Road "Chaos"!

[Luckypants]

Originally Posted by Berlin

Sensible post

Preaching to the converted here fella, I advised the folks living at the bottom of the hill to get some spare wheels from a scrappy and fit some good snow tyres to them. Front only since he has a Clio, will be enough to get him to work in this.

I ride round on these..



But I have a baby 4x4. We made mincemeat out of 6-12 inch deep snow on Monday night.

Originally Posted by Luckypants

But I have a baby 4x4. We made mincemeat out of 6-12 inch deep snow on Monday night.

That explains why your Shepherds pie is so watery then LP.

I see your point but it wouldn't be worth investing in something like that unless heavy snow was a regular occurence in the UK.

As someone else said, the last time it was this bad and resulted in people getting stuck was 18 years ago. Ive got normal tyres on my car and managed to get to work fine with careful driving.

Originally Posted by Berlin

How many of those people (idiots) on TV that had to spend the night in a shelter last night had a shovel, pieces of carpet, a bag of sand or grit, a warm drink, mars bars, a full tank of fuel and snow chains in the cars before they set out on their ill fated journey?

How many had even one of these items in the boot?

Very good point indeed. We've all known that this heavy snow was coming yet people went out (most of which were probably unprepeared) anyway

[Dave20046]

haha I keep meaning to put a shovel in my car but I just can't be ****d. I've put a thick coat in the back though and filled up.

[Paul the 6th]

Originally Posted by Viney

It only snows once every 18 years, so there really is no point. It causes a few days of disruption, then everyone is back to normal.

aye I think that's the main reason, because it happens for 1-2 days a year on average with the odd year where it lasts for a week or two (like in 94/95? and now...), people just aren't prepared let alone in the know about "snow tyres" or "common sense" like carrying provisions to account for the possibilities of getting stuck... It's the british way though it would be too easy if we had public information about "how to get out of snow" or "how to avoid becoming stuck in the snow"...

Don't get me started on the media "There's snow chaos everywhere", the m1 was the quietest I've ever seen it yesterday, it only took 3 hours to get to london from west yorkshire. The media reports it as being horrific for the whole country when really, there's just a small region which has it quite bad.

We've had snow 7 times this winter.

Last winter we had about the same.

I've rescued 8 neighbours this year so far. All on summer tyres. One wrote off two cars in two weeks. None would have needed rescuing if they'd been using winter tyres.

I live less than 1 mile from the A1

C

[Luckypants]

Originally Posted by Dave20046

haha I keep meaning to put a shovel in my car but I just can't be ****d. I've put a thick coat in the back though and filled up.

Shovel, bag of rock salt, torch, hi-vis coat, tow rope, compressor (to pump up tyres if I have to air them down). All goes back in the shed in spring, comes back out again when weather turns nasty.

[timwilky]

When my folks lived in the forest of Bowland, they didn't bother with winter tyres. too much like hard work. Instead they kept a land rover for those few days a year when they couldn't get in/out by anything but helicopter.

Good fun trying to find out where the road ended and the roadside ditch started when trying to see the road by where the hedges may be.

then again they used to have a dirty great diesel generator as the electricity would always be brought down by snow on the wires.

What am I trying to say, the expense you go to is proportional to the risk. In this country for most of us we get 1 or 2 days snow a year. Some parts of the country have had the worse for 18 years apparently. Here it has been far less than last year. and actual fall can be measured in hours not days. currently there is no snow on the ground, green grass all around me)

So unless there is a high risk of snow/ice every year (like in Sweden/Germany etc) why bother with more than minimum risk reduction such as a blanket/shovel in case you get stuck. If like LP or my parents you live in the middle of nowhere and there is a good chance of roads being snowed out every winter then invest in a 4*4 or winter tyres etc.

Originally Posted by Berlin

I've rescued 8 neighbours this year so far. All on summer tyres. One wrote off two cars in two weeks. None would have needed rescuing if they'd been using winter tyres.


C

Can you be sure that they wouldn't have crashed anyway? Obviously never learnt their lesson the first time. People just don't have enough experience of driving in this weather.

Originally Posted by Luckypants

Shovel, bag of rock salt, torch, hi-vis coat, tow rope, compressor (to pump up tyres if I have to air them down). All goes back in the shed in spring, comes back out again when weather turns nasty.

Ah, but think about how much extra fuel you are using carting them around.