Snow gates in Scotland (2023 Update)

[Commander Kinsey]

Not passable is a grey area. It depends on the vehicle.

And people might want to go that way and not do a 300 mile detour!

[Tim+]

Lives alone, does she? ;-)

Tim

[Commander Kinsey]

Why do people not answer the question when correcting it?

And I thought the EU had made it illegal to say he or she. We must use gender neutral words like it and they. Except if you're French and are talking about a coffee table.

[Colin Bignell]

The tyre place is no further from the town centre than I would have to walk to the car park and they don't charge any extra for parking there.

I've not seen the volume of an estate car measured any other way for a very long time.

[Colin Bignell]

TBH, I have no idea. She really is a friend of a friend and it was only mentioned in passing.

[Colin Bignell]

Depending where 'here' is, it could be that the only vehicle with even a chance of getting through might be a snowcat.

Given the speed of a snowcat, the detour might be faster.

[S Viemeister]

Cut out a disc of plywood or mdf, set it on top of the tyres, and cover with a round tablecloth. You now have a plant stand or end table.

[rbowman]

The US has those on some of the interstates that are subject to heavy drifting and impossible to keep open in a blizzard. There are also gates on some unmaintained roads over passes. Moot point, since you're not going to make it without a snow machine.

When I first read of it I thought of something different. Several of the parking structures downtown have steel gates on the top level. The clue is the snow flake pattern cut into the steel. Open the gate, position a dump truck below, and plow the snow off the side.

I don't think I'd want to be sitting in the truck during the operation in case they plowed a Smart Car off by mistake.

[rbowman]

Take the detour! I've been through that area in the late summer. It sucks you in because it's a decent paved road to a launch site for rafters on the Rogue River. After that, it's narrow, twisty, unmarked roads. Pretty country and I stopped to hike up Bolivar, the highest peak in the coast range, but I was very happy when I finally emerged north of Gold Coast.

That's not the first or last tragedy. I don't know about Scotland but around here you can go for days without seeing another car on some of the roads.

[rbowman]

Some areas do have cops checking; others just fine the hell out of you if they have to retrieve you.

I usually put the studded tires on over Thanksgiving weekend. (4th Thursday of November). This year I was two weeks early since it snowed and didn't appear like it was going to melt off. They'll come off in March, depending on the weather.

[rbowman]

My studs are mounted on their own wheels. It takes me 45 minutes at the outside to change them out. The exercise is more enjoyable than hanging out at the tire center.

The only drawback is the wheels don't have pressure sensors so the light will be on most of the time. It isn't bad when it just stays on but sometimes it flashes for a few minutes.

[rbowman]

I bought a new set of alloy wheels. iirc they were about $100 each, not much more expensive than steel. However the junk yards are full of generic Japanese 4 bolt wheels.

I don't.

[rbowman]

Stack them, throw a tablecloth over them, and call it an end table.

[rbowman]

Great minds...

[jim.gm4dhj]

so umur

[jim.gm4dhj]

first...didn't want to snip

[Colin Bignell]

I though 'here' might be somewhere like that. I like the avalanche howitzer.

[Jim Joyce]

The pics look similar to what I saw in the newspaper when I lived in Montana. Going-to-the-Sun highway, in Glacier Nat Park, would sometimes get up to 90 feet of snow. Sometimes it would take until June or July to get it fully open.

[Commander Kinsey]

WTF? A town centre? People still use those? A few folk still go shopping at supermarkets, but anything else you just order online. More choice of models and prices, comfort of your own home, delivered to you, cheaper, .... As for supermarkets, Tesco will deliver to your door for only £1.50, so after you've deducted the petrol you haven't used, it costs nothing. Plus out of stock items mean you get more expensive ones for free! In store you'd have to pay the extra.

Maybe in the official specs, but if you were to ask me how big the back of my car was, I'd tell you the length first (as that changes the most between cars), then the width and height. Basically you might want to know if I could fit a fridge freezer inside it etc. Litres is utterly meaningless, because one car could be higher but not longer, so the appliance still wouldn't fit. Litres is only important if you're putting lots of small things in it. And do they measure right up to the roof? Some OCD folk don't like not being able to see through the back window. And if the things you're putting in are small, piling it to the roof could make them all lurch into the front seats when you brake, causing some stuff to get broken. Basically litres isn't enough information.

[Commander Kinsey]

If the snow was that bad why close the road? The driver of each car wouldn't attempt it. LET US MAKE OUR OWN DECISIONS. It's high time the government stopped treating us like schoolchildren.