Ducati Sporting Club UK > General > Idle Chat > How are you doing in the snow?

[WeeJohnyB]

Worst I've seen for a long while. Took me 2.5 hours to get to and from work as the trains were so bad on top of the 50% service due to a strike, but I had to get into the office otherwise, I would have stayed at home. Thursday night I spent 5 hours until 2.00am on the hill I live on helping people. We had 6 inches of snow on top of ice. After hours of pushing cars, I took the executive decision to close the road, a main road through the town. I found some cones and closed the bottom then ran up to the top of the hill and put some full bin bags over the road. We had about 20 cars and buses and vans abandoned in various random places on the road, it was completely blocked and even 4x4's were slipping 10 metres before bashing into the kerb. We then helped as many as possible get off the road, but most just had to leave their cars and walk. Amazing the amount of people who tried to move the cones and wouldn't listen or even look at the mess they could see in front of them but insisted they could make it - they didn't, unlucky. Got some real abuse from people. No gritting on a major road and a steep hill at that, don't know what the council plan was but it didn't work. Snow hasn't gone and more over the weekend. More again today on top of the poor conditions and it's like an ice rink again. I moved my car off the hill as it was only luck that it was not hit by the sliding cars. I put it in the local car park that had 6 inches of snow and is on a hill. It took me 20 minutes to get 20metres as it's an auto with fat tyres and even although it's got 4WD, if I put it in drive and still with my foot on the brake, just the power of the engine ticking over made it go forward with my foot still on the brake, so I had the mad situation of taking my foot off the brake to lurch forward in order to get control not knowing if it will stop. Plus, with the wheels on full lock to the right, it went straight on, crazy situation trying to get into a parking space. M25 is solid, so my town is near static. There is just one track of tyre lines but when the traffic dies down, the snow will land and make my road unpassable again. There will be a lot of people stuck in their cars tonight. You know that advice you hear but never take notice of cause it won't ever happen to you? Take it! Don't drive and if you do, take a shovel, a bag of grit, a flask of something hot, food, warm clothes, waterproofs, boots/wellies, a blanket, phone charger for the car etc etc.

Looks much worth up north.

WeeJohnyB

[skidlids]

Falling quite heavily for the last couple of hours in South Oxfordshire. We were scheduled to have our cooling tower at work cleaned today but it didn't happen as they didn't turn up, trouble is we have to turn everything off before they arrive, now we can't get things back on as the water temp is to low. All this is costing us thousands in lost income and on top of that I ended up leaving work 90 minutes later than I should which put me on the tail end of all the traffic and very slow moving traffic at that. Stuck behind somebody in a Clio that wouldn't go above 15mph and they left a nice safe gap of about 200 to 300 yards (yes yards) to the car in front. Took me 35 minutes to cover the 3.5 miles from works main gate to the A34 and then they went a different direction so the remaining 14 miles home took me 20 minutes.
Mre fun and games in the morning no doubt just getting to work, then the real fun and games will start

Still its the first time in the last 5 years I haven't arranged the cleaning of the cooling tower, now they know why I avoid the winter months

[chris.p]

http://www.ducatisportingclub.com/sh...t=81280&page=2


Chris

[Ray]

Not so grim in this part of the North. Some areas a few miles away have had a lot more.

Nowt much around here, about an inch. Not bad enough to pull the ABS fuse anyway, but enough to have a play on where it's frozen.

The tyres fitted to 99% of vehicles on UK roads just don't work on snow & ice, even on the chelsea tractors, hence the whole job grinds to a halt.

Don't fancy the trackday on snow at the Nurburging then?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jV9SAYvGJsw

About 1 min 40 in, the funs begins.............even in a beetle coupe

In the sticks up here it's DIY gritting on the hills, the council just leave a few little heaps at the roadside so you can sort yourself out if need be.

Ray.

[bradders]

snowed in the office for the second time this year! This time, I decided to wait and see if teh traffic improved - it didnt! So got the train back to Fareham from Basingstoke and left the car, as did loads of others

last had a text at 19.15 from a collegue who left the office at 14.45 and was less than half a mile up the road on the one way out of the estate! Oh dear...

[Dementor]

Alton area in total chaos.....Hampshire County Council obviously thought it would be a good idea to let the snow fill all the potholes that they left from the Summer Not been able to get out of my drive since the snow on Friday, no gritters....nothing... plain incompetence t*****s

[PHIL-THE-DRILL]

Quite bad around the New Forrest
Fancy a lap of the IOM tt course ?http://www.gov.im/tourism/webcam/webcam.aspx?webcam=6
Snowmobile over the mountain perhaps?