[Closed] How can we get people to shovel snow?

we could all join hands around the world?

My sister in law lives in Germany and there it's the householder's responsibility to keep the pavement clear outside their house.

I used to be one of two or three in my road that used to shovel snow, but don't bother now.

Next door neighbour moaned about the piles I made, but then his missus took a tumble on the ice on their driveway/adjacent pavement.

Some woman said I'd get sued if someone slipped on the bit I'd cleared!? How stupid!

Lazy, the lot of them!

Play some tunes

cos most peaople wouldn't even think of such a practical solution, they'd rather just get in their nice warm cars and spin the wheels round a bit and then complain that they can't move

'Cos it's funnier to watch all the people with their giant rwd cars and heavy right feet fail to turn round at the end of our culdesac.

I was out clearing our drive the other night; watching people revving madly while their cars slid about and bounced off every kerb in sight was so funny I stayed out and cleared lots of pavement too. 🙂

How can we persudae people to do this? Some sort of advertising campaign?

knock on the door and ask them.

alternatively you could try and organise something on the internet in the hope they may see...

nibbles, everyone likes nibbles

I did our bit and the house next door in case the old lady there needed to come ans ask for shopping etc .One other person did their house about 6 doors up but no one else bothered

Suppose it depends on the people you live near,on our street for the last few years since the council stopped bothering to grit it we have all come out with snow shovels to clear the street.
We are on a hill so its impossible to get up when it snows without a 4x4 ,so most neighbours chip in.

I did our house and a couple of elderly neighbours the other day.

nibbles, everyone likes nibbles

Dibbs +1

Needs a change in the law in UK to make it a responsibility.

Not necessarily the householder, in the case of apartments and mixed use buildings. Mine is the responsibility of the caretaker of the building, and is written in to the deeds (declaration of partition) of the property stating this. Think they have to clear a 1m wide path and grit by 12 noon (or something like that).

This scheme seems to have worked OK in Bristol recent. It wasn't anything like city-wide, but the pavements in some of the steeper bits were kept clear.

http://www.bristol.gov.uk/page/community-and-safety/volunteer-be-snow-warden

I spent hours clearing a path around mine a couple of years back (snow was about six inches deep when compacted), only for the council's pavement snow plough tractor thing to do a far better job in a few seconds when it came along later that day.

This year, they've been around again so I've not even needed to bother.

Pay people?

Might help if they changed 'It's unlikely' to 'You will not' on this statement:
[b]

You can clear snow and ice from pavements yourself. It’s unlikely that you’ll be sued or held responsible if someone is injured on a path or pavement if you’ve cleared it carefully.

i live at the bottom of the road at the junction and bottom of hill

i do my drive ,pavement directly outside and the road/junction

the act of doing so seems to have got others out doing theirs .....

I cleared 100 Metres of our road with one other chap in his 60's... My better half kept the teas coming and it took us 3 hours between us.

Not one word of thanks from people coming out to move their cars once they'd noticed they could get up our hill and off the estate. Was pretty shocked that no one came out and offered to help, I could see the work dodgers looking out of their windows at us.

I did about 20 houses worth from below ours to the main road at the top of our hill.

Someone from lower down moaned that I had stopped. I said just knock on the door when you want to borrow my tools! Cheeky buggers.

I cleared the road in front of my house, and off the little hill thats not long but steep enough to cause bother when its icy/ snowy.

Didn't get a Blue Peter badge though so i'm not doing it again.

I live on a hill.. there is a grit box at the top.. I'm the only person who bothers to actually go out and grit the road.. Over the years the area I grit has gradually shrunk from the whole street down to me and the adjacent houses.. sod em !

(+ I now have a 4x4) 😀

Company I work for is quite community minded, so our boss got together a gang of us to clear the pavements and main square of the village where we're based. We worked hard for about 4 hours, cleared the snow properly, even chipped away at the ice and gritted it all down etc and it's stayed properly clear and safe since as a result. Comments we got at the time were 50/50 between genuine gratitude and "you're doing a grand job there - well done" and the miserable sods saying "you do know you're not supposed to be doing that, don't you.... if it refreezes you'll be liable. " One of them from the old lady next door whose pathway I'd just spent 40 mins clearing... note she didn't make any comment until AFTER I'd cleared it though.

Came to the conclusion that even in a supposedly community orientated rural area like ours there are some properly mean-spirited gits about. Also made me wonder about what sort of lazy-arsed compensation culture we've become...

Why don't people bother to shovel snow outside their houses?

Mostly, it's because the prevailing attitude is that it's someone elses responsibility.

Then there's the fear of some local council jobsworth coming round stating that you've created a public hazard by moving the snow and issuing a fine for fly-tipping or some-such nonsense 🙄

I'm sure people would like to be more self-sufficient and take the initiative but the enthusiasm's been ground out of us through ridiculous council red-tape and stuff.

EDIT: I also think people don't trust their neighbours not to try and sue them for falling over because they cleared the snow wrongly or something.

I have a dedicated snow shovel, I can clear half my street in about 10 mins. It makes it so much easier than a normal shovel it's ridiculous.

Double post in fact I have two show shovels.

so if it only takes you 20mins to do the whole street whats the problem?

Last time we had some decent snow I cleared the snow from the speed bumps in the estate (well all the way to my house :D)

Me and two neighbours cleared a few drives as well. Didn't take long.

I'm sure we weren't the people in the estate with shovels bit it seemed that way.

Bottom line, most people are lazy and want things done for them

The jobsworth and liability thing is why it needs to be a change in the law.

The moment the law says you have to keep a path clear, there is no liability, but a legal obligation. There are liability issues and potential negligence in many things that get done (or don't get done). That's why you do a task to an acceptable standard.

So reading that link the rumour of you could get sued isn't hearsay its true anyone got any examples?

Also silly question but those Salt box's genuinely are there for us to use and not for the council to use? But are only to be used on the road not the pavement?

Luckily living in the Sunny Southwest we've only had one day of slight ice and that was from a hailstorm which quickly melted.

It's a good idea, but (serious answer)

- Some folk don't have a shovel. I have a little fold up one in the back of a car, but it's not much use if
- It snows overnight or during the day then freezes solid. I remember either last year or the year before trying to clear frozen snow (at the earliest possible opportunity) with a borrowed shovel and giving up as I was ruining the shovel and making no difference.

That said, hopefully by the time we next have snowmageddon I'll be self employed and working from home, so I probably will be out clearing. But I'm the type of person who puts everyone's bins away and even sometimes washes neighbours cars, so I might be a bit unusual.

How can we get people to shovel snow?

[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-21179069 ]Encourage them to make snowmen? OBVS[/url]

I am an elderly neighbour, thanks, and I'd be grateful. And btw someone's borrowed my shovel.

I am a resident in Germany and as stated early it is the owners responsibility to clear the snow from the pavements in front of your property. If you don't and someone slips and hurts themselves then you are liable. I was under the impression that it was the other way around in the UK. If you do clear the snow and someone slips then you are liable. Is this actually true?

Dibbs - Member
My sister in law lives in Germany and there it's the householder's responsibility to keep the pavement clear outside their house.

That's because Germany's society is superior to ours in every way.

I have a dedicated snow shovel, I can clear half my street in about 10 mins.

I wish mine was as dedicated. It's a lazy bugger which needs pushing around before it does any work, beside which it's in the shed and i can't get the shed door open because ...erm... of the snow and anyway, it's not my pavement. If you're so keen on clearing up stuff which isn't yours freom stuff which isn't your fault, start picking up some dog turds

When I was at school, me and a mate of mine used to go round all the local estates and offer to shovel snow off drives and pathways.

We never asked for money, but everybody gives us some. Made a small fortune.

Might help if they changed 'It's unlikely' to 'You will not' on this statement:

In the UK anyone can sue anyone for just about anything. The issue is whether they are likely to be successful or not......

Because I like the snow outside my house, makes me feel all warm and cosy when I look at it from indoors, I shall be leaving it exactly where it is.

Rarely get any snow so its nice to see

OAPs should be prepared for the bad weather and have plenty of provisions in kitchen cupboards so they dont have to venture out therefore no need to remove snow.

A metal shovel cost a tenner from Mole Valley Farmers and is much better than one of those plastic things from a supermarket ,especially once the snow has hardened

I can see a 'What Shovel - Snow Content' thread popping up soon.

OAPs should be prepared for the bad weather and have plenty of provisions in kitchen cupboards so they dont have to venture out therefore no need to remove snow.

They may have run out of powdered milk and egg from the war though, and pemmican

Because I like the snow outside my house, makes me feel all warm and cosy when I look at it from indoors, I shall be leaving it exactly where it is.

+1. I don't expect anyone to clear it for me. I'm happy to leave it where it is. As far as I can remember no-one's ever shovelled snow on my road, and everyone's fine with that (the road itself gets gritted, the stuff on pavements gets left where it is).

I can see a 'What Shovel - Snow Conentent' thread popping up soon

again, the "you're liable" argument is just an excuse that comes from the mean spirited workshy idle bastards that inhabit these isles in their millions. I'm almost certainly personnaly more likely to be sued for ****ting a workshy gobshite with a snow shovel for whinging than i am for clearing paths.
Interestingly, there are also local businesses that do the sensible thing and clear their carpark as necesary, and those that don't..... guess its not just individuals that can be mean spirited and apathetic.

And as for the individuals that "yes the main roads are allright but I can't get off my estate".......get ****ing digging then until you can!

Having ranted about the idle bastards, may I say in balance that the majority of my patients turned up last Friday, and the first two even offered to help clear the car park with me ( i hadn't quite finished and was about to start gritting having cleared) having been sensible and set of in plenty of time for their appointments.

Consequently, our carpark has been free of snow and ice throughout last week, and safe for patients and staff, unlike my local GP practice....kind of ironic given how many broken hips and wrists they will be arranging after care for next week! It astonishes me local businesses that i have popped into in recent days, including a "leading" local bike shop, that have staff sitting around doing nothing, and slushed up carparks that turn lethal every night with ridged and rutted icepack for the lack of 20 mins with a shovel.

Didn't our dear leader say that you won't be sued if you clear the snow in front of your house.
Think the whole being sued thing is just so it gives lazy people an excuse to do nothing.

No point, neighbour has this
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[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/rocketdog/8408372769/ ]23/342 23/1/2013 snow plough[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/rocketdog/ ]rOcKeTdOgUk[/url], on Flickr

Needs a change in the law in UK to make it a responsibility.

Quite right, let's make it THE LAW and increase the power given to PCO's and they can slap a fine on your front door while you sleep. Afterall, we'd need to levy a fine to pay for the H&S training for the PCO's and to give them all tennis rackets for their feet in the snow, otherwise the PCO's might slip over and sue the council.

It's lucky we have THE LAW to save us otherwise society would crumble.

I make ours passable and level but not clean of snow- reason being, I spent a winter on crutches once and discovered that the dangerous bits of pavement were the ones that had been cleared then iced up- the snowy bits were no bother at all but many tarmac bits were almost impassable.

I particularily appreciate the people who dig a foot wide stripe down to the tarmac, then throw the snow to one side and build a wall that nobody who isn't 100% able bodied can get over, that's good. Not as good as the folks that dig out their driveways and throw the snow onto the pavement though.

It's lucky we have THE LAW to save us otherwise society would crumble.

What we needs is some laws to outlaw illegal behaviour - then we can eradicate crime!

Similar to sprocketjockey above a company I worked for used to store the sandbags/sand in the back of the warehuse incase of flooding in the village, so once or twice a year we'd be in there for a few hours filling them.

There were articles/notices in the local free paper telling people where they could come to lend a hand etc. But apparently the entire village only had 5 minutes to spare on the way home from work on the one day they needed sandbags.......

The next year they were distributed to OAP's only.

[i]That's because Germany's society is superior to ours in every way. [/i]

Except for a couple of slip-ups last century...

Snow clears itself. Why shovel it?

I always use to clear our drive and the full pavement in front of the house, I was pretty much the only one in the street to do it.

Now I live in the country, I only do our paths and my parents' who live nearby.

I had a pleasant surprise when I got home from work during the worst of it, neighbours had not only cleared the road outside but also my driveway and a path to the front door!

Nice people in my village!

I had a pleasant surprise when I got my bike out this morning. That nice mother nature lady from down the road had cleared all the snow 🙂

I just leave it, come June there is usually very little trace of it left.

This is a subject I have been tackling for three winters in our town and I'm now starting to make some progress, with some shop keepers clearing their bit of pavement and more volunteers spending time clearing pavements and then gritting them.

Mr Agreeable appears to be one of the few people that have heard of Snow Wardens, I am the local Snow Warden and it means that I now have the support of the town council with equipment and we have an agreed plan for the town centre that means people can get to the shops, the traders maintain their business and hopefully there are less broken wrists, hips and ankles.

I have had most of the responses listed above when clearing snow, I just accept it's largely a thankless task but it only takes a few thankyous to redress the balance.

Last year gritted and cleared the car park at home, a few neighbours thanked me the older ones at risk of falling.

Then another neighbour moaned about me leaving a bag of salt outside,as it looked unsightly and could be a tripping hazard, DESPITE IT BEING ORANGE, TIGHTLY AGAINST A WALL BUTTRESS, AND THE REST OF THE CAR PARK BEING LIKE A SKATING RINK DUE TO ME NOT HAVING GRITTED IT YET.

Checking in from the Great White North..

Some of these comments are unreal, I had no idea neighbours could be quite so ridiculous with 'tripping hazard' comments and so on.

Here in Ontario, the bylaw is that you clear it within 24 hours of falling, this can be tricky...as it snows alot...and you have really a small window to clear it before it freezes and is like chipping rocks.

So it's the homeowners/renters responsibility to clear the footpath surrounding the boundaries of their property. Being that footpath is a universally standard width here...and concrete...not higgledy tarmac, it's pretty easy. Then just salt the cleared concrete.

$1000 fine and up if you don't.

If it's real heavy my elderly neighbour tends to crack out his snowblower and do ours for us but usually I'll do his if it's light fall. Canadians are much more neighbourly..as a general rule.

p.s. I should add that so long as I clear a small path and the steps aren't lethally icey, postie hasn't ever complained.

I went out and brushed a path on the pavement past my house while it was soft and before it had been walked on and compacted, so was a quick and easy job. I have received no thanks so far either.

I then piste bashed it 😀

[img] [/img]

Serious question - what happens if you are on holiday when it snows if there's a law saying you have to clear it? Or unable to clear it for another genuine reason?

A few years ago when we had proper snow I just started clearing a footpath. Then some others joined me.

Then a couple of days later we decided to dig back out to the main road so people could get their cars in / out. Can't remember who started that but once there were 3 or 4 of us digging all sorts of people came out to join in. A couple of older ladies who nobody would have expected to join in brought out flasks of tea and biscuits. Took a good few hours, but also built some good community spirit. Even a couple of people without cars joined in! We cleared about 200 m of street so you could drive in and out to the main road that the council cleared.

So just lead by example and others will join in.

Took a good few hours, but also built some good community spirit. Even a couple of people without cars joined in

I so love community spirit, its such a pity others dont feel the same or its below them to clear the street for themselves and others.

so if it only takes you 20mins to do the whole street whats the problem?

I do it usually. I just don't like the fact that if I didn't no-one else would.

Snow clears itself. Why shovel it?

Well, if you clear it when it's fresh, it's easy and you get clean tarmac underneath. If you leave it, it tends to melt and re-freeze into ice which is a lot more durable, and it hangs around for a week or so. I live on a hill and if it ices up no-one can get out at all, driving gods, winter tyres, landrovers, nothing.

I spent a winter on crutches once and discovered that the dangerous bits of pavement were the ones that had been cleared then iced up- the snowy bits were no bother at all but many tarmac bits were almost impassable.

Improperly cleared then. The pavements we didn't clear are now under 1" of wet ice. The cleared ones are fine, cos we cleared them properly.

The nearest I've come to falling over this winter is after walking aling a grippy bit of snow onto cleared pavement then to black ice as polished as glass.

Personally I think that paths need salting. I'd happily help spread the stuff if it was provided to us to spread

The pavements by us did not stay as grippy snow.

Yes now the situation has reversed but I think you have to accept that scrapping without salting can make paths dangerous

the salting thing is a huge deal. Some a week after the road has been cleared the pavements are still terrible. There is no sytem to clear them. Not all go past people houses

I'm supposed to do it in France, so I do. I've got a big tub of salt too for the infamous verglas.

Sorry really can not see the point. It either melts the same day, or its snows again and you have wasted your time, or you have cleared it and then melt water freezes.

its all been left where we live, and still perfectly safe to walk on.

molgrips - Member

Improperly cleared then. The pavements we didn't clear are now under 1" of wet ice. The cleared ones are fine, cos we cleared them properly.

Nah- think this comes down partly to the sort of weather you're dealing with, but when it gets cold, you can't prevent ice forming, salt only lowers the freezing point. Frozen snow is better than frozen tarmac. Unless you believe that absolutely every bit of tarmac was improperly cleared.

Grit and sand helps underfoot but isn't that much use to a walking stick or crutch.

I cleaned the pavement and road outside the house because I have a snow shovel and it took just thirty mins. I nicked half a shovel of grit from the local estate too to keep it nice. The neighbours kids built a snowman on my lawn with all the snow I cleared 🙂 Enjoy winter.

I cleared the pavement outside mine as it was icy and my road is inhabited mostly by coffin dodgers.
The man opposite me had cleaned his driveway to perfection. You could not tell it had even snowed , it was that clean.
A hour or so later his wife fell over on the pavement practically outside his house as she walked home from the bus stop.
I was peeling a potatoe in the kitchen sink and some concerned motorists stopped and helped her up / home.
If he hadnt been such a twunt he could have cleared 1/2 mile of pavement in the time it must have taken him to clean the driveway and car, and his wife wouldnt have ended up on her backside.

Nah- think this comes down partly to the sort of weather you're dealing with,

Fresh snow - yes, lovely and grippy. However if it nips above freezing, it gets slushy which is not good. However when slush freezes you get serious ice, which then doesn't melt much the following dya when the temp nudges above freezing.

If you are expecting it to stay below freezing for a good while then there's a case for leaving it. Having said that, if it stays below you'll just uncover dry tarmac which itself will be grippy.

On our road, our shovelling did leave a little slush behind, but when that froze it melted again immediately because it was just a smear.

It’s unlikely that you’ll be sued or held responsible if someone is injured on a path or pavement if you’ve cleared it carefully.

Given that the local highways department are liable for the state of the road and path it is extremely unlikely you will be sued. Time to crack on.

Last year loads of people cleared the roads around my estate. The snow had to go somewhere so it ended up in neat piles beside the road.

Great you think, but it created basically a one way system around the entire estate, you couldn't pull over to let cars come past the other way as there was always a big pile of snow/ice. And those piles stayed a long time after most of the rest disappeared.

This year nobody has really bothered. Cars have driven over a lot more of the road and cleared the problem a lot quicker rather than being forced to trundle down one track.

Again that's people not knowing how to do it. I piled the snow in places I knew it would not obstruct cars.

Then there's the fear of some local council jobsworth coming round stating that you've created a public hazard by moving the snow and issuing a fine for fly-tipping or some-such nonsense

I'm sure people would like to be more self-sufficient and take the initiative but the enthusiasm's been ground out of us through ridiculous council red-tape and stuff.

This is the problem. People actually believe this crap. 90% of these stories you hear about are not true or vastly exaggerated / have particular circumstances, but creating misleading stories is what some areas of the press love to do.