Thought for the day

[pickles]

Snow

Why does England grind to a halt when half an inch falls. Do people run screaming from their cars in terror. I know this has been said before but what actually happens, the engines run and you can still steer them but people just seem to give up and run to the nearest church hall where they drink tomato soup and sing "we'll meet again"

The swedes etc just drive along happily listening to abba with about 90 foot of the stuff

It' snowing on the news as i write and everyones behaving as if it' s the end of the world

 

[AdamW]

We get wet snow, they get largely dry snow. Wet snow compacts, melts, refreezes as ice/sludge. Also, we only average a day or two of snow a year in this country, it would be a false economy to equip ourselves like a nation that has lots of snow every single year.

OK, here is what happens round here.

Snow starts to fall at about 2-3pm generally. Everyone runs to the window. The under-30s get on the phone and start arranging snowball fights, those who are married (and generally live further from the office) ring their spouses and warn that they'll be late, those who are bitter heartless old s*ds started grumbling "bl**dy snow, Grrrrrrrr"

4pm comes. Now, when flexitime came around the idea was that the "rush hour" would be spread out over a few hours thus helping congestion. However, it seems that almost every company in the country set 4pm as the earliest leaving time!

So, at 4pm almost everyone jumps into their car and sets off... to AVOID congestion. Clever.

Around 6pm, I make a cup of coffee in my large insulated mug and set off on foot. I walk just under 4 miles home, laughing at the idiots who never learn this happens EVERY SINGLE TIME!

Last year the main source of congestion I witnessed was one van. He got halfway up a hill, the van would go no further. He just sat their gunning the engine, wheels spinning, not enough traction to push it onwards. Single lane road, cars coming the other way were also chocker, no-one had enough traction to pull out and gun it up a hill on ice. The traffic was backed up so he couldn't even roll it backwards onto a kerb (and probably wouldn't have had enough traction in the front wheels to steer it up there). So, there was a tailback at least a mile long, and once I walked past him the road was clear of any vehicles in that direction. I could hear the engine revving away for the next half mile or so.

Around 7:30 I've trudged home admiring the winter scene, and find that there are about 3 cars on the whole road: no-one has managed to get their car home yet. Next day, panic over, I get a taxi in.

 

[johnny_t]

Snow

Why does England grind to a halt when half an inch falls. Do people run screaming from their cars in terror. I know this has been said before but what actually happens, the engines run and you can still steer them but people just seem to give up and run to the nearest church hall where they drink tomato soup and sing "we'll meet again"

The swedes etc just drive along happily listening to abba with about 90 foot of the stuff

It' snowing on the news as i write and everyones behaving as if it' s the end of the world

Its because they spend lots of money on snow-clearing infrastructure in Sweden, as its a regular occurrence, whereas for us we get a bad one every two or three years, so its hardly worth the extra tax to have all that kit sitting there idle.


As a 'survivor' of being sat on the M11 for 13 hours a few years ago, the main problem seemed to be lorries. The powered wheels on the cabs didn't seem to be getting traction, so they would just spin. Once you got two or three lorries in a line at the bottom of a slope, nothing else was getting past. You then had the additional annoyance that a typical mobile phone cell, usually used to having about 20 or 30 callers in at a time, now had a couple of thousand, all wanting to call home, so there was no signal available for anyone (cell breathing, they call it...). The local radio station had a call-in for people that could get a signal, and it was brilliant to be able to hear it at that time.

 

[kendor]

Snow


The swedes etc just drive along happily listening to abba with about 90 foot of the stuff

After 90 ft of snow i'd happily listen to Abba also

 

[securespark]

After listening to Abba, I'd happily bury myself in 90ft snow!