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So a 45 min journey ends up taking 11 hours for some,1500 vehicles abandoned,average speed down to 1mph,folk sleeping in shelters etc.
what was so diffrent about the roads,tyre choice,snow type and temps down there compared to up here?
some dont agree on this, but did anyone attempt to drop tyre pressures? I did and i managed 65 odd miles in snow to the highest village in the u.k along with all types of vehicles from big lorrys to small cars making the journey.Things ground to a halt on hills as the bigger stuff couldnt find the grip but they managed to get going again.Over 60+ miles of the A9,there wasnt even one vehicle off the road.
There needs to be something in the driving test to get it into peoples heads that foot to the floor doesnt give you grip and to ask questions on how to cope.
As for special reports on snow conditions every year they get a bit of snow..
sorry,it gets covered each year on here but its getting a pain in the holio now.
Foot to the floor works if you have good traction control 😀 But I agree.
i think driving on ice (and skid control etc...) should be mandatory - a two part test, one as currently and a second part in a skid pan area. you need both to get a full licence.
I saw someone out last night having a driving lesson, I thought it would be an excellent idea for additional tuition.
Euthanasia is the only answer
I suspect it probably has to do with the fact that a) it really was a blizzard, came out of nowhere, dumped huuuuge amounts of snow very quickly. b) no minor routes were gritted forcing all cars onto main roads which were soon gridlocked with commuter and shopping traffic and c) Basingstoke is "world of roundabouts" rather than just easy straight roads, couple of cars not negotiating them brings the whole thing to a standstill.
I'd imagine...
Things are nearly gridlocked down south WITHOUT snow. Its the sheer number of cars/people more than anything.
It's because people from down there are in too much of a hurry and dont have the skills needed to survive in the real world.
yeah,"ice rink practical" around the country should be part of the driving test.. and with ice rinks probably within 80 odd miles of everyone,get it on! probably help save a lot of the ice rinks too.
having said that,i will go and nail the car later on lol.
You really are a ****, aren't you trolling Zoo Fighter
It's because people from down there are in too much of a hurry and dont have the skills needed to survive in the real world.
3 junctions up the M3 here in Farnborough, life carries on as normal. 😛
its hillarious seeing people panic brake and slide.
going down a hill yesterday at 5 mph the cars in front braked and alll slid . i steered onto verge and down the hill then dropped in infront 🙂
it was carnage last night
It's the volume of morons that does it. That and I understand several women we allowed out driving yesterday.
Most of the south east transport infrastructure runs at about 95% capacity. If you knew where to park 5 articulated lorries you could bring London to a halt in about 20 minutes.
But then again the mythical north is all empty roads which explains the difference.
Yesterday's snow was real soupy stuff so the first cars packed it immediately into ice and there was little to no grip on any of the hills. Last week's snow was a bit drier and gave up much more grip so we had fewer problems.
In Reading it was a traffic volume issue in the main part. Once one vehicle blocks one route the whole town starts to lock up. My colleague left at 4pm yesterday and gave up on the car 300yds/1 hour later.
The trouble is learning to drive a car doesn't teach you to actually look at the road itself at all.
If you ride a motorbike or cycle (which I am assuming most people on here do occasionally) then you are used to looking at the road and making decisions based on where to position yourself and when not to brake or steer. There are millions of car drivers with skills that just about cover 'steering into a skid' - if you get that far on a crowded road its already a bit late.
Hey joolsburger - I was taught by my driving instructor how to drive in the snow, mind you this was many, many years ago, when the emphasis was to teach you how to drive and not how to pass your test. 🙂
Just heard on the new that John Lewis in High Wycombe let the customers sleep over night in their store and used the bed department, this made me chuckle.
well we could have an "offroad evasive action practical" as well.
refresher tests to warn folk of "mad tony" approaching from behind screaming "coming through!" as he bounces past. lol
going down a hill yesterday at 5 mph the cars in front braked and alll slid . i steered onto verge and down the hill then dropped in infront
So you just didn't bother braking and took to the pavements instead 😆
Not sure that ranks above panic braking!
My good lady is a considerably better driver than me it has to be said. In the snow her 5 years living in the alps shows.
I drive like a 75 year old granny.
What Hills ?
Most of the BBC footage showed cars sliding about (on full revs !) on FLAT roads. Southern knobs.
[i]ut then again the mythical north is all empty roads which explains the difference.[/i]
Rochdale yesterday:
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[/img]
Most of the people driving cars do it as a means of getting from A to B. They find it a bit of a chore and give it [b]no thought whatsoever.[/b]
Despite everybody being an above-average driver, too many people drive "on the brakes", too close to the car in front and are far too harsh with the brakes/throttle and steering. Modern cars are very stable in good condition even when driven badly.
Reduced the grip available and there is chaos.
....having gone through an 'exuberant' driving phase, the quick car phase, the motorbike phase and the learn how to do it properly phase, I am positioned firmly on my very high horse 😉
Aristotle - I want one of those ^^^ but with a little bit of suspension.
[i]Most of the people driving cars do it as a means of getting from A to B. They find it a bit of a chore and give it no thought whatsoever.[/i]
In London particularly people often have NO idea of distance. It's SO easy to walk/ride around London yet most people will just get into their car/onto the tube etc with no concept of their spatial awareness. And because going by car takes so long most people assume it must be bloody miles cos it takes an hour to drive.
A lot of the problems with snow in this country come from the fact that it warms to +1 or 2 degrees, it starts to melt then freezes again overnight and continues in this cycle so you get ice, fresh snow, ice and solid lumps of gritty snow as well. On the continent it just stays at -5 and there's no problem. Certainly when I was in Finland it was just normal - everyone knew how to drive in snow, the transport infrastructure all worked fine but then they expect it, they're used to it and the temperature stays at -10!
In defence of Basingstoke, it does have a different weather system. Check your car temperature gauage as you drive between junctions 6 and 7 on the M3. It's always colder.
I do a fair amount of riding in that vicinity (yes really, you would be surprised!) and there definitely is a difference, often 3 or 4 degrees in winter.
It happened in Birmingham a few years ago. Rain>Sleet>Snow then a sudden freeze. Didn't affect me but the Wife got caught up in it. She got home about 3hrs late, but there were some right horror stories from her work colleagues. One women sat on the bus for 3 hours & it covered 3 miles. I pointed out that it would have been quicker to walk but it fell on deaf ears.
To cap it off Traffic Wardens were out ticketing abandoned vehicles. 🙂
So your gist is "Southern softies can't handle snow"?
C*ck.....have you considered that the roads leading to the main A roads / motorways were completely and utterly untreated? You could have been running a flat tyre and still got no grip in some places.
And all northerners burn when the sun comes out, haven't they heard of sun cream? 😉
I cycled home into Reading in it yesterday, and I am quite glad I wasn't driving. It wasn't so much the amount of snow (although there was enough), it was the consistency of it. Big, wet flakes that created a pretty slippery surface. Even riding a bike (with slicks on), I was reduced to pushing up some fairly innocuous hills, just because I couldn't keep up any traction. It wasn't the sort of snow you can really get much grip on at all and, on untreated roads, I'm not surprised at the chaos it caused.
[i]So your gist is "Southern softies can't handle snow"?[/i]
Yep 8)
I stand by my original thoughts then......
🙄
[i]Rochdale yesterday:
[/i]
ahem. if that really were Rochdale, the locals would have stolen the horse for a)sexual gratification and b) food. Also that appears to be a detached house in the background.
hmmm.
I don't think there needs to be a test extension - I think if you had to try to pass a test today you'd see how hard/expensive for people to get a license these days. France/Germany don't have special snow tests for drivers, and they get a lots worse weather than us! (though they do employ the common sense gland a little quicker it seems!)
I think with the current weather, half the country don't know whats wrong with the other ohalf purely because everyone is experiencing massively different conditions. Yesterday, on the usual drive to guildford, it took me an hour to go the two miles up Dyke Road due to ice/snow/traffic. 10 miles away, the sun was out and the roads were fast and dry.
It probably WAS pretty bad, and the fact is that we live in a mild country where this really doesn't happen that often.
As for the news, well, it's news. As someone said before, the snow and ice had a far greater affect on my life than the impending strikes, but I got that fairly relentlessly for a week.
Of course Martinxyz, maybe no-one in the south of the country is as good a driver as you. but it's unlikely.
Goan - Premier Member
It's because people from down there are in too much of a hurry and dont have the skills needed to survive in the real world.
😆 remind me to quote that one back at you when you get a bit grumpy with someone on here because you cant cope with what they say! 😆
I live about a mile from the A4 which was gridlocked last night. Ended up giving someone from the local shop a lift home because her husband had been stuck in Caversham 4 miles away for 3 hours. I dont think it was anything to do with peoples driving habits. There has been no gritting of minor roads in Berkshire, which meant that already snowed up and icy roads became impassable, given the volumes of cars that us the roads.
Anyway I'm off out on my bike to play 😀
Took me 7 hours to get from Henley on Thames to Camberley last night - about 25 miles. It was nose to tail crawling traffic all the way - the gridlock seems to have been started by a panic exodus around 2-3ish when the snow got heavy and everybody tried to get out on the same major roads, which promplty jammed up thereby preventing gritters from getting out. None of the roads I was on were particularly bad to drive on, a bit slushy/slippy in places but all passable with care, but if you put all the cars in the SE on the same few major roads there's only going to be one outcome.
The curious thing is that there seemed to be no attempt to deal with the situation at all - perhaps a few coppers at the key roundabouts making sure that numpties in one queue didn't block access/exits for other traffic would have freed things up a bit.
[i]It's because people from down there are in too much of a hurry...[/i]
Why are they always crawling along in my bloody way then?
Shall I ask my brother?
He's a Highlander who works in Basingstoke and I'm [i]fairly certain[/i] he'll give us an objective, unbiased answer which should settle the discussion...
I'll txt him now.
Notter.. hardly any of our main roads or back roads get treated for us going to work.you rarely see gritters and snowploughs out these days.Up here there has been winters with temps down to -25c over the past 10 years and its been so cold that when you walked outside,eyeballs couldnt cope with it.once that was overcome,getting into the car and driving home 30 odd miles wasnt great either but it was possible.very much like driving offroad but possible.Its the warmer temps that cause more havoc and our temps have been similar to the whole of the uk as of late.the mention of temps dropping down 3 or 4c doesnt add up either.It should make it easier on the snow that they appear to have on the roads.
Jimbo in sunny brighton..
sorry for coming across as a god behind the wheel. you picked it up all wrong. im crap in snow and usually take it a lot slower to make up for the lack of skills if and when it went wrong.. but i still get there.
If the speed dropped to 1mph-5mph and everyone with summer tyres dropped pressures right down, and everyone knew not to put the foot down and take it really easy on corners.. then they would have got home.the wind speeds that threw the snow over the country this week havent been harsh and as a result you can see that most places that got the most snow between both ends of the country pretty much got the same amount.
The A9 has suffered over the past 5 years or so and lately they have been cutting back on the spending so its going to get even worse.the past few drives home have been over snow that was there in the morning. nothing is getting cleared.everyone gets home though.nobody stops off in bedding shops like hamsters.
;O)
Most scots burn up here quite easy.heres 2 reasons.
1)Theres nothing up above blocking the uv like [i]other[/i] places in the country.Its clear up above. Smogless!
2) Check out Descent World for Jon Es report on his skin cancer.. and how he found out that the sun was so much stronger than when he was in europe.
its people not having a clue how to drive. i cycled home through Reading last night, without any issues and found it quite fun, and was amazed at how many people just put the car in 1st gear, rev'ed the engine, dropped the clutch and wondered why they are spinning!!
everyone then started panicking after they had been in traffic for hours and decided to use the bus lanes which meant even more congestion.
on my whole cycle home, around the IDR i did not see one gritter or police presence anywhere.
The best story was when i came across a German who was cursing everyone else on the road. He was sitting in his car with snow chains on shouting 'why are all you crazy people in my way'!!
We pushed some guy out of the carpark outside the workplace last year. he revved it to hell and span it while we got sprayed with snow.. we told him to take it easy and started rocking it again.he finally sussed it out.
He managed to get out the carpark.. then he returned later and got stuck once again. couldnt believe it.
Didn't realise until today that most cars are only fitted with "summer" tyres the rubber of which basically stops working at temps below 7C
[url= http://www.conti-online.com/generator/www/uk/en/continental/tyres_for_life/themes/tyre-information/winter-tyres-misconception-en.html ]Continental talk about winter tyres[/url]
Reply from brother:
"There was a full 4 inches of snow and it's Armageddon. 2500 cars abandoned. People on the radio saying it took 7h for a 3mi journey. I had a 3mi walk. It took 40min. One guy from here took 9h to get out of town. All of my group are off today ..."
It descends into expletive-laden unpleasantness from there, but you get the gist of it.
clear evidence that Northern gumption triumphs over Southern ****lessness.
'Northern gumption' - what bs!
[url= http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8425837.stm ]Report from north of the border[/url] - Christ, we had more snow than that in London.
You've got massively empty roads and still manage to have accidents. And 'congestion in the snow in Aberdeens rush hour' - I thought that was one problem you didn't have judging from the comments erupting from some of the penises on here, since you all know how to drive so well in snow and ice. Or were they just some of Goan's alumni?
Ooooh.
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Bit touchy there vinnyeh. Simple good-natured North/South banter; no need for getting yer knickers in a twist.
the fact of the matter is that people shouldn't have just started abandoning their cars. what a stupid frikkin idea. who/how is that going to help?
sorry, was intended in the good natured banter vein. Didn't realise I'd be touching a raw nerve in the sensitive. Should have put in a smiley 😉
Aberdeen is not representative of the rest of Scotland though - It's full of people that cant' tell what you don't stick in a sheep until they have owned a sheep.
This happens in Sheffield every couple of years - rain followed by snow and ice in the afternoon, everyone leaves work early to beat the rush, gridlock. A few years ago thousands of people ditched their cars by the road and walked or stayed in hotels - obviously this caused even more traffic problems. The year before that when I lived in the suburbs it took me 4 hours in snow to drive 7 miles home. A lot of of the trouble is caused by people driving onto roundabouts or junctions when their way ahead isn't clear so traffic backs up in both directions, and once the inner ring road with all its roundabouts is locked, the gridlock just spreads.
Of course, a city the size of Sheffield grinding to a halt is less newsworthy than a town of the strategic national importance of Basingstoke, presumably because the BBC's intrepid "North of England Correspondent" didn't venture out of his bunker in L**ds.
I take it all of these journeys that people were making yesterday were 'essential' then? Or is it just me who checks forecasts and Met Office warnings? The forecasters were telling people not to travel unless your journey was absolutely essential, but I guess no-one listens to that?
OK - I'm off back on top of my high horse. Its hitched at the top of the moral high ground 😉
I think that most bosses regard staff arriving at work as essential. I think xmas shopping jaunts probably exacerbated things.
The main problem apart from crappy standard of driving is that as someone has already said most tyres that cars are fitted with are just not designed to work in this weather.
If we all fitted winter tyres to our cars and probably turned the traction control off the car would be much easier to drive. However for the rerst of the time that its not snowing our emissions would be much lower and our carbon footprint resultantly lower as winter tyres are pretty rubbish on fuel consumption.
There are other alternatives but surely the best has got to be for more companies to allow home working
Just up the road in Bracknell, we had a similar problem to Amazingstoke. Loads of people left the office early, gritters failed to grit and the snow came down big time. The whole town was gridlocked, loads of people abandoned and walked home, some in their shirtsleeves with no coats on! I felt fairly smug rolling by on my MTB, but, still, felt sorry for the people going nowhere in their cars. No fun is it!
The forecast for yesterday in the Berks/Surrey/Hants area was for light drizzle/snow and above freezing temperatures. What actually happened was a localized blizzard dropping 3" of wet, slippery snowflakes in a couple of hours on to untreated roads. As mentioned this was made worse by lots of people leaving work at roughly the same time, quiet roads being impassable and even the slightest of inclines causing huge difficulties.
Weirdly the snow and general conditions yesterday seemed to create an incredibly slippery mixture which we don't often see, but it came during the afternoon and caught people unawares. Just one of those days, but not a lot of fun for many people trying to get home. Essential journeys? Well does getting home from work count as that - I'd say it does. Going to work on the other hand, well, no point going and getting stuck.
I didn't think it was that bad to be honest. I drove home today after spendng the weekend in Wales with the family. Lampeter to Portsmouth took 7 hours [double the normal time] but I did have to drive through Gloucester for that brief period when both bridges were shut. Didn't find it too bad. Was much worse in Wales but I think there is a larger volume of traffic down south but a lot of those are inexperienced at driving in these conditions. We always seem to have issues in Pompey when it rains hard let alone snows!
It doesn't really matter how good a driver you are or what sort of car you've got once the road in front of you is blocked does it?
Maybe the best solution would be if people didn't keep considering it to be normal to drive an hour each way to work every day.
This is a recent phenomena, not just because of the weather but because of the increasing number of people who are on the roads doing increasingly long commutes.
Unfortunately our whole way of life is becoming less and less resilient to any kind of shock because people have a tendency not to think about potential problems and only to consider how systems will work under ideal conditions.
From my experience last night, in and around the M3 & A272 there was a lot of very bad driving by a few individuals, causing massive tailbacks when they just blocked the roads. A lot of other people carried on driving very close to each other and that meant that once you stopped you could not get out, or overtake.
I was lucky as I was able to take a vehicle equipped for the job - mud tyres :roll:, 4x4, spares clothes and food- from work as I was out in the field today. Just as well I did as the 10 minute journey turned in to 1.5 hours instead.
Most of the problem was the assumption that the more that you use your right foot the further forward you go.
The drivers on the A34 were bad. Thick fog, ice on the road and people hooning it and quite close. Someone brakes and everyone jams on the brakes. All it took was for one person to touch the snow / ice on the sides
To be fair...if you're not used to driving on snow you're likely to not be so good. I tried to be sensible by leaving plenty of space, driving smoothly and not so fast but that just resulted in people coming up close behind me or moving in front of me on the motorway. Not so bad maybe but if I'd lost control they could have crashed into me.
Driveing today from a northern town down to the motorway, bit of a hill and the ASDA driver in a transit decides to keep the brakes on all the way down it,instead of putting it in a low gear.
He asda be a poor driver.