Shoveling snow

So, I have plenty experience of shoveling snow myself. In the last week or so we have had a lot of snow. The weather has been quite mild this Winter so far. The weather did not drop below zero consistently until the third week of November. It then promptly plummeted to 20 below and the mid teens negative for around a week. Then it warmed up again to minus 2, 3 or 4, which is really nothing at all.
The large amounts of snow make for messy roads and footpaths. Especially if the temperature gets up to zero and melting occurs. It is even worse when the melting turns into ice, then things become really slippery.
In Canada, salt is put on the road which melts the snow quite quickly also prevents it from freezing again. (Wow, God is some Chemist.) Not so here. In Canada, the trucks are out in full force, not so here. Here, I have to admit that I have seen some machinery, but very little. What I have seen is lots of people (city employees) sweeping and shovelling snow. But this is just too slow sometimes.
On this occasion I had to have a laugh to myself as I saw two men shovelling snow by hand into this little truck to take it away. What a tedious taks.