Gazette Letters - Road Gritting

On the 18th February 2016 my mum and I were expecting to catch the early ferry in town to an event we’d been looking forward to for weeks.

We had the whole weekend planned around the Film G awards in Glasgow, where my friend and I were meant to be representing Feis Eilean Na Hearadh, for the best film category, but ended up not making it to the ferry!

We drove from Northton where the roads were fine,we even drove through the Clisham safely (although it was covered in snow).

But unexpectedly when we reached Ballalan our faith in the gritters was lost.

When hanging from your seatbelt with your cheek to the road, many thoughts run through your head, we were in shock obviously.

We were helped fortunately by a local man,his wife and the scallop man.

But nothing beats sitting in a scallop van watching three gritters in a row driving past your window with their lights flashing brightly on their way to save people from crashing. My semi conscious mother trying to hide the pain said, “It’s a bit flipping late!”

CNES were probably unaware of the many accidents that happened that morning in Lewis and for what reason - ice on the roads.

On this note I would like to conclude my mum has a severely broken wrist and I’m scarred for life, looking on the bright side we did win Best film at Film G , but weren’t able to collect the award.

As a 15 year old I don’t know much about what the CNES do about safety on the roads, but I do know that if the roads had been gritted that morning for people going to the ferry or just going home, a lot of accidents could have been prevented.

Stop making us grit our teeth with worry and grit the roads instead.

Tha seo direach depressing.

Etta Olley

Harris