A thousand vehicles stuck on the roads in the west of Île de France after… a few centimeters of snow this Tuesday, January 9. Snowflakes in the plains are less and less recurrent in the Paris region but, each time, it’s the same mess. Stuck in their cars, motorists curse: but why is the State incapable of salting the roads to avoid paralysis?
Weather is not an exact science, and snow is one of the most difficult phenomena to predict. Half a degree difference and the flakes may fall or not, stick to the ground or not. Very often, the chaos results from surprise or heavier than expected snowfall.
This Tuesday, January 9, for example, Essonne, Yvelines and departments of Normandy were only placed on orange snow and ice alert by Météo-France at the start of the morning, while motorists were stuck by the snowing since the evening before. “The quantities of snow that fell were greater than expected,” the weather forecast institute acknowledged in its bulletin. Patches of road ice are also forming.”
When snow was not forecast, no salting was carried out upstream. And when it is there, when motorists have committed themselves and find themselves stuck, neither the salt spreaders nor the snow plows can clear the roads. The latter must be able to drive “between 30 and 50 km/h” to be able to evacuate the snow from the ground, specifies the Interdepartmental Roads Directorate of Île-de-France (Dirif) on its site.
Even when it is possible to anticipate and salt the roads in advance, it is not always enough. “Salt does not remove snow,” recalls Dirif. Beyond a thin layer of snow, the only effective technique is to evacuate the snow once it has fallen.” This is what happened in December 2010, when snowfall predicted but much heavier than expected completely paralyzed the Lyon region, then, a week later, Paris, despite preventive salting.
However, are the departmental road departments sufficiently equipped to quickly clear snow from the roads for which they are responsible? Not really, government spokesperson Benjamin Griveaux admitted in 2018, recalling however that heavy snowfall remains rare in many French regions. It’s difficult to invest public money in dozens of snowplows to deal with an event that doesn’t even happen once a year. “We are not going to adapt our infrastructure to an exceptional moment,” he decided at the time.
Motorists are not always well equipped to deal with snow either, with winter tires only being compulsory in a few mountainous departments. From the first flakes or patches of ice, the risk of accident increases for these vehicles whose grip is reduced, risking paralysis of the axle, and also preventing, if it continues to snow, the passage of salting equipment. and snow removal.
There remains information for road users, which is crucial. Through preventive road closures or calls to postpone less urgent trips, authorities can avoid embolism in the event of disruptions on the roads. On this point, France has undeniably progressed in recent years, helped by the popularization of smartphones which allow traffic conditions to be consulted in real time.
