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In a similar vein, when I drove a mid 90s Micra and drove through the Jan 2003 snow storm, my car (shod on summer tyres) had very little in the way of problems, even going up and down two very steep hills on the way home from work.
This difference between my car's relatively skinny tyres (coupled with on 54bhp available) and many others' wide, low profile tyres and 3x or more power was blindly obvious - those cars and drivers just could cope with the conditions. I only took 90 mins to get home (normal journey time 25-30mins) because the roads on those hills was jammed up due to those same cars and vans, lorries and an ambulance getting stuck.
Powerful cars + wide, low profile summer tyres + little to no driving proficiency on snow and ice + ego = recipe for disaster.
Other lower powered cars on sensible tyres driven equally sensibly seemed to do just as well as I did. No driving aids (mine didn't even have ABS, or power steering [not that I needed it, especially that day]) at all. I think that a lot of the modern driving aids have meant that less and less people learn decent car craft, and when these aids fail or, in some weather, have no positive effect, quickly get into severe difficulties.
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The problem with driving aids such as traction control/ASR and others is knowing when to (if you can) turn the things off, and when to switch them back on again.
Weight transfer is another ting that has be long learned, up until recently when another 4x4 has turned up, there were only two people who could get out of our road when it snowed heavily, myself on either winter tyres or since returning to proper 4x4's (not going to work is not an option), or the chap up the road who used to reverse his brilliant little Pug 106 up the hill, thereby making it a like a properly weighted rwd for the job.
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In a similar vein, when I drove a mid 90s Micra and drove through the Jan 2003 snow storm, my car (shod on summer tyres) had very little in the way of problems, even going up and down two very steep hills on the way home from work.
This difference between my car's relatively skinny tyres (coupled with on 54bhp available) and many others' wide, low profile tyres and 3x or more power was blindly obvious - those cars and drivers just could cope with the conditions. I only took 90 mins to get home (normal journey time 25-30mins) because the roads on those hills was jammed up due to those same cars and vans, lorries and an ambulance getting stuck.
Powerful cars + wide, low profile summer tyres + little to no driving proficiency on snow and ice + ego = recipe for disaster.
Other lower powered cars on sensible tyres driven equally sensibly seemed to do just as well as I did. No driving aids (mine didn't even have ABS, or power steering [not that I needed it, especially that day]) at all. I think that a lot of the modern driving aids have meant that less and less people learn decent car craft, and when these aids fail or, in some weather, have no positive effect, quickly get into severe difficulties.
I had a 1996 2.0 Rover tourer sport with low profiles and got through snow 4" deep plus without any problems, so I have doubts the tyres make a lot of difference, we are talking frozen stuff here where any tyre will struggle even with very deep tread
the weight of the car and front wheel drive-4 wheel drive will make more of a difference than tyre width and usually rear wheel drives have the most trouble getting through snow no matter what tyres they use...
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Nothing new in what I saw last week.
In 1993 it took me 8 hours to do 20 miles. It actually took 7.5 for the first 5 and an hour to do 15.
Reason? The logistics managers at a local factory decided it was quite OK to continue as normal and let their 40 tonne HGVs leave the depot. One was stuck on a roundabout and that created gridlock.
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Nothing new in what I saw last week. In 1993 it took me 8 hours to do 20 miles. It actually took 7.5 for the first 5 and an hour to do 15. Reason? The logistics managers at a local factory decided it was quite OK to continue as normal and let their 40 tonne HGVs leave the depot. One was stuck on a roundabout and that created gridlock.
Indeed - back in 2003, I would've been able to make it home in about 45-50 mins had others not stopped on the hills in front of me, and that included 10 mins just to clear loads of snow off and around my car.
Thinking back, as many here may recall, that weather 'event' suddenly went from a nice day to a blizzard for about 2 hours (at around 1-3pm), leading to a good proportion of workers leaving early at around 4pm. When I left work at my usual time (5.30pm), I saw some colleagues returning to the office because they couldn't get going or even out of the vicinity of the office, due to other vehicles (as well as some of theirs) that had got stuck.
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This current bout of bad weather had been predicted and well covered via the press, Tv and radio. The day before it landed we were inundated with warnings of how bad it was going to be. Why can’t people heed the warnings and not travel. Many reports of the people stuck in the jams suggested that most weren’t there because of work or emergency so I have no sympathy for such muppets.
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'One snowflake.....' Nonsense. It was an abnormally heavy localised blizzard which would have temporarily closed any hilly road.
'..and the country grinds to a halt' No it didn't. Just a few hundred people in the far south of Great Britain were inconvenienced for a short time - prolonged mainly by HGVs because snow chains weren't available.
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'One snowflake.....' Nonsense. It was an abnormally heavy localised blizzard which would have temporarily closed any hilly road.
'..and the country grinds to a halt' No it didn't. Just a few hundred people in the far south of Great Britain were inconvenienced for a short time - prolonged mainly by HGVs because snow chains weren't available.
You might wish to learn about irony and hyperbole. And perhaps a little anger management therapy could be thrown in for good measure. And by the way, it was not hundreds of people who were inconvenienced, more like a million, and snow chains would have caused severe damage to the roads. Otherwise you made some valuable suggestions.
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<< You might wish to learn about irony and hyperbole. And perhaps a little anger management therapy could be thrown in for good measure. >>
Sorry, Leif, I still wonder why John-F makes your hackles rise so easily. I can't see any evidence of him being angry here; but maybe you could try something alkaline to neutralise the dilute vitriol you are responding with?
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Sorry, Leif, I still wonder why John-F makes your hackles rise so easily. I can't see any evidence of him being angry here; but maybe you could try something alkaline to neutralise the dilute vitriol you are responding with?
Sadly, it's in character. I think the antipathy might date from a post about ten years ago when I corrected HJ's erroneous assertion in the national press that coasting doesn't save fuel and attempted to enlighten him concerning gravity.
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=86509
About half-way through the 100plus contributions to the debate he became abusive and Avant issued a warning and from then on he was merely condescending, e.g. 'dear boy' to a poster.
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Why can’t people heed the warnings and not travel. .
Perhaps because many of us expect to find all our daily requirements on the shelves when we finally decide to go out for them. Including the daily paper, postal deliveries - not to mention everything we have ordered from Amazon etc.
Agreed that as many schools close very readily after a bit of snow, the rush hour should be less congested. (I can assure you all that it took quite a lot of snow to close my primary school back in the 40s. But these days the schools close because the staff can't get there, not the kids). :-(
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(I can assure you all that it took quite a lot of snow to close my primary school back in the 40s. But these days the schools close because the staff can't get there, not the kids). :-(
Wow Andrew-T, you're as old as the hills :-)
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(I can assure you all that it took quite a lot of snow to close my primary school back in the 40s. But these days the schools close because the staff can't get there, not the kids). :-(
Wow Andrew-T, you're as old as the hills :-)
They would be South Welsh hills. I distinctly remember the famous 1947/48 snow, which was dustbin-height (not the ubiquitous wheelie-bin, the metal kind about two feet high), also the frost pushing the metal tops off the small milk-bottles kids got at school break. A mate of mine at Uni grew up in Glossop, where the drifts made them climb out of upper-floor windows.
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Why can’t people heed the warnings and not travel. .
Perhaps because many of us expect to find all our daily requirements on the shelves when we finally decide to go out for them. Including the daily paper, postal deliveries - not to mention everything we have ordered from Amazon etc.
Agreed that as many schools close very readily after a bit of snow, the rush hour should be less congested. (I can assure you all that it took quite a lot of snow to close my primary school back in the 40s. But these days the schools close because the staff can't get there, not the kids). :-(
IMHO many schools close at the merest hint of snow. I can understand it if the region gets a lot of snow, but really...my area of Hertfordshire rarely gets much snow (the 2003 storm was the worst I saw in 30 years) and yet schools close 9/10 times snow arrives. Not every teacher lives 50-100 miles away.
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IMHO many schools close at the merest hint of snow. I can understand it if the region gets a lot of snow, but really...my area of Hertfordshire rarely gets much snow (the 2003 storm was the worst I saw in 30 years) and yet schools close 9/10 times snow arrives. Not every teacher lives 50-100 miles away.
There are a multitude of reasons why schools close. Somebody upthread mentioned the 40s. As late as the sixties most of my teachers lived close by, either a walk or a bus ride.
The local comp my kids attended is in our village. About 25% of the roll live here as do a handful of staff. Others come in from 20 to 50 miles away. The 75% of kids not in village are mostly bussed in along roads that don't get ploughed or gritted. The buses have to manoeuvre on the school forecourt which they cannot do at an acceptable level of safety if it's not been cleared of snow/ice/slush. If the possible consequence of an incident is death or life changing injury then probability of one has to be very low. While there's snow and ice on the forecourt it's too high. Furthermore the bus companies insurers will have a view on which on road risks are acceptable. OK, it's probable that if one goes sideways into a ditch everyone will walk away. OTOH there could be a lot of minor injuries from glass. Broken bones count as serious injury - arms tend to cop it in bus accidents.
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IMHO many schools close at the merest hint of snow. I can understand it if the region gets a lot of snow, but really...my area of Hertfordshire rarely gets much snow (the 2003 storm was the worst I saw in 30 years) and yet schools close 9/10 times snow arrives. Not every teacher lives 50-100 miles away.
There are a multitude of reasons why schools close. Somebody upthread mentioned the 40s. As late as the sixties most of my teachers lived close by, either a walk or a bus ride.
The local comp my kids attended is in our village. About 25% of the roll live here as do a handful of staff. Others come in from 20 to 50 miles away. The 75% of kids not in village are mostly bussed in along roads that don't get ploughed or gritted. The buses have to manoeuvre on the school forecourt which they cannot do at an acceptable level of safety if it's not been cleared of snow/ice/slush. If the possible consequence of an incident is death or life changing injury then probability of one has to be very low. While there's snow and ice on the forecourt it's too high. Furthermore the bus companies insurers will have a view on which on road risks are acceptable. OK, it's probable that if one goes sideways into a ditch everyone will walk away. OTOH there could be a lot of minor injuries from glass. Broken bones count as serious injury - arms tend to cop it in bus accidents.
Funny how almost every other country (and their peoples) seem to cope just fine with the same, or in many cases, a LOT more snow and ice than we do. Not all teachers live 50 miles away in remote rural villages, I would go as far to say that the vast majority don't.
The problem we have is that too many schools are WAY too risk averse these days and would rather close than take sensible measures, like salting the car parks and paths into the school, or take measures to ensure buses can easily get in/out without needing to make difficult maneuvres. Risks should be managed, not removed by just avoiding any in the first place. That, IMHO, is what teaches our young people the wrong message on life. I don't recall decades ago A&Es being awash with kids and teachers when it snowed (often far more often and heavier).
I was bussed to school in the 1980s and 90s and the ONLY times we were ever delayed (a reasonably rural route, one I've mentioned earlier and on another thread that I used subsequently for work) by more than 10 minutes was:
- The bus broke down (nothing to do with the weather) - it was an old bus;
- The 1987 October storm, when a big tree blocked the road. The bus turned around and go there via another route.
The only time school was cancelled was when the boiler broke down. Once and for one day (wasn't snowing, just very cold). I also remember in 6th form coming back from a school field trip abroad in December to -10degC snowy weather. Again, no buses cancelled.
It's all about getting the right balance on risk and preparation - I think schools in particular regular get this wrong for the reasons I've stated. In the last year or two, local schools closed for a day or two and yet the entire region had only an inch of snow each time. Teachers would have to be coming from WAY up north to have been affected, and if they were, then they shouldn't be teaching there - that would be too far. I think you're applying an absolute worst case scenario to all schools, when, to me, that is patently not so.
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I think there are several reasons why snow causes chaos here.
1. Our snow is usually wetter than that which usually falls in continental Europe. Once it's compacted it is much more slippery.
2. People aren't experienced on snow so accidents and road blocks are more common.
3. Many countries that encounter snow have rules about when winter tyres must be used.
4. Occasionally HGV's are banned abroad on some roads during severe weather.
5. Our roads are very congested compared to the 60's when I were a lad.
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Wrong type of snow, eh? That list sounds more like excuses (and not very good ones at that) to me. In the late 1980s and early 90s, traffic levels were reasonably similar to those today, and we didn't have that much of a problem outside of areas that actually DO have regaulr and heavy snowfall up north, and even then, most of the time, people still managed far better than today.
A lot of the problems we now face only seemed to start occuring on a big scale from the mid 1990s onwards. I wonder what coincided with that time?
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tinyurl.com/y9sreeen shows the trend of cars on the road in UK.. Doubled since 1980.
England has one of the highest population density per sq KM in Europe... And built very few new roads in the past 20 years. So sudden snowfalls are going to be likely to cause issues.
It's hardly rocket science. Add chronic underinvestment in traffic management...
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England has one of the highest population density per sq KM in Europe... And built very few new roads in the past 20 years. So sudden snowfalls are going to be likely to cause issues. It's hardly rocket science. Add chronic underinvestment in traffic management...
The other thing that is not 'rocket science' is that because we can't do much about the weather, it may be commonsense to think that just because we live in a technological society, our roads may not be officially cleared almost instantly, so our cars may be unable to take us anywhere as they usually do. Sometimes gratification must be delayed for a while, for everyone's safety.
Unless you are an emergency driver or an AA patrolman, of course.
And road congestion will never improve unless a smaller proportion of drivers take to the roads - the population is growing percentage-wise faster than the available road space.
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Wrong type of snow, eh? That list sounds more like excuses (and not very good ones at that) to me. In the late 1980s and early 90s, traffic levels were reasonably similar to those today, and we didn't have that much of a problem outside of areas that actually DO have regaulr and heavy snowfall up north, and even then, most of the time, people still managed far better than today.
A lot of the problems we now face only seemed to start occuring on a big scale from the mid 1990s onwards. I wonder what coincided with that time?
We seem to have problems like this one or two days each year - same as it's always been for my 39 years.
There is a change with schools as people do commute a lot further now and a school has to ensure all the teachers turn up. And with pupils coming further afield than they used to it's often easier to close for the day than try and open fully with missing staff members.
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"A lot of the problems we now face only seemed to start occuring on a big scale from the mid 1990s onwards. I wonder what coincided with that time?"
The onset of paranoia?
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"A lot of the problems we now face only seemed to start occuring on a big scale from the mid 1990s onwards. I wonder what coincided with that time?"
The onset of paranoia?
Nope - the very risk averse culture of over-the-top health and safety in certain elements of the public sector, especially schools and the Police, where seemingly doing nothing is far better than taking a reasonable view about risks and making a sensible decision.
Hence why at the first sign of snow, schools get closed and Police don't try and intervene (their job, BTW) to save people's lives because it might be 'dangerous'. That's why I said there needs to be risk management, not removing them altogether.
I think its also why we now churn out, ironically, so many entitled snowflake young people from our education system - they've never taken a risk, never tried and failed and learned a valuable lesson for adulthood or did something better as a result.
Not paranoia, just experience of events in the real world.
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You're right. It's not paranoia. It's just a load of cliches.
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"A lot of the problems we now face only seemed to start occuring on a big scale from the mid 1990s onwards. I wonder what coincided with that time?"
The onset of paranoia?
Nope - the very risk averse culture of over-the-top health and safety in certain elements of the public sector, especially schools and the Police, where seemingly doing nothing is far better than taking a reasonable view about risks and making a sensible decision.
Hence why at the first sign of snow, schools get closed and Police don't try and intervene (their job, BTW) to save people's lives because it might be 'dangerous'. That's why I said there needs to be risk management, not removing them altogether.
I think its also why we now churn out, ironically, so many entitled snowflake young people from our education system - they've never taken a risk, never tried and failed and learned a valuable lesson for adulthood or did something better as a result.
Not paranoia, just experience of events in the real world.
As the other person said, paranoia, a short summary of your post.
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Risks should be managed, not removed by just avoiding any in the first place. That, IMHO, is what teaches our young people the wrong message on life.
Well put, I think.
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IMHO many schools close at the merest hint of snow. I can understand it if the region gets a lot of snow, but really...my area of Hertfordshire rarely gets much snow (the 2003 storm was the worst I saw in 30 years) and yet schools close 9/10 times snow arrives. Not every teacher lives 50-100 miles away.
There are a multitude of reasons why schools close. Somebody upthread mentioned the 40s. As late as the sixties most of my teachers lived close by, either a walk or a bus ride.
The local comp my kids attended is in our village. About 25% of the roll live here as do a handful of staff. Others come in from 20 to 50 miles away. The 75% of kids not in village are mostly bussed in along roads that don't get ploughed or gritted. The buses have to manoeuvre on the school forecourt which they cannot do at an acceptable level of safety if it's not been cleared of snow/ice/slush. If the possible consequence of an incident is death or life changing injury then probability of one has to be very low. While there's snow and ice on the forecourt it's too high. Furthermore the bus companies insurers will have a view on which on road risks are acceptable. OK, it's probable that if one goes sideways into a ditch everyone will walk away. OTOH there could be a lot of minor injuries from glass. Broken bones count as serious injury - arms tend to cop it in bus accidents.
I’m with Engineer Andy on this one. To say that the kids welfare is at risk is insufficient reason. Their welfare is always at risk. As Andy says, it’s about assessing and managing the risk. It sounds like the person in charge is unwilling to use common sense. A head teacher should talk with deputy heads, and other management, and reach a consensus based on information available. As regards last Friday, I don’t recall warnings of severe weather for Hampshire, only for the west, and the north. Had there been, then I would have thought that cancelling school for the day would have been sensible, simply because buses might have been stranded. If the roads are unsafe due to ice, then surely the bus company should make the call as they know the routes, and are experts at their job. As for students living 20-50 miles away, I find that hard to believe. I was at the end of our school bus route, just over four miles from the school.
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This current bout of bad weather had been predicted and well covered via the press, Tv and radio. The day before it landed we were inundated with warnings of how bad it was going to be. Why can’t people heed the warnings and not travel. Many reports of the people stuck in the jams suggested that most weren’t there because of work or emergency so I have no sympathy for such muppets.
Over the years though there have been reports of severe snow forecast but never materialised, so I suspect some don't think its going to happen, and often doesn't -we get flooding instead.
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Who can forget the "Independent" (sic) headline news story about "global warming" entitled "Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past".
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Who can forget the "Independent" (sic) headline news story about "global warming" entitled "Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past".
I’m not daft enough to read the Independent. Unfortunately most journalists are scientifically illiterate. Global warming means the average temperature increases, not that we never get snow. In fact snow over the U.K. could get heavier, just as we seem to have had unusually heavy rain and flooding for many years now. Changes to the weather are complex.
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Who can forget the "Independent" (sic) headline news story about "global warming" entitled "Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past".
I’m not daft enough to read the Independent. Unfortunately most journalists are scientifically illiterate. Global warming means the average temperature increases, not that we never get snow. In fact snow over the U.K. could get heavier, just as we seem to have had unusually heavy rain and flooding for many years now. Changes to the weather are complex.
The sun is doing some unusual things at the moment which has an effect on the weather and probably more so than pollution, but with the combined effects I think the weather will become more unpredictable
Maybe we should start buying aqua cars, mind you this weather has brought a lot of burst water mains lately around my area, which isn't doing fuel consumption any good due to traffic jams, and all that are being worked on are on major routes so your caught out whichever way you go, cant win
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Who can forget the "Independent" (sic) headline news story about "global warming" entitled "Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past".
I’m not daft enough to read the Independent. Unfortunately most journalists are scientifically illiterate. Global warming means the average temperature increases, not that we never get snow. In fact snow over the U.K. could get heavier, just as we seem to have had unusually heavy rain and flooding for many years now. Changes to the weather are complex.
It was not a journalist who originated the quote
"According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”. "
tinyurl.com/y9xjv37z
East Anglia University tended - in my earlier days - to be regarded as "flakey".
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<< According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event >>
I think to a degree that has happened - not 'within a few years' admittedly. But trying to look back over several decades I would say winters completely free of snow are much more common than they were, at least where I live (Cheshire). Which makes it harder for drivers to remember what to do, of course.
Edited by Andrew-T on 08/02/2019 at 12:13
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"According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”. "
tinyurl.com/y9xjv37z
East Anglia University tended - in my earlier days - to be regarded as "flakey".
Yes, seems to be going that way...nearly the end of winter now and have only seen snow on one day and looking at future forecasts don't expect any more. This is in South and West Yorkshire where traditionally there would have been more snow than that.
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