Is this the worst weather in years!?!?

**Ian The Poet** · 13-01-2010, 03:11 PM

Is this the worst snow we have had in years? From the amount of news covering it, you would think it was, however 1986/7 was worse than this and 1962/3 lasted from November till April, whereas so far it has been three weeks. England comes to a standstill, no schools, reason health and safety, people not allowed to clear snow outside their property, reason health and safety. I remember in the late sixties early seventies walking to school in snow as deep as my knees, it didn't stop us, nor did health and safety. Hospitals still work as do the emergency services, you see them stop for health and safety reasons. Why then are the health and safety people working, it cannot be safe to go to work for them? So why pick on schools, a bit of snow did me no harm, or perhaps it did?

**GreenAndPleasant** · 13-01-2010, 04:29 PM

Health & Safety are safely in their padded bunker. I was in NE Scotland 2 winters ago, it was pretty thick up there for several weeks. In terms of national snow coverage, I think this year comes close to one of the worst. I can't speak for 62/63, I wasn't there Guv', honest

**Streetwalker** · 13-01-2010, 06:44 PM

Saw a nieghbour who works on the council and asked him why he wasnt out griiting as he had told me he does it when required, He told me it was too slippery!

Sums it up

**Ian The Poet** · 14-01-2010, 06:26 PM

I fell foul of the snow today and ended up in A&E for nearly three hours, I twisted my knee, pulled a muscle in my chest and a thump to the head. The irony of it is that yesterday I walked over two miles in the snow and today I was within a hundred yards of work.

**octopus** · 17-01-2010, 09:41 PM

Originally Posted by Ian The Poet

I fell foul of the snow today and ended up in A&E for nearly three hours, I twisted my knee, pulled a muscle in my chest and a thump to the head. The irony of it is that yesterday I walked over two miles in the snow and today I was within a hundred yards of work.

Sorry to hear of your accident. Back to the snow. I saw a programme by Mark Austin about how the Finns manage - we certainly could take some lessons from them. Conditions of minus 37 - AND STILL KEEP GOING. As for schools closing. Mark Austin was told by a Finnish lady in Helsinki, that she would recieve a visit from social services if her child did not attend school over the bad weather period - obviously not an excuse over there. I think the situation was "milked " in Britain, by some workers.

DougieG · 18-01-2010, 01:06 AM

It's 1981 that it was last this bad and this widespread, according to the data. It's mostly going now anyway, and ask yourself, does it matter that Britain ground to a halt? Would you rather millions was spent on equipment to cope with snow that we barely ever see? I'm sorry to hear of your accident though Ian.

**pauli007001** · 18-01-2010, 01:10 AM

Its only a flurry, look at what the canuks have to deal with!!

Several feet in each storm, a few inches bring an entire nation to a halt??????
Perhaps you should remember this next election!!!!

**Kiwi 1691** · 18-01-2010, 08:19 AM

Originally Posted by pauli007001

Its only a flurry, look at what the canuks have to deal with!!

Several feet in each storm, a few inches bring an entire nation to a halt??????

The UK do not get alot of snow, therefore the national infrastructure isn't designed to handle it. In other regions they regularly have snow like that. So they are used to it and have the infrastructure to deal with it.

Originally Posted by pauli007001

Perhaps you should remember this next election!!!!

WTF?

So if the Tories were in power it wouldn't have snowed?

**Midas** · 18-01-2010, 08:26 AM

Originally Posted by pauli007001

Its only a flurry, look at what the canuks have to deal with!!

Several feet in each storm, a few inches bring an entire nation to a halt??????
Perhaps you should remember this next election!!!!

And

Originally Posted by DougieG

It's 1981 that it was last this bad and this widespread, according to the data. It's mostly going now anyway, and ask yourself, does it matter that Britain ground to a halt? Would you rather millions was spent on equipment to cope with snow that we barely ever see? I'm sorry to hear of your accident though Ian.

This country is woefully ill-equipped to deal with bad weather in winter. Every single time it happens we have this same set of arguments and hand-wringing, yet nothing changes. I'm not sure whether it was a networked or just a regional programme on TV one day last week that looked at this issue and compared how Britain fares in winter to how Finland does, and asked a panel of experts to cost 'winterproofing' Britain's roads, airports and rail network. As you might imagine, the chaos from one day's snow here was the subject of great mirth and head-shaking in disbelief in Finland, yet the cost of equipping this country to the same standard to prevent this year's chaos from happening again is a one-off capital cost of £1.8 billion and an annual budget of £480 million - a fraction of what this government alone has wasted on hare-brained and wasteful schemes which have driven us close to national bankruptcy. It's quite shameful really; the cost of lost production to industry alone since Christmas has been at least double the cost of 'winterproofing' us.

**octopus** · 18-01-2010, 03:14 PM

Originally Posted by Streetwalker

Saw a nieghbour who works on the council and asked him why he wasnt out griiting as he had told me he does it when required, He told me it was too slippery!

Sums it up

A bit like having a dog warden that"s frightend of dogs.

**Ian The Poet** · 18-01-2010, 06:47 PM

On a news report today one reason the gritters could not go out was that someone was pinching the grit, because during this bad weather it costs 1000 pounds a tonne, whereas normally it costs 10 pounds a tonne. Why is it so expensive? And why wasn't it guarded or made more secure?