Postal workers given the slip

BY RAFFY BOUDJIKANIAN

raffy.boudjikanian@transcontinental.ca

Every morning for the last 14 years, Daniel Ricart has been waking up at 5 a.m., getting to work at 7 a.m., and hitting the pavements of the same area in Dollard des Ormeaux at nine. Every winter for the last 14 years, his well-travelled road has become a lot more dangerous. "See him? I rang his door, told him it would be nice this week-end, maybe he could clean up his driveway," said the long-time Canada Post mailman, pointing to a house as he made his rounds on a snowy morning. "He shut the door in my face."

"You have to be very vigilant. You never know when there will be some ice hidden underneath a little bit of snow," he said.

"I fall at least once every year," said Ricart. "But nothing serious has happened to me so far," he said.

Canada Post provides its employees on the road with "icers" for the winter, special heels fitted with spikes that cover the bottom of their boots and provide a better grip on slippery services. "I put them on today," said Ricart as he continued his trip. "It was necessary," he said. However, putting them on every morning was difficult, he said, because their added weight could hurt one's feet and knees after a while.

When he sees serious problems with certain driveways, Ricart said, he first lets his supervisor know. "He calls or meets with the household, and then they usually solve the problem," Ricart said. "Sometimes, if the problem isn't solved immediately, then we stop handing out the mail until they clean up," he said.

Canada Post spokesperson Christiane Ouimet said postal workers deal with ice problems every winter, but the government body has gone on a public awareness blitz this year in particular because of the early snowstorms in December.

"There were 414 people injured in 2006 in total in the Montreal region, and 395 in 2007, so there's an improvement," Ouimet said.

Fifty-seven of those injuries occurred in the West Island.

"We recommend our postal workers not to wear rubber boots, because those are more slippery," she said.

Canada Post also urged households to dump sand instead of salt on icy surfaces like stairways. "People tend to dump salt, on house stairs for example, but when the ice melts at noon, salt can also melt into water," Ouimet explained. That water can then freeze over again, whereas sand does not melt.

"Sometimes, it only snows three or four centimetres, and then people get lazy, saying they don't need to shovel it because it's not a lot," Ricart said. "But it adds up after a while," he added.

Despite the ice and the downpours of snow, it is with a smile that Ricart starts his route every day. "One has to," he explained. Watching the weather forecast allows him to prepare for the bad days, he said. Besides, despite the occasional lack of collaboration, he works in a good area, where most people take care of their driveways.

"See this guy? He's retired, so his driveway is always completely clean," he laughed, pointing to another house.