Gritting in advance has a strong anti-icing effect. That’s why the gritters go out before the snow or ice arrives.
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It’s going to be absolutely frigid here in Houston this coming Monday. I’m hoping that our city’s infrastructure can handle it, and that everything shuts down so nobody has to go anywhere and put themselves in danger.
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Sheesh, when does that ever happen? I’m imagining (perhaps incorrectly) not even needing a heavy coat there, most winters. I’m assuming they’ll need to protect the palm trees (and/or figure out how to do that).
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You gotta know and understand something about Texas…they’re generally reluctant to do anything ahead of time even with advance warnings.
Driving around Dallas during an ice storm really is like driving a Zamboni. I’ve had my car literally slide sideways into the curb while at a complete stop.
The highways there are mostly concrete and purposefully poured to be as smooth as possible - so much so that they get super slick even during light rainfall much less snow or ice. They also embed little plastic reflective lane markers so snow plows cannot put their blades all they way down to the surface.
They don’t use grit or salt mostly because these destroy the concrete roadbeds and they have hundreds of miles of highway to cover across the metroplex. DFW area is probably second only to LA for the network of highways and overpasses.
From what I read, they did do some advance de-icing spraying the night before but that’s not very effective.
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By “gritting”, do you mean spreading sand/gravel, or spreading salt? The latter definitely prevents ice formation, the former IME not so much.
I’ve never heard of gritting trucks spreading just sand/gravel to deal with freezing conditions on roads. Grit is rock salt.
In some places I believe rock salt/grit may be mixed with sharp sand to help it spread further, but in the context of spreading on roads to counter snow/ice, ‘grit’ always means salt is in there somewhere in significant proportion.
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Okay, that makes sense! 
In that case, yes, spreading the rock salt out in advance would have been wise.
Here in Finland, sanding and salting are separate things; rock salt stops being useful around -10 C, so in very cold weather you spread sand or fine gravel instead, to increase traction. Also, salt is expensive, and has an environmental impact, so it’s mostly used in cities and along highways, with smaller roads getting sand/gravel treatment.
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Smaller roads here get nothing. There may be grit bins around for local residents to access and spread a little on the residential streets but the gritting trucks stick to the main roads.
Plus, we rarely get extended periods of -10C or more. Thankfully. 
Yup. There are multiple standards for vehicle to vehicle, and vehicle to infrastructure communications in the works. As we’ve seen with adaptive cruise control systems, all the cars don’t have to have the advanced systems to start to get a benefit. Intelligent Transportation Systems - Vehicle to Infrastructure (V2I) Deployment Guidance and Resources
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Thanks for this comment. Of course I don’t know what happened in this situation but there is a dangerous percentage of people on the road casually allowed to operate a machine that is the most horrifying and common cause of death.
This is a really bad bit of “common wisdom” I’ve heard thrown around my whole life. Every time it ices some one around would say something like “you know the trick is just to drive normally, don’t get scared of some ice” etc.
Y’all… Bravery can’t melt ice.
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On some roads here, the trucks spray a sort of brine in lieu of speading salt. In theory, this makes the thawing process go faster, but does nothing to prevent ice accumulations.
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