Snowmageddon - this Friday

[irocfan]

a point was made @ work yesterday which was that over the years the less we get our level of panic for snow seems to have risen

[Blib]

irocfan said:

a point was made @ work yesterday which was that over the years the less we get our level of panic for snow seems to have risen

Do we get any less?

[aeropilot]

smegmore said:

Is this an example of the national malaise of the tenets of HSE running our lives, telling us that we are incapable of using good old fashioned common sense and taking care of ourselves in our daily lives, as the British have always done?

I'm afraid it is.

Our moronic media industry does it's best to inflame the situation as well which hardly helps.

[anonymous-user]

blugnu said:

I live on a hill. I have winter tyres. As I cleared the car this morning my neighbour (walking to the shops) commented "you're braver than I am!". I wanted to tell her I just had a car that was prepared for winter. Or, that being self-employed made such decisions easier. But I just laughed.

It's very annoying having to drive at a snails pace because hardly anyone else has prepared their cars properly.

Perhaps the neighbour didn't want to spend £500+ on a set of winter tyres (and spend a morning changing them) for the couple of days a year it snows!. The same as 99% of the population

[blugnu]

Jimboka said:

blugnu said:

I live on a hill. I have winter tyres. As I cleared the car this morning my neighbour (walking to the shops) commented "you're braver than I am!". I wanted to tell her I just had a car that was prepared for winter. Or, that being self-employed made such decisions easier. But I just laughed.

It's very annoying having to drive at a snails pace because hardly anyone else has prepared their cars properly.

Perhaps the neighbour didn't want to spend £500+ on a set of winter tyres (and spend a morning changing them) for the couple of days a year it snows!. The same as 99% of the population

Well she would have been a fool to do so. I spent £250 on mine and her car has the same size wheels. Storage ay my local, friendly, independent garage is included in the fee for changing them. And, genuinely, the reason I came on this morning was to post that they have paid for themselves in saved hassle because I was able to simply stop when another car slid down and past the end of a side road on to the road I was driving along. So not only am I the only person on our bit of hill who parked their car outside their house last night, and judging by the tyre tracks, the only one to use any part of our road this morning (meaning I am at work) I also avoided driving into the side of a OAP driving a knackered old Peugeot, which would have put a downer on the whole day. I know I will get home tonight, and I know I will get to work every day I need to. Not bad for £250 (and remember my summer tyres haven't turned at all since October, so the wear cost on those is zero)

[blugnu]

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[blugnu]

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[croyde]

Some people don't like empty looking fridges, I know my ex doesn't as she complains when she comes round. I then point out that there is enough stuff in the freezer, larder and where the potatoes are kept to allow me to cook for the kids for at least 3 days

[DonkeyApple]

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[FiF]

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[Justin Cyder]

My people do get confrontational around here mighty quickly don't they? Chill or outside the lot of you.

[turbobloke]

Chill or Outside is not a choice at the mo.

[FiF]

Justin Cyder said:

My people do get confrontational around here mighty quickly don't they? Chill or outside the lot of you.

If confrontational is a euphemism for "reminding folks of the staggeringly inaccurate stuff that has been writte in order to pull some legs." then guilty as charged.

If the tone was wrong, it was wrong, unintentional, sorry.

[otolith]

[redacted]

[page3]

Jimboka said:

Perhaps the neighbour didn't want to spend £500+ on a set of winter tyres (and spend a morning changing them) for the couple of days a year it snows!. The same as 99% of the population

All Season are the answer then. Our bog-standard Focus (1.6 auto, no traction control) has been great on Vredestein Quatrac 3's. I can understand not wanting to swap to Winters, but I really don't see why 'normal' (aka Boring) cars aren't fitted with All Season as standard instead of Summers which seem so inappropriate for our climate. Obviously performance and specialist cars are different.

[blugnu]

page3 said:

Jimboka said:

Perhaps the neighbour didn't want to spend £500+ on a set of winter tyres (and spend a morning changing them) for the couple of days a year it snows!. The same as 99% of the population

All Season are the answer then. Our bog-standard Focus (1.6 auto, no traction control) has been great on Vredestein Quatrac 3's. I can understand not wanting to swap to Winters, but I really don't see why 'normal' (aka Boring) cars aren't fitted with All Season as standard instead of Summers which seem so inappropriate for our climate. Obviously performance and specialist cars are different.

Quite. A friend of mine has swapped to all-season Goodyears on his big Fiesta (Fusion?) and says he only notices any difference at all when it gets cold. The rest of the year it's exactly the same. He's self-employed too ...

That said I do prefer the correct tyres for winter without even the compromise of all-seasons. Perhaps it's because where I live it's impossible to get anywhere without going up at least some hills?

It makes me chuckle when people baulk at spending a few hundred quid on tyres that will make their car at best safer and at least useable, but will happily spend that per month on owning/leasing something shiny. My whole car was £700. With it's winters on it cost me slightly under £1k all in, and it's virtually unstoppable unless the snow gets so deep I run out of clearance.

[eccles]

blugnu said:

It makes me chuckle when people baulk at spending a few hundred quid on tyres that will make their car at best safer and at least useable, but will happily spend that per month on owning/leasing something shiny. My whole car was £700. With it's winters on it cost me slightly under £1k all in, and it's virtually unstoppable unless the snow gets so deep I run out of clearance.

Genuinely surprised you can get a set of winter tyres supplied and fitted for under £300, even more so if it's for the Alfa in your profile pic.

[SystemParanoia]

cost less than £150 for x5 on my swift

[blugnu]

eccles said:

Genuinely surprised you can get a set of winter tyres supplied and fitted for under £300, even more so if it's for the Alfa in your profile pic.

I've not changed the profile pic for ages - it's for the Leon in my 'garage'

I've just checked my emails - I paid £186 inc. VAT and delivery for my 4 new tyres (Marangoni Meteo HP) They've gone up a bit since I ordered (would be £230 today) I then paid my local self-employed mechanic £40 to take off my old tyres and store them and to fit the new ones - because I couldn't find a set of steel wheels locally that weren't a ridiculous price.

So it was £226 including fitting and storage.

I never fitted winters to the Alfa. I lived somewhere flatter then, and reasoned that it wasn't worth it/ I couldn't afford them. Perhaps the fact that it cost me £200/month in finance on the half of it I didn't pay for when I 'bought' it wasa factor in the maths there?

That said I never got the Alfa stuck - the 2.4 diesel weighed a ton and sat right over the front wheels, which I am sure helped - although I only remember driving it in snow three times (albeit one of them was from Edinburgh to Manchester in continual snow the whole route on New Years Eve - that was fun!)

EDIT to add - I got a whole £3.50 back off Quidco when I bought the tyres too, so £222.50

Edited by blugnu on Saturday 19th January 13:48

[FiF]

So schools in many counties already confimed as closed on Mnday.

DT said:

Schools in counties such as Devon, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Northamptonshire, Staffordshire, Somerset, Sussex, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and parts of south Wales had already confirmed many full or partial closures by Sunday night.
Other schools in northern counties were expected to follow on Monday morning, with heavy snow expected to fall overnight in parts of the UK.

Meanwhile 99% just carry on.... allegedly!

Nope, UK is a joke.