New
#11
SNOW
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New #12
How much is gas (petro??) in your neck of the woods? Years ago Europe was alot higher than the USA, I doubt if it is now.The problems in the UK are exacerbated because people think the government should grit and salt and clean all the roads... and that unlike the rest of Europe, people don't have the common sense to use snow tyres (tires...)
It's absolutely lamentable how the British mentality means everything stops after one inch of slush accumulates on the roads... airports, schools, buses, trains... and to top it all we don't have enough gas to meet demand... so we're having to import more at a considerable premium from Europe (which means Russia in truth...)
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New #14
Gas down the block is $2.51 per gal... I can remember .22 per gallon, but thats telling on myself....
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New #15
My basic point is that it is miserablist and undermining of you to criticise your fellow citizens for struggling with weather conditions that occur only once every several decades. The official advice in the UK is travel only if absolutely and unavoidably necessary, and most people are doing exactly that. Expecting us all to buy snow tyres on the off chance that we'll get to use them once or twice or just possibly three times in a lifetime is perverse.Really? So you're familiar with the, say, Russian infrastructure? Interesting... because the majority of snow clearing and road works in that nation are undertaken by women who're paid peanuts and are forced to work 12-15 hour shifts in dreadful conditions, with heavy emphasis on manual labour - however, that aside, snow tyres on public transport, plough blades on some buses... and similar tyres on private vehicles keeps the roads open and the schools and factories running normally...This kind of thing makes me cross - why be so negative? It's not "coping skills" that are lacking but the infrastructural requirements.
Did I advocate that? Not sure where LOL! However the damage to the UK economy runs at around £75 million each day things grind to a virtual halt. People die of exposure and through accidents that wouldn't happen if their vehicles were able to keep moving... and, as you rightly say, they'd only have to swap tyres for a short period in our winter - so they'd find a set of snow tyres would last them many years...
Perhaps you'd like to propose how the UK can stock enough rock salt in depots all around the country, with sufficient numbers of salt-gritting vehicles, and plenty of manpower to clear every route - even when a great many of those routes are perfectly navigible using studded tyres...
I do have respect, and by suggesting ways to reduce losses in terms of both lives and the economy I take the view that my thoughts must equate to you believing that the Russians, Swiss, French, Germans, Austrians and Italians - amongst others - must all have some ridiculous kind of philosophy?
Odd then, wouldn't you say, how they fair so much better than we seem to!
To put my point to you another way - do you have a boat parked in your garden just in case it rains more than expected? Do you have portable air conditioners stashed away in case there is a heatwave? Have you constructed an earthquake shelter? Didn't think so. However, should there indeed be one of these calamities and you are suffering as a result, you would not be happy if the rest of us had a go at you for failing to prepare for it!
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New #17
Where have I had a go at anyone? You don't seem to grasp the fact that I'm making perfectly reasonable and pertinent comparisons between the UK and our European neighbours...
Bet you'd feel differently if you got mowed down by a car which had slick road tyres just because it lost control on a sheet of ice... however, I digress... I'll let you talk theory - whilst I stick to the facts...
By the way, I originally came from part of North Somerset. In fact I used to work in a quarry there when I was a much younger man, and our works used to get begged to take their massive Caterpillar plant onto the roads regularly during almost every winter during the sixties and seventies (I left there after that point...) to clear the Somerset roads of snowdrifts... it wasn't a once in a quarter of a century event, it was year in year out predictable work on the Mendips...
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New #18
OK, I give in - have just ordered a set of snow tyres :)Where have I had a go at anyone? You don't seem to grasp the fact that I'm making perfectly reasonable and pertinent comparisons between the UK and our European neighbours...
Bet you'd feel differently if you got mowed down by a car which had slick road tyres just because it lost control on a sheet of ice... however, I digress... I'll let you talk theory - whilst I stick to the facts...
By the way, I originally came from part of North Somerset. In fact I used to work in a quarry there when I was a much younger man, and our works used to get begged to take their massive Caterpillar plant onto the roads regularly during almost every winter during the sixties and seventies (I left there after that point...) to clear the Somerset roads of snowdrifts... it wasn't a once in a quarter of a century event, it was year in year out predictable work on the Mendips...
Actually, I travel around by motorbike (with a roof - a BMW C1, like in my avatar) so do not even try to drive the way the roads are now. Trains are running well though :)
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New #20
Forums are for debate... if lively sometimes... anyway, at the moment death is being kept off the roads as far as I'm concerned since I'm on 'snow crutches' following knee surgery over Christmas...
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