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Driving in bad weather


richard51
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We journeyed yesterday from Caen onwards to SW France. The first half of the drive was great, sunshine and clear sky. Then approaching Chateauroux it clouded over, had snowed and settled and was continuing to snow quite blizzard like. On the motorway we followed a salt van so spent the next few hours following it but driving safely and slowly.

Then we arrived at Limoges and had the usual rain but arrived home slowly and 2 hours later than we should have.

Not a great journey but home safe. If we hadn't of been returning home from UK we wouldn't have driven.

Today, in the South of England they've been hit by lots of snow. Exactly where we were yesterday morning!
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Why on earth do people drive on motorways etc when the weather is so bad.

Well as for motorways, they are far safer than ordinary roads. They are the first to be ploughed and salted.

However I take the point of your post. Many people seem to venture out on the roads in conditions that the sensible and sane would consider a good reason to stay home. And from that comes the first reason, many people are simply trying to get home - from wherever they have been - just as for Mogs above.

Many people work in jobs that require them to travel in all conditions - doctors, vets and nurses are obvious examples, but then add in train drivers, power workers, people working for the national infrastructure. Then there will be those people who work on shifts where it is necessary to keep processes running. A car production line can be stopped with little impact apart from the economic one on the car producer. You cannot however just press the stop button on a refinery - well actually you can but if you have ever seen the consequences, you would not recommend it. The entire plant empties all of its materials in process and many in store to the environment. To do this safely the products are burned and the sky turns into a Dante like vision of hell of huge flames and black smoke amid a huge amount of noise as gases escape up the vent stacks. It al lasts for many hours and perhaps days.

The same is probably true for many metal producing plants, where simply stopping is not a realistic option.

Then finally there are those who think their jobs are indispensable - but almost always are not. I guess it is to these people that your question is aimed. It might include people like lorry drivers whose cargoes are not time sensitive (ie are not perishable), but they will be under the orders of their owners, who (for all we know) might need the truck to arrive at its destination so that it can pick up a perishable load for a return journey.

We could of course ban all of the "non essential" journeys but then run the risk of a re-run of the 1963 winter in the UK, where fuel started to run out, food started to run out, electricity supplies failed, gas supplies were interrupted.

So Richard, what do you suggest?
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My cousin took 9 hours yesterday to get halfway to work and back, over the pennine section of the M62.

The irony is that his job when this type of thing happens is driving a gritting lorry. Which is the sort of company vehicle they don't let you drive home.
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Andy.

No easy fix for the stupidity of some people.

I saw on UK news that 80% reduction on traffic was recorded somewhere on the motorway network today. Perhaps the message is getting through.

Yes I am getting at the people you describe in your penultimate paragraph. Essential workers would then have an easier journey to work (NB some Drs do have to live within a specific distance from their place of work.)

I doubt essential travel makes up a large % of cars on the road.
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On Wednesday we ( ie husband) drove from Berkshire to Southend  via Edgeware - a necessary journey.

The main roads were fine, side roads in towns ok if driving slowly.

The temperature seems to be going up very slightly today.

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Electric vehicles. Thats an interesting point. If people are stuck in a normal vehicle they can turn the engine on and get warm. If you are stuck in an electric vehicle and tried to heat the car it would soon drain the battery.
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[quote user="pip24"]Electric vehicles. Thats an interesting point. If people are stuck in a normal vehicle they can turn the engine on and get warm. If you are stuck in an electric vehicle and tried to heat the car it would soon drain the battery.[/quote]

Then multiply that problem by a few hundred and when the weather clears up a fleet of car transporters will be required to clear the roads.
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Richard51 wrote:

I doubt essential travel makes up a large % of cars on the road.

I am less sure, although I am sure there are a lot of numpties on the road.

The NHS is the largest employer in the UK with around 5% of the working population. Take away the office clerks who really do not need to be there on a day to day basis. Now add back in the agency staff. Answer probably about 5% of the workforce still need to travel. This is not just nurses and doctors but also lab staff, X-ray staff, radiology staff etc. We saw what happens when these folk are cut off from the doctors when the last major malware hit the NHS and whole hospitals let alone departments shut down. - so we perhaps need to add in the IT staff as well as essential workers - given that firewalls may well prevent them from working away from their home stations.

Now add in

Electricity and gas generation and distribution staff.

Police and Fire staff

Highways department

Local Councils

Farmers who need to move between their livestock locations - which are not always in adjacent fields.

Social Services - meals on wheels*, care homes, care of the vulnerable.

* so now we have to count in those who cook the meals, receive and store the ingredients and distribute them.

Supermarket distribution of food stuffs - incoming to the central warehouses and outbound to the stores PLUS the need for all of the drivers to get from home to work.

Railway staff - drivers, guards and signallers.

Bus staff - drivers, traffic controllers.

Food handing operatives - including, not exclusively, Milk collection, food preparation (including receipt of incoming ingredients) and distribution, bakers, butchers, abattoir workers (arguably).

Fuel delivery from refineries to petrol stations and fuel oil to individual households.

Heating engineers to repair defective heating installations.

etc..

Yes there are numpties out there but I suspect that many (probably the majority) of those on the roads have good cause to be there.

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Sorry but must disagree.

I heard somewhere that yesterday there was an 80% reduction of traffic on motorways during the very bad weather. It was 100% on closed roads of course - many closed as a result of cars etc blocking them no doubt..

That leaves 20% for essential people and numpties.

There are various levels of "essential" as well. Some of the given list of jobs are, I would propose, necessary but by no means justifying a journey out immediately. Internet, telephones can, as I said, reduce many journeys.

No sarcasm please about the farmer telephoning his sheep to ask how they are instead of using his air conditioned tractor to visit them.

Not cars, granted, but how many lorries carry deliveries that may be necessary but are not really urgent.

Was glad to see the heroics of people who are essential and the volunteers who offered their 4x4 juggernauts (they do come in handy for a couple of days a year in the UK) and tractors to ease and make the situation safe.

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I think we have been discussing at somewhat crossed purposes Richard. I thought we were discussing those who were out during the bad weather - which from your numbers is around 20% of the normal traffic.

As for the lorries on the road unnecessarily, I make no apology for repeating what I said earlier, it may well be that the "unnecessary" journey is needed to position a truck so that its next load is a necessary load. Road traffic logistics is a complex business.

I see today reports that some UK supermarkets are running out of some goods - because those nasty trucks could not get through or were not positioned to make the necessary journey. It demonstrates how precarious modern civilisation really is when things start to fall apart after a maximum 4 days disruption; and the dangers of the much heralded JIT (just in time) delivery logistics. In my experience JIT very readily converts to JTL - Just too late.
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Not to mention the no doubt large number of foreign trucks which set out before the snow even arrived. I suppose they are expected to just stop....... Despite the fact that many of them are no doubt more practised at driving in snow than the average British driver.
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[quote user="andyh4"]the dangers of the much heralded JIT (just in time) delivery logistics. In my experience JIT very readily converts to JTL - Just too late.[/quote]

Ah yes the JIT view of life by accountants who have no real knowledge of the world around us.

I had an emergency drive the other night. A pool and spa had to be working the following morning and the builders had chucked away a vital part. Very tricky in places where snow and ice had drifted onto the carriageway.

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"A pool and spa had to be working the following morning and the builders had chucked away a vital part."

Now that is what I was talking about! What have you got against accountants btw. My OH is a chartered accountant and she really did despair sometimes at the stupid small business owners who were slapdash with their accounts or omitted very pertinent details preventing timely completion of accounts.

In terms of foreign lorries - then yes they should be stopped if non urgent and if they had not already been stopped by the conditions. BTW this weather was well predicted. Long distance lorry cabs are quite luxurious I believe with good sleeping areas.

We may well have been talking at cross purposes Andy.

Glad to see that all premier league fixtures are happening this pm. Now that is essential. Not sure that the results will be too welcome though.
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Andy said:

"In my experience JIT very readily converts to JTL - Just too late"

Depends on the planner. Wink, wink, wink !!!

Trouble is these days the logistics industry is heavily reliant on computers for load planning.

I have done trains, planes, container ships, and of course lorries.....in France of course.

Nothing will beat a human brain when it comes to load planning and logistics.
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There is much that one can do without - if necessary!. Driving, well there are many reasons why one would need to be on the road (and I am not going into them here), but the standard of driving is what usually causes accidents and crashes.  If it snows, take it carefully in the highest gear appropriate, but with caution, and when skidding, take everything off, pedals, wheel etc, The car will right itself (and it does).

Speeding in such conditions however is stupid. I saw the video of a crash on the M62 - caused completely by driving at speeds at which is was impssible to see, or to stop ... idiotic and not good driving.

Having been brought up in the north of England I have followed many a snow plough.  But the worst is fog.  Nothing I saw recently is that bad.

If you cannot see or you cannot stop, do not drive at that speed but at the speed at which you can see or you can stop.

Simple really!  And never assume that it will not happen to you!

Or am I being just too sensible and practical!

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