Home Must Reads Truckers: 'You can't wait to get out of Oregon so you can relax'
Truckers: 'You can't wait to get out of Oregon so you can relax' | Print |  Email
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Wednesday, January 09, 2013

Oregon is experimenting with salting roads along a few state border crossings to de-ice them, but it has no plans to apply rock salt to Interstate 84, where a tour bus crash last month killed nine people.

Most neighboring states use rock salt on their roads, so drivers may face icier roads as they cross into Oregon, which has cost and environmental reasons for relying on sand and less-corrosive magnesium chloride.

Salt lowers the freezing temperature of water. But rock salt also rusts out vehicles and bridges, and Oregon doesn't want rock salt winding up in the Columbia Basin, the East Oregonian reported.

The Oregon State Police say the Dec. 30 tour bus crash happened on a stretch of road with ice and snow patches, but they have said it may take weeks to determine what caused it.

The crash, though, has raised the question of salting Oregon highways.

"Am I in the minority that feels like there is a moral obligation to this?" said Oregon truck driver Larry Phelps. "At some point we have to see that this is costing lives. I'm tired of seeing cars turned upside down on my route."

Phelps, 62, said the state is a running joke among truckers: "You can't wait to get out of the state so you can relax."

Read more by KVAL.com.
 

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Guest
+1 #1 Don’t Salt the Roads — Guest 2013-01-09 22:58:49
I grew up in the Great Lakes snow belt of upstate New York where they put salt on the roads and a vehicle that might be mechanically fine for well over 100,000 miles only makes it about half of that because it rots out from underneath you. Even if you drive through salt and park your car for extended periods unless you get under it and wash the salt off it will rot while it sits. But there was a lot of snow and ice there. I lived for 25 years in Montana where roads are not salted, there is also a lot of snow and ice and people just learn how to drive in winter weather. Idaho is the same. Here snow and ice are rare and instead of learning weather-appropr iate driving skills, drivers want to have to buy three times the number of cars and trucks as they do now?

Don’t do it. It will be a business boon for car sales, car insurance premiums and body shops, but it will cost thousands of dollars a year for drivers in repair and replacement costs for our vehicles.
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Guest
+1 #2 Rot Box — Guest 2013-01-11 17:03:58
I live in PA where they salt the roads and made a living patching 5 year old cars that you could see through becuase of rust. They salt the roads and people still drive on bald summer tires.
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