Weather Chaos: The Usual Story

It seems this country just can't plan ahead for bad weather.

Just an inch or so of snow has brought most of the South East to a halt. What is it with these Southerners that makes them panic when driving upon seeing a snowflake? Why aren't roads gritted in advance? Who knows.

I made the journey from Portsmouth to Oxford and back again today, with only one problem. The A272 from Petersfield was fine on the outbound journey at 1pm, but by the time we came back a 6pm, the junction between the A31 and the A272 was turned into chaos because the road had some ice in patches. I had to turn back and use the M27 which was clear all the way to Portsmouth.

Why a major route like the A31 and A272 wasn't gritted when the snow started falling at lunchtime is a mystery. Certainly it wasn't gritted but drivable when we used it at 1pm, but still didn't appear to have been gritted 5 hours later. Cars were stuck trying to negotiate the hill up to Cheesefoot Head and they only started moving after a gritter (presumably the first on that road all day) finally gritted the hill. I decided that it would be better not to negotiate the A272 if this first bit of chaos was a sign of the state of the road further on.

I come from up North originally and I did my driving lessons in weather far worse than this. They were never cancelled, my instructor insisted on taking all his students out in challenging weather. Mind you, we got more of it up north. But at least once we'd experienced it, we knew how to handle driving in those conditions.

Even more recently, 10 years ago I rode a motorcycle in blizzard conditions from Oxford to London and back to commute into work. Never at that time were the roads closed or treacherous enough that I thought better of riding on two wheels. Today it would have been suicidal.

Just what is happening to our namby-pamby, risk-averse, never-plan-for-the-worst society? Its crumbling before our very eyes. Trains stop, we can't keep the roads clear, we shut motorways just because someones wing mirror dropped off their car, we panic at the sight of snowflakes.

I just think hope that I'm bringing my kids up with the right stuff, where stopping at a service station car park covered in snow is a good excuse to have a sliding competition and a a bloody good snowball fight (and no-one brought a gun).

Oh, and I can certainly say, using rear fog lights in snowy conditions is not recommended. It just blinds the person behind you. By all means, use them in foggy conditions, where the mist will absorb the light, but in snow, where its just white stuff falling with gaps between them and you can quite easily see normal tail lights, rear fogs just cause more problems.  Wipers on, heater on demist; yes, but rear fogs: no.
It has to be pretty bad snow to reduce visibility under 100m, which is the limit for the use of fog lights. It certainly wasn't that bad on the road today.