That’s the problem in the UK, it only really heavily snows one year in five so it isn’t profitable or economical to really invest in things like snow tires and snow ploughs, so whenever there is significant snow it does kind of cause everything to grind or halt. The alternative is to buy a bunch of snow equipment that needs constant maintenance throughout a winter where it doesn’t get below 3°C, and nothing more exciting than a lot of rain happens.
Comment on Is history about to repeat itself?
ThatGuy46475@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
Well if they tried to buy snow tires they would be expired before the next measurable snowfall
echodot@feddit.uk 15 hours ago
Waraugh@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 hours ago
That and municipalities that don’t deal with the shit regularly don’t have annual budgetary expenses carved out to prepare to keep the roads manageable for the once or twice a decade event. I’ve always lived in places where heavy fall and freezing temperatures are expected and yeah, everything is structured around that reality and everyone has more experience with it. I don’t judge a fish for its inability to fly, I’ve always kind of rolled my eyes at people that try to act and mighty because them and their local municipalities are better prepared to deal with recurrent weather patterns than folks that only have to deal with it in rare circumstances.
Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz 11 hours ago
I will judge people who go drive in the snow and don’t even take a few minutes to do donuts in a parking lot to figure how the car behaves.
BanMe@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
Being a Northerner in the South, I just shake my head at some of the bizarre things people do with their vehicles. Riding around getting high with your friends in your car, smashing your front bumper through snow plow piles crossing streets? Bet you enjoy the $8k in damage to the electronics in that thing when you realize the plastic bumper and radar are destroyed and falling off. Taking a gravel shovel to your car’s hood to dig it out? Yeah there’s still a car under there, you’ll remember when you see the paint damage. Put a tarp over your car? Good luck getting it off when it’s encased in a 200lb ice shell. Even the folks who stick their wipers straight up… what you think that’s gonna do exactly? Not save you any time, that’s for sure, now you gotta carve the ice around them carefully instead of just scraping across it in one movement, and the wipers will be too warped to be useful until they warm up, which you can’t do because they aren’t touching the windshield.
Just leaving the car be and then starting it for a bit before pushing the ice off is fine… hell I’ve deiced my car with a piece of cardboard and a credit card plenty of times.
Omgpwnies@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
Not to mention for the wipers up bit, it’ll stretch out the spring that provides the tension needed to hold it to the window, so even after the wipers thaw, they’ll still work for shit, but now they’ll work for shit forever!