Snow tools

[CitTone]

Complete snow cover this morning.

Just seen two of our neighbours drive off in VW Golfs, both with only the front screen cleared of snow.

Where is Darwin when you need him?

[Petemate]

Agreed - snow 'tools' who need snow tools. Walking down to the paper shop the other day, saw a car pulling away - 12" square clear in front of his face and the rest of the car completely covered in frost. Kn0b.
I have a nice old ice scraper in our hall; I go round the car with the rubber blade of it and it is quite strong, so gets all the frost off OK including the lights. In the boot is a pair of wellies, blanket, and snow shovel. In the spare wheel is a set of heavy duty jump leads and a compressor. At the moment, we go out in our winter coats, scarves, hats and gloves. The winter wheels have been on since we bought the car on Dec 5, so we are ready. However, today we will not be going out and I will get on with the job of new banister spindles for the lower staircase.
I will take a few mins off later to witness the antics of the school mums & dads (we are 3 doors from a school) as they "negotiate" the area in the first real snow of the year. LOL.

[Audax]

I saw someone pretending to be a tank commander while driving their Nissan Juke the other day, of course, I then realised that they probably saw this as an opportunity to not be seen in the Juke rather than that they didn't want to see out of it 

[CitTone]

Had to come into the office as we were being faced with "unpaid or holiday" option (despite being in an "amber warning" area - i.e. don't travel unless essential) if we didn't.

A bit of a trial on the uphill sections but arrived without incident. A303 was deserted! Never known such a thing.

[phoenix]

The roads round by work were horrendous- see screen grab from TomTom. Normally I find success on the back roads but not today. First one I tried, got half way down and was flagged down by another car. I stopped for a mo and an XC90 comes charging past, horn blaring. I ask the folk if it is blocked or just slippy. They say slippy and then... Volvo's just lost it.

I'm in a difficult position 'cos I'm on too much of a slope to do a dead start so have to carry on. Despite the snow tyres, I went sideways twice trying to go down on the brakes. So I engaged brain and recalled off road driving techinques. Let the car go down the gill, used cadence braking and safely got past the now gesticulating Volvo driver and his passengers. Tidy amount of damage done to the car and the 8ft high gates & post. Got up the hill on the other side & safely away.

However the Kumho's failed to negotiate another hill as I followed the back road routes. Had to give up and reverse down. Judging by the amount of movement I was sensing at the back, this was exceptionally slippy snow.

[Max Headroom]

... this was exceptionally slippy snow.

Ah there it is you see -

the wrong type of snow
 

[sgould]

I went to the gym and back this morning just after the snow started.  The Nokians got me up to the top level of the car park without difficulty.  I thought I would get out of the way of anyone sliding down.  Drove home over the hill to reconnoitre the conditions for my wife who had to do a hospital taxi a bit later.  That was OK too.

Then I dug out our gates to let her out.  And she's been out and back. The trip involved going up on the Heath.  155 m above sea level.

One or two idiots about but the main roads are gritted and melting.  Side roads are snowy and there are a few abandoned cars.

[CitTone]

Crap out there tonight - freezing over the packed snow in our road. Saturday shopping could be a smidge interesting!

[Richard_C]

2 random thoughts on useful and un-useful snow tools:

A very useful tool is a broom.  I keep my broom by the front door in this weather - as long as the snow is fresh and powdery you can clear the whole car in seconds.  I keep a large brush in the boot for when I am away.

Subset of random thought: a few years back when my son was young and enthuisisatic he said stay indoors Dad, I will sweep the snow off the car.  It hadn't occurred to him that it would be best to sweep it off towards the back or sides, he started at the back and manged to get the whole lot (it was an estate car) onto the bonnet then off the front.  So then we had to get a shovel to move the self made snowdrift so we could set off.  I think I might have said something rude because he hasn't offered since.

Random thought 2.  A very un-useful tool for moving about in snow is a high power rear wheel drive BMW with wide low profile tyres.  Someone I work with  had to walk the last couple of miles home on Friday.  I did explain that the "S" button on his BMW 52-something Auto box settings doesn't stand for sport, it means "STUCK".  Not sure he was amused, but I am amused to ponder that BMWs are supplied with a "stuck" setting on the gearshift.

[phoenix]

clear the whole car

Good idea. I didn't do my roof this morning before I set off and some 20 odd miles into my journey as I braked I was met with white out!

[ScarbSaab]

clear the whole car

Good idea. I didn't do my roof this morning before I set off and some 20 odd miles into my journey as I braked I was met with white out!

It also shows consideration for other road users. If you are behind someone who hasn't cleared their car, you can have a continuous sprinkling of snow or sometime a great big lump will break off and hit your bonnet/screen.

[phoenix]

However this beat my efforts: a snowman on top of the roof of the car in front of me. Complete with twigs for arms...

[Petemate]

LOL nice one

[Richard_C]

Round here we get lots of cyclists, even in cold weather.    My 16 year old often cycles the 7 miles to school.  It strikes me that driving round with a roof full of snow that might end up on a cyclist or motorcyclist is unacceptable. 

[Guyver1]

Girl across the road from, Put her tiny baby in the car, went back inside to get her coat on, come back outside and wiped her hand over the drivers side of the screen, reversed of the drive and then drove off down the street, there was at least 6" of snow on the car and she had zero visabilty

why cant the police be around when this happens, if she ever get with 30ft of my on my motorbike ill show her a close up of my stihl saw as it goes through her car