Probably never - as it would cost far more for us to be properly prepared to face extreme winter weather, than being unprepared does, given the relatively few days per year (on average) we suffer it. We've had a few exceptional years in the last half decade, but I remember the winters of 1995 thru 2005 being almost frost free. There was maybe one day of serious snowfall - enough to close the school, and give my dad trouble getting home - during my later school years, and two or three days in the years I had my first car that it was snowy or icy enough to "have some fun" sliding it about. But, at that point, it wasn't snowy enough to become stranded (that happened precisely once, in maybe 2007?), and it's never yet been that bad again, though it came close this year.
Now, imagine how pissed you'd be at spending untold hundreds of pounds on a full set of snow tyres, or at least a pair of chains, for every regularly-used vehicle in your household, plus other equipment (shovels, extra mats, tow-rope...) and we had another run of mild winters? I doubt you'd get enough back in avoidance of lost earnings etc to justify it (and the fitting costs... arguably a better idea to have them fitted to your main wheels rather than buying a set of scrap steels and having the snow tyres fitted to those, given the amount of use they'll see) even if we had a "bad" snowy winter such as the last one every year. Most of the trouble I saw Nov 2010 thru Feb 2011 was through crappy driving, by the way, not unpreparedness. A mix of people who didn't know how to control their throttle and clutch with any gentleness or smoothness, and others who thought that the best way to proceed was to stay below 10mph AT ALL TIMES, causing the most enormous tailbacks. I went out on my 125cc motorbike, didn't feel safer going any faster than about 15mph (made it all the way up to 3rd gear!) and was still overtaking long queues of traffic that had no accident at their head - merely very slow and/or poorly controlled vehicles.
It's the same reason that means we don't have electrically heated roads, a surfeit of ploughs and gritters, or even massive gritter stocks. The cost of preparation outweighs what we gain from preparing, though of course the tabloids won't see it that way - they'll report on how many business days we lose, etc, but not on how much is being spent to try and claw them back.
(And it's not like you learn a great deal of anything useful at school around christmas anyway, so don't try to pull that one)
The scandinavian countries, and the north central parts of europe, DO spend big on winter preparation ... on ploughs, heated road surfaces, winter-spec or even studded tyres, 4-wheel-drive family saloons, etc, because it's worth their while doing so in areas that could be genuinely snowbound to a depth of a metre or more for 3-4 months at a time. Come October, you book in to have your trusty winter tyres re-fitted, the oil changed for a lighter weight, the heater and battery checked for full operation and any leaks, a check for any blown headlamp bulbs and the screen polished to a shine so you don't have to use more undiluted ethylene glycol screenwash than is absolutely necessary. Maybe around March you can then look to have the summer tyres refitted, a top-up with heavier oil and some diluting water in the washer bottle, and at least a few days of driving around with only the DRLs on rather than full headlamps...
Which is expensive, but the alternative is being stranded in your home, with dwindling food stocks, because you can't get out of your driveway... and neither can your neighbours... and the snow is too thick to even walk through, anyway, because there aren't enough ploughs and gritters to fight it off.
Sunday, 23 January 2011
Probably never - as it would cost far more for us to be properly prepared to face extreme winter weather, than being unprepared does, given the relatively few days per year (on average) we suffer it. We've had a few exceptional years in the last half decade, but I remember the winters of 1995 thru 2005 being almost frost free. There was maybe one day of serious snowfall - enough to close the school, and give my dad trouble getting home - during my later school years, and two or three days in the years I had my first car that it was snowy or icy enough to "have some fun" sliding it about. But, at that point, it wasn't snowy enough to become stranded (that happened precisely once, in maybe 2007?), and it's never yet been that bad again, though it came close this year.
ReplyDeleteNow, imagine how pissed you'd be at spending untold hundreds of pounds on a full set of snow tyres, or at least a pair of chains, for every regularly-used vehicle in your household, plus other equipment (shovels, extra mats, tow-rope...) and we had another run of mild winters? I doubt you'd get enough back in avoidance of lost earnings etc to justify it (and the fitting costs... arguably a better idea to have them fitted to your main wheels rather than buying a set of scrap steels and having the snow tyres fitted to those, given the amount of use they'll see) even if we had a "bad" snowy winter such as the last one every year. Most of the trouble I saw Nov 2010 thru Feb 2011 was through crappy driving, by the way, not unpreparedness. A mix of people who didn't know how to control their throttle and clutch with any gentleness or smoothness, and others who thought that the best way to proceed was to stay below 10mph AT ALL TIMES, causing the most enormous tailbacks. I went out on my 125cc motorbike, didn't feel safer going any faster than about 15mph (made it all the way up to 3rd gear!) and was still overtaking long queues of traffic that had no accident at their head - merely very slow and/or poorly controlled vehicles.
It's the same reason that means we don't have electrically heated roads, a surfeit of ploughs and gritters, or even massive gritter stocks. The cost of preparation outweighs what we gain from preparing, though of course the tabloids won't see it that way - they'll report on how many business days we lose, etc, but not on how much is being spent to try and claw them back.
(And it's not like you learn a great deal of anything useful at school around christmas anyway, so don't try to pull that one)
The scandinavian countries, and the north central parts of europe, DO spend big on winter preparation ... on ploughs, heated road surfaces, winter-spec or even studded tyres, 4-wheel-drive family saloons, etc, because it's worth their while doing so in areas that could be genuinely snowbound to a depth of a metre or more for 3-4 months at a time. Come October, you book in to have your trusty winter tyres re-fitted, the oil changed for a lighter weight, the heater and battery checked for full operation and any leaks, a check for any blown headlamp bulbs and the screen polished to a shine so you don't have to use more undiluted ethylene glycol screenwash than is absolutely necessary. Maybe around March you can then look to have the summer tyres refitted, a top-up with heavier oil and some diluting water in the washer bottle, and at least a few days of driving around with only the DRLs on rather than full headlamps...
Which is expensive, but the alternative is being stranded in your home, with dwindling food stocks, because you can't get out of your driveway... and neither can your neighbours... and the snow is too thick to even walk through, anyway, because there aren't enough ploughs and gritters to fight it off.