The recent weather has brought the word "gritting" to the forefront of many of our minds, and the localised problems in applying grit have also been well publicised. Whilst there are different kinds of grit used on UK roads, most types come from rock salt, mined in either Cheshire or Northern Ireland. Hawkins' highway engineer, Mike Hopwood, has been down the salt mine in Winsford, Cheshire several times and has spent many nights gritting roads and keeping an eye on the conditions. Here he tells us what grit is, how it works, and how the travelling public can make the most of its use.

"The salt in grit is the ingredient that lowers the temperature at which water freezes, and hence either stops the ice forming on the roads, or causes it to melt if it has already formed. The 'rock' part of rocksalt provides some (but not much) skidding resistance to the wet road. For the grit to work, it needs to mix into the ice or snow, and this is done by the action of vehicles over the road surface."

When you are driving in icy or snowy conditions, Mike has some simple tips to stay a little bit safer:

• Grit is less effective below -5 degrees, so if it's very cold, take extra care.
• Not all roads are gritted, so try to stick to motorways and A roads as much as possible.
• Your local highway authority will probably publish their gritting routes on their website or on a leaflet. Making a small change to your regular journey might keep you on roads which are gritted.