Slightest bit of snow and Birmingham grinds to a halt

Absolutely right my friend.

Near where I live/work there is a road which isn’t too bad (as roads go): it is flat, smooth and not over-looked by trees so no leaves or branches to block it, etc.
[b]BUT… [/b]
It is smooth and flat – so when it rains the water lays. I have aquaplaned on it at 35mph in quite good conditions, but then it is quite straight too so it wasn’t so bad. I feel that it has been luck that we haven’t had the kind of conditions – that I know of – where the road would be one large sheet of ice: pure murder the way most would usually drive on it.
But no-one will take any notice of this wonderful road until someone is killed, and maybe not even then.

Local authoritys don’t want to spend money on something which might not be needed, might not be utilised for year after year. I recall the story of a machine used to dig through snow drifts and uncover buried sunken lanes having to be borrowed by a local council from the collector who bought it after they decided that they didn’t need it.
Sometimes it is easier – and cheaper – to let things go ahead: employ dozens of men – on overtime – overnight to clear roads which will clear anyway since the weather reports show that there will be a thaw mid morning, [b]or[/b] let everyone be inconvenienced for a few hours, save on the wages and blame the weathermen for not being concise enough? Why do you think they don’t grit as many roads as they used to? I live between a primary and a junior school – there are kids around in the morning and in the late afternoon – but on Thursday morning the road was nice and slippery, some cars having scratched paintwork and lost wing mirrors from being brushed against by others that lost control: you imagine the row if a car lost it and hit a kid – which, thankfully, has not happened – we’d have gritting lorries down here until mid summer! Too late then, though.

Rant over.

Flood.

Look I’m not trying to say we should sit back and play the blame game. Simple fact of the matter is we pay council tax so that the council has the money to better prepare for this kind of weather. If you are saying it is up to us to deal with it then why not say the same about crime (ie. why blame the police for not catching criminals when most of us can take the law into are own hands)?
I pay my taxes under the belief that some of the money can go toward gritters and more ambulances and not on waste of money projects like the Birmingham Eye. 😡

Originally posted by dcfly
Tony Benn once said that our society would rather look for blame than the truth ………….I hear what your saying Flood, but surely we should take some responsibility rather than sit back and hope someone else does the job for us, whatever! I went out this morning and cleared the front path I didnt sit back and blame someone else for not doing it for me!!

dave

I blame John Loudon McAdam – we never had these problems before the roads were developed…

Flood.

I’d love to visit Norway.
I’d bring my sledge, and would be only to glad to see the snow.

I’m probably in old git territory too, but when I were lad, and there did seem to be more snow, you just got on with it.
Now its the “snowiest snow since snow began” every flaming year, and when it threatens to fall south of Newcastle, everybody gets the heebie jeebies.
ahem…….its winter!

Boy! is our society sad.

I hate to sound like the old git I probably am but in 1963, the worst winter I can remember, there were no gritting lorries but people coped. “When the going gets tough blame someone” sounds like an appropriate slogan for todays society!

dave

They won’t send a gritting lorry out on my say-so!:rolleyes:

Flood.

Tony Benn once said that our society would rather look for blame than the truth ………….I hear what your saying Flood, but surely we should take some responsibility rather than sit back and hope someone else does the job for us, whatever! I went out this morning and cleared the front path I didnt sit back and blame someone else for not doing it for me!!

dave

Er – it is not so much that someone has to be to blame for the weather, it is that someone has to be to blame for the way the public services never ever being ready for this sort of weather!

Flood.

Like, the politicians are responible for a cold front that move in from the arctic.!!
Why is it that when ever this country (UK) gets any kind of extreme weather condition there’s always someone who has to blame someone?? The simple fact is, we dont know how to cope with it, we try to go about our lives as normal as possible when we should be adapting, but no!! Its got to be the councils fault for not gritting the roads! or the weather mans fault for not telling exactly what time of day we should expect snow, or the supermarkets fault for putting up the price of soup!!!! come on people!! we all knew this was coming, we, us, ourselves should’ve been prepared.
I really do hate this blame culture we live, cant anyone take responsibilty for their own actions anymore? Theres far to many ivory towers out there!!

dave

well said

adam