Road gritting...

[cassimer]

Can you help settle a long running dispute between myself and my boyfriend.....
When you have to drive past a gritter, say on a motorway going 70 ish should you
a) slow down - the slower the speed, the slower the impact and the less likely chips and broken headlights
b) speed up - go through the cloud of grit faster therefore being exposed to it for a shorter time.
He claims that it all depends on the velocity of the grit firing back at you - a certain point will smash glass, rest too slow. I think that going faster only makes the problem worse as you are more likely to hit the grit hard.
Hope you understand what I mean here - both bf and brother have had broken lights recently so would be really interested to know. But then since my car is the only one with intact headlights (touch wood...) i must be right! Right?

[IndieSinger]

I'm no scientist, but I think you're right. Imagine if the grit was another car that was heading towards yours - what would cause your car less damage, going fast or going slow? Slow, obviously. If you are travelling at 70m/h and the grit is travelling at, say, 30m/h, then the impact is 100m/h. Travel at 40m/h and the impact is only 70m/h. (Although I'm not sure about it being able to break lights).

[magicdice]

slower! you are right, and i'm almost a scientist (haha, kinda)

[landie]

Wouldn't it be a better idea if gritters released their grit at road level?

[genesis59]

Time to get a new boyfriend I think. He's gonna get you into all sorts of bother.

[ann_h]

I would slow down anyway, on the grounds that if my windscreen does go kaput I don't want to be doing 85 at the time!