Whenever there is a moderate amount of snow, schools and businesses close here and people from Canada/Scandinavia laugh at us!
Why there is traffic chaos in Britain while other countries do fine?
Is it because
1. Our cars are not equipped for snow
2. We lack snow driving skill (I don't have a clue how to drive differently in snow)
3. We have much higher traffic level
4. ???
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Is it because too many drivers don't make allowance for delays in the first place. ? They don't get up half an hour earlier to defrost car windows or clear snow from them. They don't anticipate that traffic will be traveling slower, so attempt to do the journey in the same time as they would with out snow leading to accidents that cause further knock on effects.
We must also point the finger at those who squeeze every last penny out of the motoring public but then fail to put a new battery on my towns gritting wagon , leaving it marooned in the council works yard this morning !
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I think 2) followed by 3).
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Why there is traffic chaos in Britain while other countries do fine?
Are you sure other countries do fine?
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=68578
If other countries that have more snow do do better, it's probably because they have more snow.
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I got two new tyres today and perfect timing it seems.
My friend was driving in icy conditions this morning her tyres are down to 1.9mm last time I checked (legal but not safe in my opinion). Some car pulled, she had to brake her car skidded onto the pavement. Now she might have been going too fast, I have no idea I wasn't there, but I am sure the tyres didn't help.
Somebody I don't know but on a forum crashed his £12k car this morning, he lost control in the snow hitting an oncoming car, he wasn't injured and the damage is light but still bad.
I was driving around 25mph in a twisty bit of road with a 30 limit with speed cameras, some guy was right on my tail, he then overtook me at about 45 then pulled staight in front of me as the speed camera appeared then slamed on his brakes, this also caused me to brake but I was already going slow. I was just amazed that somebody could be so stupid in icy conditions? Even though I did nothing wrong I learnt from it as experience.
Luckily most motorists today seemed a lot more alert, were drivign slower and were being safe .
The problem in thsi country speed camera culture makes people think that is the maximum permited speed, its not. So people think the speed limit is the target regardless of the weather.
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My friend was driving in icy conditions this morning her tyres are down to 1.9mm
In icy conditions, tread depth isn't important.
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Most people do not take the problems of dealing with snow n cold seriously.
Speaking to an American guy from The St Lawrence / Great lakes area and he was amazed that batteries are a problem here in winter as they very rarely have a problem.
I enquired further and his answer was " A dead / poor battery in the sort of conditions they have could mean life or death so it was routine to allways get a new battery every two years"
An example of taking things seriously in their conditions.
Here - most drivers are just not interested in learning about motoring. :-)
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They still have problems, it just takes more snow. In Switzerland and Austria winter tyres are mandatory ( in Winter) The people I stayed with once in Lausanne stored their extra set of wheels in their basement. I was on a ski holiday in France this year and the chalet owner said they had a fall of wet snow which promptly packed down to form an ice rink. The winter tyres were useless. I have driven to the Alps several times in winter and I have never needed my chains, but I have been lucky. A good dump of snow can stop everything for a day. Many skiers have spent their first night on the floor of a school gymnasium in the valley.
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Traffic density does not help.
You can have fwd, snow tyres, chains and drive carefully but if 10 cars in front of you, someone crashes, that's it.
Cities and towns built on hills in UK are classic examples..
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I was talking to someone from Ottawa and he said it only actually snows maybe 6 times per winter. The roads are generally cleared during the next day and then they stay clear (as it's so dry and cold) until the next snow.
It's common there to have a contract with somone to come and clear your drive but until that's done, and the side roads are cleared, they can't really get out.
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It's because in countries with longer colder winters (a) they get more practice driving in those conditions and (b) it makes more economic sense for places to invest in road-clearing equipment. During my time in Canada (40 years ago now :-( ) there were the usual number of minor shunts at the first snowfall, then people remembered what to do and things settled down. We don't usually reach that condition here.
As for Ottawa, the worst conditions I remember there was freezing rain - the roads were almost literally skating rinks in no time at all. Not only that, the temperature see-sawed above and below 0° leading to very awkward roads. Driving in the prairies was more a case of keeping the car going in 20 or 30 degrees of frost, and learning what to do on glazed packed snow.
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1. and 2.
I often look at other cars tyres when I walk past them in car parks, its amazing how many I see with barely legal tread. I always make sure I have decent tread on my tyres for winter, a hangover from my first few years of driving when we used to get lots of snow in the hilly North Derbyshire town where I used to live.
We dont get as bad winters as we used to; some older drivers are not getting the practice they used to get; and there must be millions of newer drivers who have barely driven in snow and dont know how to.
On the tyres front I needed some new ones, so I had some winter tyres fitted (first time Ive had them) last Saturday. That night I drove up to Co. Durham where there was half an inch of snow which froze overnight; Sunday morning I had the chance to try out the tyres on icy, ungritted roads and I'm very impressed with the extra grip. This morning we had our first snow in Nottingham, half an inch of wet slushy stuff but again it was good to be able to provoke some slip and test the levels of grip.
Edited by Rich 9-3 on 02/12/2008 at 17:51
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Used to get e mails from our associates in Dearborn,Detroit-first "powerhouse" storm of the winter-about 18" of snow-about 30 mins. late getting into the office!! and that is from anything upto 50 ml. away.
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>>We lack snow driving skill (I don't have a clue how to drive differently in snow)<<
The complete plank in the 07 Megane on the M60 near the Rochdale Rd junction at about 6.20 today who was right on my bumper and matched my speed as I dabbed the brakelight on and then speeded up as I tried to get rid of him was a prime example.
He would have been close in normal traffic but was an outright danger to both of us today hence taking actions I was really not happy to do but felt necessary.
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Is it because
4. ???
Its 4. and the answer is in your question. Britain, snow and other cold countries.
This is not a cold country. We get, on average, about 5 days a years where weather conditions cause issues on the road.
So for those 5 days a year we do nothing in the way of preparation, and nor do we need to bother. If it happened more often, it wouldn't be on the news, and we wouldn't be talking about it. It would be common place.
In truth we probably get more road/weather issues these days caused by localised flooding.
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There was a fairly lengthy exchange on here around the 27th.Sept. on winter driving under "A car that will safely handle snowy hillroads?". On reading through those postings again, coupled with the problems one reads about and sees on the UK news every winter, under-estimating nature's extremes must come pretty close to the head of the list of explanations. On the collective level we hear of railway tracks buckling in 30deg. temperatures, roads impassable because of flash floods, fog and black ice causing accidents, airports shutting because of a dusting of snow, etc. I can remember sitting in the departure lounge at Gatwick for 12 hours because of 10 cms. of snow after our Christmas break in the UK one year. On the individual level we hear about widespread chaos caused by cars getting stuck in snow and being abandoned, thus blocking roads for days sometimes, dodgy tyres etc. It's inexperience with various amounts of stupidity or bravado thrown in. To be honest, the British are, and what's more, are seen from other countries to be, a pretty pig-headed crowd in the right circumstances. In some situations that can be an advantage, just not in winter.
BB
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well i have just come in from pulling 3 cars in about 2 hours out of hedges and a ditch as there is ice on the ground and all 3 car drivers said to me i didnt realise it was icy.....yet they all had newish cars and defo 1 had ice alert on the dash..and all 3 drivers didnt have coats with them...1 said they was freezing(they was a little white from the cold its minus 1 at the moment.)wait till the morning rush hour i reakon i will be busy
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............ wait till the morning rush hour i reakon i will be busy
It's right what they say .......... it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good.
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