Why do we suffer?
 

Why does the UK find it so hard to cope with snow? Ever since I can remember, early 1960's we had snow quite frequently. Yet this current situation seems beyond the control of the "powers that be".

How do Scandinavian countries cope? I think Germany does not even use salt to clear its roads.. some cheap chemical which does not affect vehicles... is this right?

A half inch of snow in this country seems to bring it to a halt ! More than that and it's a National Disaster....

Where are are all our taxes being siphoned off to? I thought we paid taxes to allow the "powers that be" to look after the country's welfare?

Am I being naiive ? :confused:

Discuss :D

To be fair Andrew I think we have, in many places, a little more than half an inch of snow falling in a pretty short space of time over a wide area.

That sort of snowfall is going to cause any country a problem at first. Sure, our way of dealing with it may be a bit slow but come back in a couple of days and see if everything is ok again.

Oh and dont read the papers/watch the TV news too much - I think they may have a problem with the difference between a good story (in their eyes) and the whole truth. After all very few people have joined this forum to say 'I have a R75/MGZT and I have had no problems in 6 years. Its wonderful'.

If you knew how much time effort and planning goes into keeping roads cleared, you'd be amazed.

Working fot the HA, we have almost the best of eveything.

I spent the early hours of Thursday morning (while most people are tucked up in bed) driving between junctions 17 and 23 just monitoring the snow fall, and checking the road conditions. We had updates from theMetOffice every 15 minutes, we had gritters out.

The trouble is, we don't have enough days snow to warrant spending more money on. Th UK is on the edge of the snow belt, which is why we suffer when we get large volumes in a short space of time.

The other problem is the public and the media. The media are too keen to knock the fact that Britain is grid locked and "where are the gritters !!! "

The public need to learn how to drive in adverse weather conditions or stay at home.

The government can't cope with this sort of snowfall due to exactly the same reason hardly any of us will carry snow tyres or even snow chains. It just isn't worth spending the money on something which is only going to be needed once in a blue moon.

It is isn't fair to compare us with Scandinavian or Russian systems for snow clearance as the money spent in those countries is an economic no brainer. Also you will find most of the individuals over there know how to drive in snow and have the aforementioned snow chains sat in their boots ready for the inevitable.

I find the way in which the press dedicates hours of coverage to how badly we are all coping somewhat pathetic. Sometimes life should ground to a bit of a halt. What is the point if we can't all take a few days off and build some snowmen without the media making up pretend figures for just how much this snow is costing the economy. Sad

The Money lost by Industry from Staff not turning up, having to stay at home to look after Children because the schools have Closed (now into several Billions of Pounds)
is way greater than having decent up to date snow clearing equipment, which is infrequently used, staff and large reserves of Salt/Grit.
The biggest problem of course is keeping the Main roads open but no one being able to get on or off of them due to current practise of not doing the rest of road network.

Don't you remember even in older times they use to Treat Payments etc.

Figures from CBI.

In which case it should be in the interest of "Industry" to finance the clearing operations rather than leaving it to local councils. It would cost "billions" to keep enough machines and people on standby over a twenty year period during which time most of that infrastructure would only get what... 4 days use? The current infrastructure is enough to make it work reasonably well most of the time.

The reported lost "billions" are nothing more than guesstimate projections, presumably based on percentages of people off work in relation to GNP and fuelled by those with a vested interest rushing out figures to show how badly they have been affected so the media can hype it all up and blame the government. It would be impossible to have accurate analysis figures available so quickly as they certainly would not take into account the "catch up" period over the subsequent days during which extra trade would naturally occur to offset that which didn't take place during the down time.

It isn't often I agree with this government but on this particular point I think they are right to ignore the knee jerk reactions.

:iagree::iagree:

Assuming that the last big fall of snow was 18 years ago it means that anyone aged under 35 to 40 is unlikely to have much experience of driving in bad conditions.

Which goes a long way to explain why I have seen a fair number of peeps driving around Kent as if the road surface was dry - too fast and too close.

LAck of common sense also comes into it I think.

:wot:
Couldn't agree more ! Folk just need to realise that sometimes Nature can stuff you , and wait it out. One wouldn't expect to get about as normal if we were experiencing a hurricane , would they ?

Reply from Norway
 

Hi Andrew, there's some differences, the rubber (mix) in our tyres are softer than those You have / those of european standard - ever tried ours you'll notice a remarkable difference especially when it's colder like minus 10 or more (these tyres have a max speed of 160 km/h). Also we do have driving lessons that include technique to better awoid dangerous situations etc. Every year we see foreign trucks getting stucked in inclines - the drivers are not used to drive in snow - sometimes it goes really wrong. In wintertime all foreign trucks are controlled on the border to Norway. Good equipment to clear the roads of snow is of course of importance. Traction control on MG ZT-T also helps. All the best.
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Gert (zt-t)