mainly been limited to upland areas. A product such as Rapid Ice Melt is designed to quickly melt snow and ice from paths and steps and prevent re-freezing.

This normally happens during prolonged snowfall when the sludge, caused by previous gritting and traffic flow, starts to wash older grit away and so risks the road surface freezing. We don't know if this is more than councils have ever had, but it's the most in recent years since detailed national figures started being collated. For trickier surfaces like railings, door handles and padlocks, you can mix two scoops of EcoGrit granules for every litre of water used to make an effective spray. If you feel unsafe to drive, do not attempt to do so and make alternative transport arrangements wherever possible.If snow is predicted, grit is spread in advance so when the first snow falls it can start to mix with grit to create a saline solution, which can reduce the build up (accumulation) of snow and prevent the formation of ice. The pure salt will also dissolve leaving a higher percentage of the orange-brown impurities making it less effective at thawing ice.