In this paper we critically examine a concept which we term the 'ponderomotive snowplow'. It has been alluded to by a number of authors, but a complete description is given by Sazegari et al (2006 Phys. Plasmas13 033102). In this paper we present a critical analysis of this concept. As a strictly model problem, this is a valid idea. However it does not account for the longitudinal electrostatic field that must be generated in an actual laser-plasma interaction. Both analytic and numerical investigations indicate that the effects of this are hard to neglect, and lead to an effective ponderomotive snowplow that works—as described by Sazegari—as an effective electron accelerator being hard to realize.