I half-heard an article on the radio about this, with regard to farmers and their tractors. This apparently simple arrangement is a nightmare when the bureaucrats get involved. You can imagine, I'm sure.
However I agree with your earlier point about equipping vehicles that the council already has for snow clearing. Waste collection vehicles would be ideal in my non-expert opinion, with winter tyres and a ploughing attachment at the front. (As it happens our waste collections have taken place as usual this week, but we've only got about six inches here in Cheshire.)
Many years ago I was in Toledo Ohio for a week & it snowed heavily. Apart from the local authority snowploughs, every private pickup truck seemed to have a snowplough attachment. All the shop & restaurant parking lots were cleared in hours, local backroads were cleared by residents using pickup trucks & ploughs.
The point being that it snows a lot there every year so it's worth spending several thousand dollars on a snowplough and it's attachment point for your 4x4; and many Americans in Northern States keep a beaten-up 4x4 (usually a pickup) solely for that purpose. And even they have problems; last year in Pennsylvania (my Mother lives there), they started to run out of places to put the ploughed snow. And it's completely normal to come out of your house and find the snow-blowers have buried your car completely.
OK, we've had snow for the last 2 or 3 years, but it doesn't snow at all here most winters, so it's simply a waste of money.
Yes but is it a waste of money? As I said earlier if all council vehicles were capable of taking a plough, it would add a little to the vehicle cost(how much is a bin lorry?). If each year the council bought several ploughs, it would add little to the annual budget.
BUT the benefit to the country if everything gets moving again quicker is huge, experts reckon these events cost millions in lost income, money that we really could do with. So I fail to see how it is a waste of money. Even if this sort of weather only happens once every ten years I am sure the capital expended would be far less than revenues lost.
People harp on about how important education is, well how much damage has been done by all these closed schools? We live in the 21st century we should not be struggling with snow. Trains should not be getting stuck, we know what the problems are, is it so difficult to remedy them?
Whereas snow chains would be a cheap investment. I was thinking last year I ought to get some. Now I definately will, in time for the next snow in Jan/Feb. I'm pleased to see some random bus company on the news last night bought a load of sets after last year and it saved their arses this year.
I was mooting "All season" tyres, but I've not found any for my wheel size that seem to be very convincing - and I agree, winter wheels would be a PITA for a couple of weeks a year.
That still involves expenditure, both to buy the snow ploughs and to adapt the vehicles to carry them. In any case, simply moving snow about is not necessarily what is needed - see my comments on the roads below.
Not if essential staff cannot get in because the roads around the airport have been closed.
Gatwick has just reopened after removing 150,000 tons of snow. That is more than a couple of hours' work.
Watching Saltzburg airport runway being cleared by a staggered convoy of snow ploughs between each flight a few years ago was quite impressive. However, that is a fairly lightly used airport that expects significant snow falls every year. During the day Gatwick averages one aircraft movement every minute and a quarter. The runway is two kilometres - 1.25 miles - long, so, to clear the runway between flights and get back to the start before the next one, around trip of 2.5 miles the ploughs would need to be doing 2 miles a minute - 120 mph. Heathrow has a plane a minute and two 3km runways.
Deicing the aircraft at Saltzburg also involved three de-icing trucks to each aircraft, to get enough on in a short enough time to avoid it freezing before getting airbourne. That, again, would require a fleet of specialised vehicles that do nothing most years.
Because simply moving the snow out of the way is not enough. It is also necessary to stop more snow settling and to prevent ice forming and that requires gritting to be carried out at the same time. That is, in itself, an art. Salt has to be laid at the right time, in the right amounts and in the right conditions to be effective. Salt becomes less effective as the temperature falls and ceases to work at all at around
-9C, which applied to a lot of Britain last night. It also needs to be mixed with the ice by passing traffic, so gritting lightly used routes has little or no value. Even the grit size is important. 10mm grit is more effective, but 6mm grit is less likely to lead to broken windscreens. Clearing roads and keeping them clear is not as simple as it might appear.
Tesco takes one pound in every eight (or is it seven by now?) spent on the High Street. They need to protect that income and a few thousand pounds a store is a good investment for them. Local Authorities have to justify expenditure to the rate / council tax payers and can't just buy stuff on spec. Even when they do invest in new equipment, it is not always simple. Brighton and Hove found out last year that the hills defeated their conventional gritting lorries, so they ordered a new fleet that are adapted to grit their own path. The first of the fleet, ordered early this year, is due for delivery some time in 2011. However, I have seen council lorries out, with workmen spreading rock salt by hand. That is very unscientific and may even be ineffective, but it does make people think they are doing what they can.
It is rare enough for it to be debatable whether the expenditure is justified.
... as far as the first hill with a bit of ice under the snow. In the case of the carrier I use, that is the road leading away from their depot.
Umm er - have you thought who drives the council salters and snow ploughs - it's the guys who drive the waste collection vehicles !! They don't have snow plough drivers sitting around all year just waiting for the snow to come.
See my comment above on Mike Barnes' similar post - the councils will not have drivers for all the lorries you are going to convert ! Try some joined up thinking.
Yes Tim - but have you thought that through too. Where chains are used extensively and wehn they were used extensively in the UK, the main roads are left snowy so the chains can dig in. I some how doubt it would be wise to use chains on a salted clean road and I'm not too sure if it's approved of too.
Reference an early post on snow on car roofs - the police can stop you and issue a =A360 fine and 3 points if you don't clear it off, for the very reasons stated earlier.
Yes I have thought it through. The only viable option are easy-fit types. They cost more, but there are times, like last year, when a journey *has* to be made and it really wasn't fun. In that case, every bloody road from here to Maidstone was iced up so they wouldn't have come off anyway.
In the days of proper dustbins (metal ones without wheels) and open top dustcarts, the binmen stood in the dustcart filled wth salt /grit and did the spreading by shovel. The roadsweepers (men not vehicles) cleared the footpaths.
Householders cleared their frontage often using cinders from the coal fire as an alternative to grit.
"All season" tyres are a compromise in all conditions - poor grip in summer, poor grip in winter.
I shoved mine on a couple of weeks ago, and will take 'em off in February or March.
A set of four wheels/tyres, stacked, take up a fairly small amount of space in a corner of the garage or shed. 600mm diameter, 800mm high. Put stuff on top of 'em. Job jobbed.
No, they really wouldn't.
If I was using chains or socks rather than winter tyres, I'd have had to fit and remove them probably half a dozen times on my way to and from work this morning. For some stretches, I'd have required them on one front wheel only.
Can you recommend a brand - and how well did they cope with
a) ICE
b) Snow
c) Slush
Is your car a 2x4? Mine is.
I rarely *need* to use the car these day - I commute by train (or not, this week) - the reason I was considering chains is that I might make 2 journeys a year in snow that are vital so the fitting hassle isn't much overall for me.
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