Snow brings the U.K. to a standstill
Once again a bit of snow and low temperatures have meant that much of Britain has ground to a halt but whose fault is it? The councils for failing to grit our roads adequately or individual drivers behaving as if they have never driven before? Well it is probably more of the latter recently in my humble opinion! Driving on snow isn’t to bad you can get enough grip its the ice that causes the problems unless of course like most people do is use their accelerator peddle far to much in these snowy conditions. I was following a car yesterday in quite a bit of snow I was happily going along keeping a steady pace whilst the car in front was sliding all over the place, why? Because every time his wheels started to spin he jammed his foot on the accelerator making him slide more.
You see this all the time on the news, drivers who are ‘stuck’ in the snow with their foots jammed on the accelerator and their front wheels spinning desperately trying to get some grip. No! this is not the way to do it! On fresh snow you want to put as little power as possible down to the front wheels and most times you will find that the car will start to creep forward. In fact with most cars you can slowly bring the clutch out in first or second and the car will start to creep forward, well you can in diesels anyway! If your car is back wheel drive don’t even bother venturing out as there is little weight over the driving wheels to help grip the snow.
Many people also seem to use their brakes far to aggressively in the snow as well ended up in a slide. If you are unfortunate enough to start sliding bring your foot off the break so the wheels start moving again and apply them again with less pressure. If possible use your engine to slow you down rather than over breaking change down through the gears and you will find the engine does quite a good job of slowing you down (you should drive in this way in normal conditions as well and not just rely on your brakes!).
Another tip is to leave snow on the bonnet of your car rather than clear it off. The snow adds extra weight to the driving wheels if its a front wheel drive which all helps in the snow.
p.s. If you hit sheet ice then you can panic!
The race for bread and milk
Why oh why do people go overboard every time a bit of snow is forecast? The shops were full of people buying every last scrap of bread off the shelves and every last drop of milk from the fridges. What is wrong with these people? Idiots spring to mind. OK a bit of snow has fallen but we are hardly going to go hungry, well unless the Council’s don’t grit the roads and people clog up the roads with their inability to drive properly…
To sum up the citizens of the U.K’s reaction to Snow I have produced a nice little pie chart below!
Pie Chart. Reasons why people in the U.K. don't go to work in the snow
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