Roads are ice.

Coming to work tonight, 13 cars in the ditch between Wyoming and forest lake. Pure ice. Drive safe.

No S$it!
Leave plenty off stopping distance everyone.

Lino / hugo north are all black ice. Further south was slick but not near as bad. I was going 75 and realized I was running black ice.

694/ 94, 100 south and France are all black ice

South of the metro is terrible as well

Hope they get better by later morning or it’s going to be a long drive out to Wausau wi

They seem to be better this morning. Not full speed on the highways yet but getting there.

gim wrote:

They seem to be better this morning. Not full speed on the highways yet

100 times better

Just remember guys do not use cruise in the winter or at the very least in patchy ice conditions. They are still very slick in spots here. Nothing was treated. You’d think with having a surplus by not having to use product much last year they would get their butts out there for some OT.

CaptainMusky wrote:

Just remember guys do not use cruise in the winter or at the very least in patchy ice conditions. They are still very slick in spots here. Nothing was treated. You’d think with having a surplus by not having to use product much last year they would get their butts out there for some OT.

…or maybe the state got wise and decided to stop treating roads as it ruins vehicles, infrastructure, bodies of water, etc.

One can dream

Bucky, you are not wrong with any of that, but its damn treacherous and leads to bad accidents and deaths. There were several rollovers that possibly could have been avoided had the roads been treated around here last night. Perhaps it was speed, knucklehead drivers too, but the roads are just plain bad around here. There has to be something other than salt to put on there. Other states dont use it.

The amount of salt they put on public sidewalks near my office in Mpls is absurd. They don’t even make an attempt to evenly spread it. There’s literally small piles here, small piles there. Really does nothing to to reduce ice except where the pile itself is.

Then it rains or the ice melts and it all ends up down the drain. Beyond stupid application of this stuff.

I agree Gim. The laziness factor is real high with a lot of people. I dont know if its better, but I have been using softener salt on my sidewalks the last few years because its far cheaper and it seems to work just as good and doesnt beat the heck out of concrete which is perplexing to me.

WTF was MNDOT doing yesterday. I went duck hunting in the Alex area yesterday and hit any icy spot west of St. Cloud on 94 for about 20 miles. Where the salt truck had been it was wet/not slippery pavement.
On the way home yesterday afternoon I thought that’s how it would be wet but not slippery. Wrongo Amigo. 20-40 mph from St Clould to Minnetonka. Never saw a MNDOT truck. Saw several cars in the ditch. A semi on west bound 94 in the median pointing east. A semi trying to stop to avoid a car doing circles in front of him went to the shoulder but the trailer went in the ditch. Pulling it diagonally until he stopped. I thought it was going to roll.
If MNDOT would have stayed ahead of it and treated all day it would have been way better. Perfect temps for the salt to work. They have some splainin’ to do.

I just prefer to not put my life in the hands of MNDOT workers, county workers, or whoever else treats the roads, etc. and just SLOW DOWN when road conditions are crap. In today’s “blame everyone but yourself” world I seem to be in the minority though. I’d be fine if not another dime was spent on salt/chloride for our roadways. In our area there are some township roads that don’t even see sand, plows, etc as they are minimum maintenance roads. You simply drive them SLOWLY at your own risk.

The easiest way to decrease crashes, the severity of those crashes, and damage is to SLOW DOWN…not complain about what is/isn’t treated. We have become such a strange society.

roads are much better today by Osakis and Alex

Netguy wrote:

WTF was MNDOT doing yesterday. I went duck hunting in the Alex area yesterday and hit any icy spot west of St. Cloud on 94 for about 20 miles. Where the salt truck had been it was wet/not slippery pavement.
On the way home yesterday afternoon I thought that’s how it would be wet but not slippery. Wrongo Amigo. 20-40 mph from St Clould to Minnetonka. Never saw a MNDOT truck. Saw several cars in the ditch. A semi on west bound 94 in the median pointing east. A semi trying to stop to avoid a car doing circles in front of him went to the shoulder but the trailer went in the ditch. Pulling it diagonally until he stopped. I thought it was going to roll.
If MNDOT would have stayed ahead of it and treated all day it would have been way better. Perfect temps for the salt to work. They have some splainin’ to do.

X2 on this. I had to pick up a new to me truck in Shakopee last night. Left 3M in St Paul and it took over 2 hrs to get there. Another 2 hrs to drive back to Hudson. I drove 494 to 169. First Salt Truck I saw was 8 pm. I left at 4:30. 169 was a bumper to bumper parking lot. The car I was trading in was in need of new tires. That made the ride even more special. Black ice was every where.

I’m with you Bucky. Put a little sand at intersections and call it good. They seem to survive out West fine without salt.

When you know who owns the salt and sells the salt, you will understand the salt lobby and why MN uses so damn much of it, increasing salt use every year but not increasing amount of roads.

Believe me when I tell you some people will not SLOW DOWN or learn HOW to drive in snow.

An example:
I once towed the same lady/car out of the ditch 4 times over back to back winters! Her explanation everytime was “I was not driving over the speed limit”
As I drove the 12k tow truck at a safe 40mph to get to her.

Some people are pure boneheads. Driving too fast for conditions, without headlights on when its snowing/raining. Heck I saw one yesterday when it was pitch black out and its the service manager at the shop by my house so I texted him and told him to turn on his F*ing headlights.

When I left cold spring yesterday about 10 to head to Wisconsin roads were good. All the way. I had 2 slow downs by Monticello.

The no headlights people really grind my gears

CaptainMusky wrote:

Some people are pure boneheads. Driving too fast for conditions, without headlights on when its snowing/raining. Heck I saw one yesterday when it was pitch black out and its the service manager at the shop by my house so I texted him and told him to turn on his F*ing headlights.

What’s worse no head lights or texting while driving?

It’s the first snowfall of the year, don’t treat the roads so everyone is reminded on how to drive in winter again. It’s a win win

mnfishhunt wrote:

What’s worse no head lights or texting while driving?

Neither they are both stupid and dangerous. Only way driving with no headlights could be even worse that it is if they were texting at the same time I guess. Literally didnt even see the guy driving because it was so dark I have no idea how he could even drive.

Netguy wrote:

WTF was MNDOT doing yesterday. I went duck hunting in the Alex area yesterday and hit any icy spot west of St. Cloud on 94 for about 20 miles. Where the salt truck had been it was wet/not slippery pavement.
On the way home yesterday afternoon I thought that’s how it would be wet but not slippery. Wrongo Amigo. 20-40 mph from St Clould to Minnetonka. Never saw a MNDOT truck. Saw several cars in the ditch. A semi on west bound 94 in the median pointing east. A semi trying to stop to avoid a car doing circles in front of him went to the shoulder but the trailer went in the ditch. Pulling it diagonally until he stopped. I thought it was going to roll.
If MNDOT would have stayed ahead of it and treated all day it would have been way better. Perfect temps for the salt to work. They have some splainin’ to do.

Here’s my two cents. In recent years, salting a road has been declared environmentally unfriendly. While I can agree that we shouldn’t unnecessarily cover our roads in salt, the pendulum has swung so far that MnDOT won’t put anything down until it’s too late to be beneficial. This is not the first snow/ice event where they totally missed the mark.

I switched jobs 7 years ago. Prior to that time, I could expect good travel conditions when I left the house at 6 AM. I don’t knoW exactly when it changed, but I no longer expect the same results.

Speaking of technology (i.e. texting while driving and automatic headlights that don’t come on) anyone know how the tesla self driving cars do when roads are slippery? There are more and more of Elon’s cars on the road which is scary if you’ve been following the FSD issues with the cyber truck. I’m skeptical they’re as safe as a human driven car when the roads get slick and situational awareness is key.

IDK how Teslas technology works, but most others require visible lines on the road to navigate so if its snow covered they will not work. I wouldnt trust any of that stuff, but it does look cool based on a few of the vids I have seen.

I don’t think that’s true but I could be wrong. I just watched several videos of cyber trucks driving FSD on gravel roads (no lines)