First fall of snow in the North East + rear while drive = Chaos

[slim_boy_fat]

With Council budgets constantly under attack and the resultant pruning of services, it doesn't really make sense to have resources tied up a fleet of gritters/ploughs for the relatively few really bad snowfalls we get these past Winters.
Unrealistic 1st world expectations are in play......

 

[rtbcomp]

^^ IIRC someone designed a bin wagon that could double up as a snow plough and gritter; keeping redundant assets to a minimum. Here the binmen just spread the rubbish over the streets in winter, saves a fortune.

I live on a fairly steep hill and it's no problem in the morning, but after a day of people polishing the snow into ice it's impossible in the evening.

An ex-neighbour of ours used to work for the council on snow clearance and he brought his JCB home at night so we always had a clear street.

 

[zx9]

With Council budgets constantly under attack and the resultant pruning of services, it doesn't really make sense to have resources tied up a fleet of gritters/ploughs for the relatively few really bad snowfalls we get these past Winters.
Unrealistic 1st world expectations are in play......

You have to an extent a point, the council took some flack from the residents but refused to do anything, sighting H&S rules to protect council employees it was apparently too dangerous to grit the snow covered roads.
They eventually provided the grit slung from the open backed truck when the emergency services got involved pointing out that a considerable portion of the borough was inaccessible to fire engines or ambulances and had been so for five days.

 

[jerrytug]

My Morris 1000 pickup is good in the snow especially if you load the back with a few sacks of ballast.

A friend who lives in SE Norway is incredulous at the news here, they have had weeks of heavy snow, about 1.5m of laying stuff then 300mm one night, same next day, same next day Etc etc, schools still open everything works.

Yes the standard of winter driving in Norway is unbelievable.
I was on a long distance bus/coach, in November, and the motorway was covered in ice and snow, with plenty grit and salt.

The coach was held up by a convoy of council gritters, and the coach driver knew we all had a plane to catch.
The driver accelerated up to 70-80 mph, and (with about 50 passengers..), he was drifting out the back end, on slushy ice, on motorway bends!

First I thought, he's drunk and we're all going to crash and burn. Then I realised he was totally calm, and quietly whisling a tune
and we caught the plane

 

[eLuSiVeMiTe]

 

[Migmac]

So which is better in snow and ice do you reckon then? Are you saying rwd drive car owners normally don’t know how to drive in winter conditions as they are more likely to get stuck? I’d say fwd cars handle winter conditions better no doubt.

As i said nothing is particularly good on ice. In general people don’t know how to drive in adverse conditions, makes no odds if they were in RWD or FWD.

 

[TechnicAl]

I was once in the north of Sweden. Overnight it snowed very heavily, next morning the ditches were full of cars....pretty much the same as here....later they all had snow chains in the knowledge that the snow wouldnt thaw for months

 

[roofman]

now that's had me in pieces here

 

[ibrooks]

One of the things that bugs me when they talk about not having a fleet of gritters/ploughs........ where did they all go?

There seems to be this blinkered idea that these vehicles depreciate and therefore they must be sold off and replaced before they are worthless and I just can't see that it adds up. If these things are specialised in their roles then they simply don't do that many miles so with minimal maintenance they will last many decades. If they aren't specialised then they do other stuff and they aren't being maintained "just for a few days of snow",

A mate is a fireman and they are running up against very similar problems. They've been given nice shiny new engines with electronics up the chuff and they just aren't reliable. In recent months they've been told to manually dip the water levels because the LED water gauge has malfunctioned on several of them reporting a full tank when it isn't and at least one engine has run out of water on a shout - the previous engines had a sight-glass. An engine has become stranded at a seaside location (famous for illuminations) when it was being driven along the seafront on a windy day with a window wound down and an unexpectedly large wave washed over the wall and gave the cabin a fair drenching - every light on the dash lit up and then everything died and they couldn't drive away (couldn't even wind the window back up to prevent further damage whilst waiting for recovery). They've been issued a warning that they aren't to drive through water over 12" deep because the engine air intakes have been re-located by the conversion company from the truck manufacturers location and they've had a couple hydraulic-ed in recent flooding when the firemen have done something so silly as try to rescue people.

Another mate used to work at a local HGV maintenance garage which also looked after the regions' ambulances and they were having similar problems - one of his last jobs before he left was submitting the supporting paperwork for the local service to send the newest batch back as "not fit for purpose".

I'm not suggesting that they should still be running 60's or 70's vehicles but by the 80's the things were advanced "enough" to do the job without being overly complex or expensive to maintain.

 

[gaz1]

the gritter fleet might be getting privatised so no longer a council responsibility

and thats hypothetical but suspect it

 

[addjunkie]

the gritter fleet might be getting privatised so no longer a council responsibility

and thats hypothetical but suspect it

If they dont own it, its not their capital depreciating, they dont need, to tax, insure or service it. Only problem is they then rely on the contractor being reliable on the days required.

 

[jerrytug]

It's what they did with all the dredgers etc that maintain the canals. Sold them off, now they pay private companies.. to hire the same machines they used to own..

 

[bigegg]

Theres a bloke on my estate with a gritter trailer on the back of his Shogun.

I think he does the private industrial estates.

That would *have* to be cheaper than using the big gritter lorries with the associated tachos, hgv licences etc?
although a shogun probably uses as much diesel as a gritter wagon.

 

[DennisCA]

I used to drive a Trans Am and it was fine in the winter I thought, I had studded tires for the winter time. I didn't think it was an inherently inferior system in the snow, just had to act differently than with a forward wheel drive car. Overall I like rear wheel drive.