Why so liberal with the road salt – especially when it’s not even snowing?
Last week, there was a rumor of snow. The possibility – 60 percent chance – of “up to an inch” that never materialized resulted in a hosing down of every road with a salty brine carried by huge tanker trucks followed – for saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety – by a smaller truck with flashing yellow lights.
The sign on the back of the truck reads: Pre-Storm Treatment.
The “pre” part is accurate.
But the storm? Not one weather prognosticator had predicted anything more than a light dusting. If that. But it was enough to literally hose down the roads with an environmentally toxic salt brine (technically, magnesium chloride) that’s also exceptionally caustic to cars.
This liquid brine – which appears to have replaced the solid salt scattered on roads when it snows and while it’s snowing – is a guaranteed rust-enhancer. You literally drive through a salt bath, untempered (undiluted) by the melting snow – because there isn’t any. The dry road is awash with liquid salt and if you’re on the road, you have no option but to bathe your car in it.
If you don’t wash it off that day, the progression of rust will alarm you – or would, if you were aware of it.
I became aware of it this time because I happened to have the bad luck to be driving my personal truck a couple of weeks back rather than someone else’s press car when I got caught in the Brine Orgy on my way home. My truck got soaked, top to bottom.
And then it sat for a couple of weeks because I was too busy to get out the pressure washer and de-brine the underside.
I regret that I did not.
Over the weekend, I finally did. And discovered that – among other things – my rear shocks, which were still blue a month ago, were now a crusty shade of rust. Actual flaking was visible. The exhaust pipes and muffler – not made of stainless steel – looked like they’d aged five years. Brake lines and fittings were deteriorating. They looked nearly new six months ago.
I’ve seen this before – at car company proving grounds. Where – among other things – they douse cars in liquid salt to gauge the effectiveness of factory-applied corrosion protection. This is considered an extreme test – designed to accelerate the rusting-out process.
Now our cars are being doused – by the government – with the same effect.
The washing down of the roads with brine – before it even snows and often, even if it never actually does snow – hastens the disintegration of the physical structure of our cars, forcing them off the road long before their mechanicals are no longer road-worthy.
This serves the purpose of nudging us to buy a new car sooner. Which is profitable for the car companies who made the mistake of making cars too durable, too reliable and too maintenance-free beginning in the ’90s.
People who bought a new car once every six years or so in the past now often keep the same car for 12 years (the age of the average car on the road as of 2020). Getting off the road earlier is now easier – and faster – because the brine is sloshed down whenever snow is possible.
Which is much more often than when it actually snows.
In my area – Southwest Virginia – it hasn’t snowed yet this winter, excepting a handful of “dustings” (less than an inch) that made salting the roads as necessary as turning on the AC when it’s 20 degrees outside.
But the brine trucks have soaked the roads at least eight times so far.
And the winter’s far from over.
Even if not intentionally sinister, the result of all this salt-bathing is. It is but another of many examples of the contempt government has for our property – our cars – as well as our money.
Our cars are damaged by the promiscuous and unnecessary dumping of liquid cancer (to metal) all over the roads when there’s no legitimate reason to dump it all over the roads.
And what about the environment? We are constantly lectured about the effects of the things we do upon the environment, including things of dubious harmfulness, such as driving cars (that aren’t electric cars). But can it be good for the environment to dump liquid salt into it?
The brine – being liquid – goes directly into the soil as runoff and then into the ground. Probably also the groundwater. Yummy!
If you or I or any mere ordinary were to dump thousands of gallons of liquid salt brine into the environment, is there any doubt an EPA Hut! Hut! Hutting! would not ensue?
But it’s ok – as always – when the government does it.
But it’s convenient for the government to do it. Easier to “pre-treat” the roads before it actually snows and no worries if it doesn’t. The environment may have a different perspective.
It’s also profitable, in the make-work sense.
In the pre-brine past, government road crews had to wait until it actually began snowing to begin the work of clearing the snow – and spreading salt. With brine, there’s much more “work” to do – whenever it clouds up. And because the brine is laid down whether it snows or not, it gets used up. This is important to government make-workers, who need to use up whatever resources they have (paid-for by us) before the end of the budget year in order to justify the same allotment of our resources next budget year.
In the pre-brine days, salt not used was available for next year – and there was the harrowing possibility that the budget for next year might be less because supplies of salt were still on hand from last year.
Better to dump it all into the environment as quickly as possible and who cares what it costs us. . .
Or “the environment.”
…
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Eric,
Here is a brainstorm you might like:
We all know that salt is deadly for the environment.
So, let’s call the EPA and sick it onto the county, state, or whoever is salting the roads and prosecute them. Fine them. Even imprison them.
Turn two of our enemies against each other.
Meanwhile, up here in NH, we can handle big storms without much issue. We don’t generally get the salt bath. It’s largely rock salt applied after scraping.
Ironically, Massachusetts seems to struggle with snow removal. You can practically see the border during a big storm, as the NH side will be clear and the Mass side still covered.
I think part of the reason, at least where you live, is that often there simply isn’t the capability to deal with snow once it’s on the ground. Laying down the salt is a way of trying to deal with it with limited plowing infrastructure.
I was living in NoVA back in the late 90s. The DC metro would be paralyzed at the thought of snow. I particularly remember one “storm” that was predicted for 3″. Federal offices and schools closed early. There were 12 hour delays on the beltway, and some kids weren’t dropped home until midnight.
We got 2″. Smfh. I distinctly remember a news report, where a reporter asked a “plow” truck driver why he wasn’t plowing, but just laying down salt. He said it stresses the truck’s frame, and they want to get it to slush before plowing.
I suspect that the experience of the Blizzard of ’96, which I luckily missed by a year, might be the cause. DC got like 12″ and they couldn’t handle it.
I think the main reason for the brine deluge is liability. I’m guessing quite a few people have sued a number of municipalities for not promptly clearing and salting the roads during/after a snowstorm.
How about this solution?
Learn how to drive in snow, and prepare you car for it.
Every idiot that screws things up, give them a nut-kick of a ticket. Won’t take long before the nobs stay at home in the weather.
I was heading to work one snowy morning in the DC area, In my 1990 caprice cop car. With the rubber I had on it, it was stable as hell in the snow. Coming around the beltway, I got stuck in a knot of traffic. I finally worked my way to the front, and what’s there? A dipshit in a miata, slipping and sliding. No f-ing clue. I’m sure when he exited, the 4″ of snow beached him like a turtle.
I can’t tell you how many miles I’ve driven in snow, slush, and ice. It’s not rocket science. Hell, where I live now in DFW, when it ices I see imbeciles hit the brakes the second they hit an overpass with ice. They get me screeching “GET OFF THE GODDAM BRAKES IMBECILE!”
Don’t brine or salt. Punish idiots that go out unprepared.
Amen, Techie!
I never had an issue making it to work – in downtown DC from suburban Fairfax – when I worked at The Washington Times, no matter the weather. Including blizzards.
Us Gen X and earlier people grew up when it was expected that people learn how to drive if they wanted to be on the road. Not anymore.
Everything has to be dumbed down to the least common denominator.
What’s worse is that traffic now slows to a crawl on the highway whenever it rains. As in going from ~65mph to about 35!
We are truly living in the idiocracy era.
A few years ago I was headed west on I 20 and the weather forecast was for occasion light rain. There’s a really long grade heading into Big Spring. I’m hauling ass with a load of sand I loaded myself in a pasture and always overloaded them. No scales and no scales on the truck but in order to get the load looking level(and it didn’t need to), I’d overload it without thinking.
So here I am, bumped against the speed limiter, an especially dark night and when I come over the rise there is traffic nearly stopped including big rigs who had turned on their hazards. It had been raining on me a couple minutes and was getting heavier but not enough to affect anything……except these damned 4 wheelers going to work.
Why they needed to slow waaayyyy down I have no idea(hell man, it was rain and that stuff my reach out and get you). So immediately I’m just standing on the brake, hoping I didn’t have a brake on the tractor lock up and trying to figure which deep arroyo on both sides I’d try to take. I managed to whoa up enough to with headlights flashing, make some of the cars fear me more than drops of rain and get out of the way including pulling onto the shoulder.
This way one of the most stupid things I had ever seen except for the traffic on HEBailey turnpike in Ok. doing same and doing it hard and radically, every time it would start to rain.
Regardless of the situation, there’s a plethora of people ready to make it much worse. I found out years ago there are two types of people who drive Bimmers, the ones with very fast reactions that pay attention and the clovers who want to go fast but will just slam on the brakes for what appears to be no reason. They can’t plead warnings from radar detectors since I was always running the best I could get such as a Passport when nothing else even came close.
I found out what a good guy Mike Valentine was long ago when the Passport came out and I had been running an Escort since 1980 and this was 1985. I asked him what advantages the Passport had and he said it wasn’t a great deal better than the Escort but had a bit more range and better ability to stop false alarms. I gave him my CC number on the phone and soon had a new Passport. I compared it side by side and it did work better and they may have been the only units in 85 that would operate side by side and not have fits about being side by side. I installed the Passport to right in from of me and the Escort to the far side facing backward. Life was grand till “instant-on” appeared and then Ka band right after that.
eric, I’ve studied the phenomena of incompetent driver and it all comes back to govt…….as usual. They put off driving for so long when kids could finally get a DL, their only life experiences were riding.
It doesn’t help that most parents don’t teach their kids to drive their whole life and I do mean whole life. We had some friend’s daughter who was six and had been driving in her daddy’s lap for 2-3 years by that time. She couldn’t reach the pedals but could steer and knew what a vehicle would do.
She was riding in my lap on a dirt road(my favorite dirt road that I do 18 wheel drifts on). There is a corner with a 130 degree turn so you have to slow down a lot since one side is a huge berm making it blind. I got in the middle of it and stomped the old Silverado causing the wonderful sound of Qjet WOT. My mother would have lost control once it needed to be counter=steered to straighten up but this tiny child anticipated it needed that and was right on it and made the perfect turn with the rears spinning and the engine howling. I was impressed to say the least and told her she really “did good”. She was smiling and was ready for the rapidly approaching high speed turn we were about to go into. You can do it flat out but you need to dive to the inside and let it roll out to the opposite side which she did with smooth skillfulness. And its driving in various conditions like that that teach children to drive before they can reach the pedals.
Her dad said he’d only had one problem with her and that was a couple years earlier getting her to drive on the right side instead of driving down the center as she did on the tractor. She got it.
“I can’t tell you how many miles I’ve driven in snow, slush, and ice. It’s not rocket science.”
Got that right! Every time it snows, I always see the dildos in their 4×4’s slipping and sliding with all four of the tires spinning. I just laugh, shake my head, and keep on going. In my nearly 10 years of driving, not once have I ever lost control or gotten stuck in the snow (except the driveway lol).
Hi Blue,
You’re one of the anomalous ones! Me too. And you’re right. We live in Idiocracy. “Safety” is the ur virtue. And “safety” is defined as neurotic hypercaution combined with a passivity I would never have thought possible outside of a hospice.
After 31 yrs in the NC Mtns (Watauga County), I deserted to Charleston SC. Bought another place outside of Beaufort, supposedly just down the road from Mark Sanford, whom our nely acquired peacocks will grant us RINO protection.
So, Eric, no more snow worries but had to drive thorugh brine in Charlotte Monday. It seems that everywhere 20 miles from the SC coast sprays brine, period. SCDOT does on all interstates, US & primary state roads.
Brine in south carolina is so dumb. Nice area you picked though. My parents had a place on fripp island.
Hi Lamont!
Not even an inch of snow yet this winter and yet, the brine. At least half a dozen times, just because it might flurry. To keep the Clovers saaaaaaaaaaaaafe.
I need to hit something.
Eric, I’m at my old place in the NC Mtns tonight (has been on the market 4 months) and we’re expecting 2-3″. Yes, they’re brining US 321 & Main St right now.
Just like all of this highway salt spraying, almost EVERYTHING our government does disgusts me!
Well-said, Kitty. Same for me.
I cannot gin up a single benefit I receive from the government – and can tick off dozens of not-benefits, all of which I’m forced to “help” pay for!
If you want to see what is most likely in that brine that they FORCE you to drive through have a gander:
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/oil-gas-fracking-radioactive-investigation-937389/
I live and work in an oil producing region. I’ve been at for over 40 years. I’ve seen what was always a nasty but necessary business go from bad to way worse than bad. Fracking is a frigging nightmare!
And if Big Oil has it’s way the next generation of fracking will be using excess nukes from our bloated nuclear arsenal to really loosen up those shale plays.
Gee, you mean that dealer’s “optional” rust proofing doesn’t work? Or you never fell for it.
Where I live it rarely snows but they do put sand on overpasses. When it snows, better stay home!
Unless the fracking is local, I doubt they use waste frack water. Would be very expensive to haul that far. Cheaper to mix up salt water.
I guess if you have a “beater” to park in dicey places, you can drive that in the winter until it rusts away. A fiberglass rigid under carriage “bra” that’s removable might work, but it would be hard to attach/detach and might create additional problems. Glad I don’t live where this is a problem.
“Unless the fracking is local, I doubt they use waste frack water. Would be very expensive to haul that far. Cheaper to mix up salt water.”
The oil companies give it away for free and will even haul it considerable distances rather than pay to haul it to an injection well and pay to them. They have miles and miles of idled rail tankers too that can and will haul brine even cheaper than trucks and store it strategically. Salt has to be mined and hauled as well so it being cheaper is probably not the case.
It’s not a coincidence that many state governments have recently legalized the process. Fortunately my LIbtard state gov for once had enough sense to resist big oils lobbying efforts to get them to legalize it. Many others are not so fortunate.
I bet if you put a chunk of stainless steel in a bucket of that stuff it would corrode in moments. It’s generally exponentially saltier than seawater usually to the point of saturation. I can see why it’s so much more corrosive than just normal salting if you get it directly on your car without a lot of slush to dilute it. They have to use metals like Inconel in the oil industry to resist corrosion the brine is so salty.
Here in Minnesota, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency had billboards on the freeways warning us how bad salting our sidewalks was harming the environment, while they dump it on with impunity by the tandem load. It clearly showed how out of touch the average gubmint worker is. At least it was good for comic relief.
Here’s the other side of it: When no salt or sand is applied to snowy/icy roads, people die. Every 40 years, in my native Oregon, there is a snowstorm from hell, that deposits 2-3 feet, then lingers for several weeks. The last one happened in 2008, and lefty, eco-nazi Oregon, in its infinite wisdom, opted not to apply anything that might actually clear up the roads and allow efficient/safe travel. As a result, there was not only carnage on the roads, but people in medical emergencies couldn’t get to the hospital, and a lot of elderly shut-ins couldn’t get supplies of food and prescription refills delivered. But Oregon was content to “let nature take its course.”
They don’t have snow plows in Oregon ??????
If govt. can’t do expensive, stupid things it will cease to exist. Here’s a little ditty from S. Dakota.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2019/11/18/meth-were-it-says-south-dakota-new-ad-campaign/
The Brine they are using in many locals is “production water” from Frack Wells. You don’t need to worry so much about the damage it’s doing to your vehicle. I’d be more concerned with high levels of Radon and radiation concentrated in it. And yes Big Oil is exempt from testing the brine.
Eric was right before he qualified his remark on cancer.
Our earth’s crust is radioactive. Drilling into it and bringing parts back up transport that radioactivity.
It’s a lot cheaper to dump it on the roads than re-inject back where it came from.
Profit at any cost!
And no I’m no bleeding heart liberal. But they have to draw a line somewhere. You know maybe say enough and not more.
Excellent article. But I want social justice and I demand equality along with my salty gumbo. Please tell me that this salty brine affects EVs the same as ICs. Go ahead and make my day.
they are rubbing salt into the wounds lol. besides the parasite govt who actually hates productive people responsible the salt bombardment it is also the spoiled rotten entitled women who call up the road dept crying that they might have to stay in their house for a few hours and not be able to spend money and drive around. my friend that works in the road dept told me that
Up here in New England we’d still be tooling around in our beloved Volvo 122S’s but for the salt on the roads that rusted out the undercarriages. The engines last forever and you can do almost all the work you need to do with a 7″ and a 9″ wrench. The kids (even the girls!) were introduced to auto maintenance as something we could do ourselves, boosting our sense of independence and self-esteem. Now the 122’s are summer cars for antique car enthusiasts though some are still on the road in the South.
They weren’t gas savers and you couldn’t take them through the woods or down ski slopes or drive along the beach at high tide or whatever cars now do in TV commercials, but they were fun to drive and soooo serviceable. I guess there were buckboards like that back in the pre-salt brine olden days.
Hi Imbroglio,
The brine is much worse than the old-style pellet salt; if you get caught behind a brine truck or on a road freshly brined, you will get a salt bath – the stuff getting into every nook and cranny. And half the time, it doesn’t even snow!
Chances are that the “Brine” is also highly acidic due to the rock dissolving chemical additives in Frack Water. Big oil is using their EPA exemptions on water quality to dump what would otherwise be Hazardous radioactive waste on roads all over America with impunity. Some of the drivers of these trucks are routinely stricken with strange rashes and other oilfield truck drivers try to avoid the brine haulers not wanting to glow in the dark themselves.
Anon, you’re right about the radiation. I’ve seen meters that raised hell being near a brine truck. Oh, they have those H2S meters you mostly worry they won’t detect anything in time. It’s not unheard of to find a family or crew all dead on a lease road.
Everyone complains about the flares the oil companies use but that’s not good natgas they’re just throwing away since there’s always a way to collect it. That’s the stuff that’s highly lethal if they don’t burn it and having a leak on a line to a flare or having one go out is tantamount to a tragedy.
I was working hauling equipment to Big Lake one day and when I finally got back to I 20 that day it was covered in stripes. WTH is that I’m thinking. I had never seen it before. At least it had dried but I wasn’t happy when I found out what it was. And last year I tore off one morning and US 180 was recently doused with the crap. I was pissed and a week later washed my truck. Of course it didn’t snow or have any precipitation fall but recently, we had 9 inches one night and into the next day. I didn’t get out for that very reason.
A friend has the ultimate happen coming up on a truck in the wee morning hours putting this crap out near San Antonio. He was blinded by it and on one of those 100′ tall exchange ramps and was rightly scared he’d lose traction and skid off.
When I was a young man I thought up off the top of my head an old saying I still use “Govt. could destroy a cannon ball with a rubber mallet”.
Good story, but go for the conclusion:
This is about money, not road or car safety. While it destroys our cars, it is also the cause of more highway spending. All money ! Private banks lend money to the government at interest, called usury. This is just one more of many massive ways to deplete us and enrich the Money Changers of Biblical fame.
The pattern is breathtaking, and even more so because we have been thoroughly conditioned to not see it. Nor ID the perpetrators. They are in everything where money can be can be accumulated. Think the Bloomturd. Think all manner of fear mongering from diseases, to “Wild Weather” that never materializes (buy generators that will never be used), to the War on Terror, to all the safety Nannies in our current automobiles.
The name of this practice is “Financialization” and our money experts are steady at work devising new and more effective ways to take our wealth. If you notice this process, and comment on it, you will be identified as a Hater, or worse. If you get too good at exposing this predation and ID the culprits, you may fall out of a high-rise window, or stop a bullet.
This is all in the Bible, but we are too narcissistic to be interested…
Welcome to my world! In most of Norway we are driving in brine about 4 months every year. What is really bad is that the authorities use much more salt than necessary, since they spray the roads even when they are already dry, making them wet and dirty. They are also spraying brine on snow, even when most people are using good winter tires, having an acceptable grip on snow.
This extreme salting especially makes the brake discs rust prematurely, often only after one of two seasons, requiring frequent unnecessary and expensive repairs. This brine also makes the roads and cars very dirty and it is creating a layer of fine abrasive on the windscreens. This often makes it necessary to replace the windscreen after 4 – 6 year, but it would have stayed clear to last the lifetime of the car, without the abrasive dirt caused by salting.
I wish that somebody would soon invent a better way to avoid ice on the roads. Snow isn’t a problem, since winter tires actually give a satisfactory grip on snow. Any way, with regard to driving in brine you should praise the Lord for living in America, because it is actually much worse in Norway.
Replacing those parts on your car attracts a value added tax, or a value subtracted tax, depending on your viewpoint. Just another way to remove money from your bank account.
Amen, Jone!
My truck’s rear drums are welded (by rust) to the hubs, goddamn it. I have them soaking in PB Blaster but the damage is done. My truck was largely rust-free until this year – and it’s a 2002. Now it has lots of rust, which I attribute to the brine bath because this is the first year I got caught in one.
Heat ’em with oxyacetylene near the axle, then beat ’em with a big ball peen hammer. They’ll come off.
Often the salt seizes up the shoe adjusters inside, and if they’re immovable, the shoes will catch on the lip worn on the inside edge of the drum… making the brake job a great exercise in expanding your obscene and vulgar vocabulary.
“They’ll come off.”
Not always. My Blazer rear wheel will not come off. I have tried penetrating oil, heat, a jack between the left and right wheel, a crowbill bar drum to wheel, smacking with a 20lb sledge. No luck.
Now I just have to pump up the tire before every trip because the leak is around the valve stem.
Going to take the angle grinder to it in the spring and cut the f’er off, one piece at a time.
Assuming you have steel rims, try loosening your lug nuts about 3 turns, drive down the road until you’re doing about 40 and then slam on the brakes HARD and lock ’em up. Do that 3-4 times and it’ll almost always bust the rim loose.
Not quite so extreme a speed but yeah, tried that. No luck. I did it on my washboard and potholed gravel road.
And not, it is an alloy rim. The stock ‘fat spoke’ ones.
https://www.carid.com/images/replace/items/aly05038u10-1.jpg
Try it on dry pavement. A gravel road will let the wheel slide when you lock the brakes up. You need the shock from the inertia of the vehicle’s weight as the tire grips the pavement to bust it loose.
Another funny thing that just came to mind – didn’t the same dear leaders tell us a while ago thanks to global warming we will never see snow again – since about a decade ago??
Overreaction to snow is a given in the southern states, but that’s no excuse. What’s even more idiotic is Milwaukee’s penchant for dumping salt from curb to curb all over the city every time it snows, as if winter is an insult to the inhabitants there. In six years my able-bodied Utah van turned into chunks of rotting metal.
‘Course, I gotta laugh at other states. Last month we were snowbound for three and a half days, unable to get into or out of our property, after a vicious snowstorm. We’ve never been stranded that long before. The sheriff’s department said it would be willing to backpack or snowmobile supplies to our place if necessary, but we finally got cleared by some big equipment.
I live in the Chicagoland area. They are very liberal with salt. I sprayed my undercarriage with Woolwax before winter hit. It seems to have held up very well. I haven’t noticed any new rust this winter. I plan on applying it every fall.
Hi Drunkard,
Excellent tip; thanks for posting it – and welcome to EPautos!
I remember an old guy after he changed his oil he would save it put in a pump sprayer and coat under the truck before winter. maybe today you would be arrested if they found out but it worked well for him
thats what I do…used motor oil, especially on any existing rust areas that start to turn orange. And I’m under 35
Same here, been doing the oil spray for decades. (35 is way back in the rear-view mirror for me.) It’s messy but effective.
I though something similar.
Put light oil in the soap tank on a pressure washer and blast away, let dry.
Never tried it but might next year.
Also, I’ve read that farmers used to do the same thing with their farm machinery.
yeh its also because certain kickbacks are had when politicians spend some of our money…. thats why so many of them who have salaries officially about the same as any of us retire worth 8 or even 9 figures… if they could figure out a way to justify they would be pouring this in July….
Wait until those $75,000 Aluminum body vehicles hit that stuff! They’re gonna look like snow.
Worse all those electrical connectors especially on EV’s. Digital does not like corroded connectors. Ought to be real good for those lane assist and emergency braking sensors as well.
Corpgov keeping you comfy safe and and paying an average of $2500 in sales tax receipts for each new car they destroy. As usual win, win —- for them. Lose, lose for the worker bee slaves.
Magnesium-Chloride, I think that’s the same stuff they spray on dirt roads in the summer for dust abatement. How toxic is that stuff? They spray the dirt road I live on, and everyones’ house has a well near the road. I wonder if that’s getting into all of our well water (which we drink).
That would be the same stuff!! Mag chloride, AKA prune juice isn’t too bad environmentally when used for dust control, if applied properly. When blended with dry, fine material to about 7% moisture, then graded and compacted, it forms an almost concrete surface.
When just halfass sprayed on the road and ignored, you start seeing the black puddles in rainstorms with the neon green halo, the suffocating dust clouds after a while, and the rotting metal. Generally sign posts tell the whole story out here.
Then there’s a well known fact of life out here – if the mines prune juice the roads during March-September, heavy rain is imminent. October-February will be significant snowfall. There are piles of fused road fines along every light vehicle access road to attest to this fact.
I thought I was the only one that noticed this!!!
Here even above freezing and no chance of ice,they soak the roads down!!!
I now have a roll of coins to wash my car off before I head home!! I am a clean freak but this is insane!!!
It’s been about 15 years here that we had the nice salt and you only had to worry the day it rained for the wet salty roads then after that it was fine..Now a sunny clear day 40 degree’s they will patrol the roads and soak them down!!! UNREAL!!!!! Most people have no clue they drive right beside or behind getting soaked with the spray,unreal!!!
It is also odd here,they soak the roads down with Brine and then you see a street sweeper washing the roads WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Unreal!
I am planning to move to where its warm all the time but it cant come fast enough!
I have a classic muscle car and I absolutely will not drive it until after a heavy rain washes away the salt from the previous “snow”. It doesn’t snow much here in Oklahoma. In the last few years, I’ve been noticing that they salt the roads and post school closings if even a light dusting of snow is PREDICTED by the often wrong weathermen.
You can beat this…just buy a good working 300 dollar rusted out POS for days like this. I’d rather drive that around then subject my regular car to a salt bath.
Rusted out = no inspection = blue light special
The only problem is that they charge $2500 for $300 cars now.
The gunvermin in the northeast love this stuff. It justifies huge budgets for the equipment and supplies not to mention the employees and their endless parade of benefits. They tear up the pavement dragging the plows around on practically snow free surfaces so they can fill the potholes all summer. Your car gets vandalized and just to rub it in your face a nice safety inspection is required or else you get the blue light treatment. Your replacement parts and/or labor is taxed. When you have to replace your car early due to brine sabotage you get to enjoy a huge sales tax bill or registration fee increase. Of course your mandated insurance is going up on a new expensive car. To top it all off its all just so we can carry on with our enjoyable daily commute to keep on paying for all this nonsense. Would it be so terrible for people to get a snow day when conditions get dangerous? The loss of several days or even weeks worth of wages would surely be offset with the cost savings if our massas’ finally put an end to this salting the earth madness.
They still use road salt up here but for a lot of storms recently the amount of salt exceeds the amount of snow. Days after a storm the streets will still be white…..from the damn salt! I nailed a lawn sprinkler to a piece of plywood that I pull under the car to rinse the undercarriage but most of the frame is probably only good for a few more years.
They have to do something with the oil well waste water.
This up there with night time ‘mosquito’ spraying in the summer- who knows what they expell.
I drive an ’86 blazer- I wash is within 3 days or as soon as it gets warm enough for salt to attract water, then I use used motor oil to keep my rust spots at bay before I do a proper fix. Ive already had to weld in and replace 70lbs of interior sheet steel due to holes inside
I’m sure the car lobby support this. Getting people out of old clunkers and into new cahs!!
Glad I live in the south.
I thought liberally washing the car after the salt/brine season would take care of the problem for half the year. At least driving in a few rain storms after the season would clean off the crap right? Nope. This past fall, I was taking apart the front end, grill, etc… to install new headlights on my new to me F150 (the stockers are like candles). When I put some of the fasteners in my mouth to hold them temporarily, they had tons of salt on them. This was 6 months later than last winter.
And one of the reasons you don’t see old cars here in the NorthEast.
I’m 65 years old, and live in Missouri. In the first half of my driving life,more or less, the local tyrants would clear the roads when they started becoming impassable, and would keep them in a passable state, and stop clearing them when they became passable. Drivers were expected to be able to drive on such roads or stay home. In the last half of my driving life, more or less, the local tyrants endeavor to keep the roads perfectly clear at all times, so drivers don’t have to know how to drive on even partially covered roads. If I get caught out in snow driving my rear wheel drive MX5, I frequently drive by a number of SUVs in the ditch. In fact, I have often had more trouble driving because of excessive amounts of salt and sand piled up on otherwise clear roads. I can only attribute such insanity to an increasingly whiny public, and the tyrants desire to extract ever more funds from their tax slaves by making sure they get to work.
No kidding. Same here in northern NJ. The ‘problems’ come when it’s a nasty storm and the plows can’t keep up with the snowfall. Then it’s like a disaster zone here, haha……. No one knows how to drive, even AWD, 4×4, whatever. And I’m still driving a RWD vehicle and can get almost anywhere even with 4 inches on the road.
I’ve learned that if it’s going to be nasty, just stay home, or get home asap, it’s not worth sitting in idiot driver traffic for hours.
“Local tyrants’ LOLOL Well said Chris!
Let’s not forget the stuff is opaque too. So now when it does it’s job it splashes all over your windows, greatly reducing visibility. And your headlights, sideview mirrors, and even the “lane keep assist” cameras. Also, our wonderful Colorado DOT also throws chunks of the Rocky Mountains on the roads to help with traction so you’ll get about 6 months out of a windshield before needing a replacement.
Pre-salting could be part of the genius giverment scheme of “base line budgeting”. Basically if you don’t use all of your budget in this fiscal year you don’t get more money next fiscal year- or “worse” you get a budget cut.
No bureaucrat can abide with a flat or shrinking budget- that is bureaucrat sacrilege.
The best method to keep the salt at bay is to coat the ENTIRE underside of the car and spray the interior of the quarter panels, doors and rocker panels with a jelly-like corrosion treatment such as Waxoyl or Fluid Film. It’s a MISERABLE job and in heavily-salted environments it’s not a perfect solution, but it DOES help, and in lightly-salted environments like Virginia will make a very big difference in preserving the vehicle, even after a light rusting has already begun.
Car restorers will often use Waxoyl when they do a frame-off restoration.