Jerry,
I remember (not so fondly) the winter of 1993 into 1994 here in Maryland, when a series of freezing rain, sleet, and snow events turned the roads and everyone's driveways into a glacier nearly a foot thick. Once a couple inches of the stuff accumulates, there isn't much you can do short of a flamethrower or dynamite for the real thick stuff but wait until Spring. If this is the case, I would just "pave the glacier" like I did by shoveling liberal amounts of sand, rock dust, cinders, etc onto the ice. Dark colored abrasives will also help catch the suns rays, and speed melting as well.
If the ice is soft and less than an inch or two thick, you can try driving over it repeatedly with tire chains on a tractor or pickup, and shovel away any broken ice, but that is pretty hard work.