The Apocalypse

Just listening to the news on the telly. Its here. The apocalypse is upon us. What we going to do?

Apparently there's been snow down south

Two wheel drive cars driven by poor souls who've never experienced winter driving are getting slightly stuck when despite their drivers absolutely flooring the throttle. People are having to use shovels to clear the fronts of their homes. Its the end, the end I tell thee.

I don't know how the media manages to make such a meal of winter. Of all the road traffic functioning normally, they obviously seek out the minority of drivers who just don't know how to drive on snow, so that they can make a great show of a BMW doing a silly dance instead of progressing forward.

Us up north must be a different breed. We always seem to manage to get about as normal, provided that nobody comes and needlessly closes our roads.

 

There has been a bit, some idiot in a 3 by 2 decided that 50mph (in a 50 limit) was not enough this evening & went screaming past me covering me in slush & salt

Also saw some boy racers driving round & round in a field, just hope they had to explain it to the farmer when they got stuck, why they felt like ruining his winter wheat crop

 

You're right Zigs about some people not driving according to the conditions. I was talking to my student a few days ago about this. He was supposed to be doing his driving test this week but it got cancelled due to the snow (understandable, you're tested partly on your ability to read the road markings, if you can't see the road markings, you can't prove that you can read them).

He was a bit worried, having never driven on the snow before. He pointed out that it causes loads of accidents. I told him no, drivers that don't drive according to the conditions cause accidents. He seemed surprised by this and asked me how you drive in the snow. Obviously you can't answer that in words, only experience will teach it properly, and I told him this, but I also told him, "the best I can do in one sentence is this, do everything you normally do, but much, much more gently, slow right down for the corners, and brake gently and early".

It never ceases to amaze me that you still get people tailgating, driving too fast, braking hard, cornering hard etc on slippy conditions. Take it easy and get there is what I say. And for those that don't want to take it easy, in my experience the difference between 100 miles in perfect conditions (1:40) and the same 100 miles in awful conditions (2:15) is minutes. Its really not worth wiping yourself out for the sake of a few minutes.

 

I only lost it once today, coming up to a junction where it went slightly uphill, i'd slowed down far more than I usually would and a lot earlier.

The girls didn't even notice.

Miraflores said I was a very good driver when I picked her & the miniflores up from the station

 

I once had the car do that little S shaped wiggle dance going up a steep hill. My wife and mam were both in the car at the time. I said nowt. We got to where we were going and when it was time to come home I said we'll take the long way round, over the major roads rather than the short way through the country roads. Both my mam and the wife were puzzled by this, so I told them the skid on the hill had scared me a bit and I didn't fancy losing it coming back down. They were both puzzled, hadn't noticed a thing.

 

The trouble is Clueless, these idiots tend to be the ones that cause accidents and get away scott free, there's no justice sometimes.

 

Round here it's been like Wacky races.....seen a few bumps over the last few days....sorry chaps but it was all blokes the chap in front of me slid nicely into the back of the car in front and then started waving his arms around as if it was everyone elses fault....ha and i thought i was menopausle.....

 

You are

I might be a bit more carefull as I nearly died in these conditions when I was 17. Does tend to make you a bit cautious

 

Oiy Searchfield who's side are you on

 

I'm reminded of the one small humorous element of something my dad said to me after a horrible accident he was in.

He was driving down a country road on his way home one day when a car coming towards him, far too fast, with plumes of blue smoke coming from the tyres (in his words) appeared on the brow of the hill ahead. It was clearly on a collision course, and my dad had a split second to react. With every ounce of strength, he chucked the steering to the left to get out of the way. It wasn't enough, and the two cars collided head on.

My dad escaped with injuries, but not life threatening ones. His car was apparently bent like a banana. The crash was enough to warrant a full accident investigation, and my dad was virtually crippled for several weeks. The coppers accident investigation results said the other car was doing approx 80mph when they lost control on the brow of the hill, slammed the anchors on, and skidded onto the wrong side of the road, where my dad's car was. They also said in no uncertain terms that although collision was inevitable, my dad's instant reaction to throw the car left was the only thing keeping everybody alive, as it meant the majority of the force was distributed down the length of the two vehicles instead of straight through the passenger compartments (which with a combined impact speed of 120mph+ would have been fatal).

When talking about it some weeks later, my dad said "what if I had got out the way in time? I'd have been in the ditch, nobody would have been hurt, the other car would have just gone, and I'd have been left feeling like a right plonker".

 

Blimey Clue....good move by your dad

 

When we had heavy snow 3 years ago, I faced a 50 minute drive home from Uni: first part country road, then onto dual carriage way, then through village roads.

There was nothing between the dual carriage way and the sea so it was quite blizzardesque, with the snow blasting across. I curbed my speed and the guy in the car behind me signalled he was going to over take (fine); he drew parallel, then slunk back in behind me (weirdo ).

Go to my turnoff (signalling on the approach, like you do) and he then overtook me and briefly flashed his hazard lights two flashes.

It dawned on me then; he wasn't a weirdo, he was keeping an eye out for me in the ghastly conditions - what a sweetheart! (Unless you're an ardent feminist, in which case - patronising beggar! )

 

Aww, that restores your faith in human nature