A christmas moan

[teamster1975]

And today the temperature is.... plus 12

Crikey, talk about fast thaw!

[TooT]

Id give out for +12. Im sick to death of this white sh*t

[steve_earwig]

A 29 degree change in 2 days and most of the snow here's gone, apart from the heaps. Everything's damp and the garden's a peat bog. Ah well, soon be below freezing again and next time it won't be playing with us.

Lordy, moaning about the weather, you can take the Englishman out of England...

[TooT]

Fraid not. Its absolute disgrace when 7 days on major A roads are still nearly impassable.

Why do i pay road tax?

[Doggy]

ME cos i miss my childhood ....

You might as well just flat refuse to grow up.
(like the rest of us).

[puggy]

[turbolag]

The blasted A roads are impassable for 2 reasons - everyone ignored police advice not to venture out and compacted the snow into a dense mess of ice that's impervious to grit, and it's been so cold that even the weak saline solution that gritting creates has been freezing.

I pay my taxes too but alas, they don't buy me the luxury of the whole population behaving sensibly for a change, or the laws of physics being repealed for my comfort and convenience.

[DaiRees]

While I agreee with what you said there turbo, there's no excuse for the way that this whole country shuts down at the first sign of a snowfall. Yes the people don't have any idea how to cope with it and particularly how to drive in it, but the local authorities aren't prepared for it either, nor do they react to it appropriately when it does come.

[turbolag]

Absolutely Dai, I agree, but working for an emergency service I place most of the blame squarely at the typical motorist, who ignores professional madvice, ventures out unprepared in often inadequately maintained vehicles, and hasn't a scooby doo how to drive properly in these conditions.

The only cure from the public services side is a vast fleet of snowploughs on call 24/7 with trained drivers, but we'd then baulk at the council tax bills this would bring us.

[steve_earwig]

A snowplough doesn't have to be a snowplough the rest of the year, I could even get a snowplough attachment for that horrible pick up truck I was lucky to get shot of. What the local authorities could do is find companies that operate lorries/JCBs/trucks etc. even tractors that could have a plough fitted to them, approach them and offer buying the plough and to pay a percentage of servicing costs, in return for the vehicle's availability for ploughing duties if necessary. They'd obviously have to pay fuel, wages, expenses etc. but surely this would be cheaper than buying the whole thing and having it sitting about 364 days of the year.

[robb]

Gotta agree with Turbo I had to do quite a lot of driving today around my town ,the amount of people I saw stuck in places I easily got through was incredible I did notice after a while it was mostly the over 30s and male that were doing well .I actually had to dig one woman out of the ice pit she had made as she kept revving the engine, in the end another chap jumped in the car and easily got out of trouble there ought to be a skidpan test added to the driving test.

[turbolag]

I've been to several 'stuck' motorists (more blokes than ladies, strangely) and hopped in their car and simply driven it straight out. Been to one job where a guy got stuck, called the RAC, and the RAC man did exactly the same. I'm afraid to say your typical motorist hasn't a clue.

Mr Plow is my name, that name again is Mr Plow!

[mjb]

I had a bit of a whoopsie the other day. 90 degree left hander covered in a couple of inches of virgin snow which hadn't been gritted because the snow came VERY suddenly. Was going slow enough the speedo didn't register but I still understeered straight towards a car someone had parked on the pavement right next to the kerb (despite there being plenty of room for them to park it a couple of foot from the kerb or even just not on the corner at all). Jab of throttle and some handbrake action I managed to hit the kerb at about 30 degrees so bounced off the kerb (steered towards it to expose more rubber) without damaging anything, but if I'd have gone straight It'd have been an insurance job

If only I'd remembered to remove the ABS fuse like I usually do in snow... would have been a lot less interesting

Took a few attempts to get up the hill as well... what's the best way in a heavy FWD car? I was feet off the pedals in 1st with reduced front wheel tyre pressure and still struggling

[steve_earwig]

Well avoided young maaan. I hadn't thought of disabling the ABS, wonder what the insewerants co would make of it if they found out.

Backwards, I would have thought Worse time I had of that is when I was going up a fairly steep hill and the idiot in front of me in his huge gas-guzzling Panzer decided to stop for no readily apparent reason. He was ok, his massively heavy rwd tank had no problems getting going again but me in my old Ashtray didn't, I even tried pulling away using the start motor but the wheels still just span. Worse still, the car behind was only a couple of feet away and I kept sliding backwards. Ahh, happy days

[steve_earwig]

Can I do a New Year's moan here or do I need a different thread? Bluddy kids, bluddy fireworks, 2 am Sunday morning and they were letting bombs off at the bus shelter right near this house. Still no screams either. I had to go to the vet's earlier to get tranquilizers for the dogs. Nail them all up and stick fireworks up their bottoms, that'll learn 'em