Cold Spell Discussion

[madge]

Started snowing very light just!!!

[The PIT]

Has anyone ever actually sued someone for slipping on a surface they've salted? I just wonder if it's another example of one of these rumours which starts with no basis in truth?

The temperature's starting to drop again quickly here with a new record low right now of -14.2C

Very difficult to prove as you always have to prove malice so unlikely that anyones being sued although no doubt a few ambulance chasers have tried.

[NorthNorfolkWeather]

So you think we've got it bad? I spent a winter working in Finland, and that year, where I was it got to -19, look at the attached graphic, where I was working is -21C.

And we didn't hit the REAL cold until the beginning of February!! In Fact we'd only had one snowfall to this point

[TonyH]

Low of -16.7c @ 0630, beautiful, feels just like 81/82 out there, and with windows panes painted with ice leaves to boot!

Hope the car starts?

Edited January 8, 2010 by Tonyh

[CLH the red dragon]

Very difficult to prove as you always have to prove malice so unlikely that anyones being sued although no doubt a few ambulance chasers have tried.

Malice? In a personal injury claim? Not needed at all. You just have to show that a duty of care is owed, that the duty was breached and that the accident was reasonably forseeable.

At the moment, taking reasonable efforts to clear your entrance would be enough. Courts are very unlikely to sympathise very much.

Edited January 8, 2010 by CLH the red dragon

[drgl]

Most Misleading Quote this Winter: 'The UK has been only 2 deg warmer than the south pole!' as used repeatedly on tonight's BBC News at 6 o'clock and reiterated in the local forecasts.

Okay if your a layman and know FA about geography, your reaction would be: "Woahhh!!!'.

If your reasonably well-educated you will release that the South Pole is in the Southern Hemisphere and as such its the height of summer over there! Therefore your reaction would be: 'Oh cmon you b*****ds your not fooling me! Talk about stretching the truth '.

Indeed!! Exactly what is said to my wife when they came out with that one.

[Optimus Prime]

Yes - absolute rubbish how they generalise the Antarctic as being warmer when it's so vast is beyond me.

[drgl]

What are peoples thoughts on this being a "once in 30 years event"? I seem to recall hearing similar when i lived & worked in Shrewbsury re:the floods, trouble is it did it again just as bad within years(if not the next year-can't remember TBH).

[Rich44]

Malice? In a personal injury claim? Not needed at all. You just have to show that a duty of care is owed, that the duty was breached and that the accident was reasonably forseeable.

At the moment, taking reasonable efforts to clear your entrance would be enough. Courts are very unlikely to sympathise very much.

North Norfolk council trotted out the liability argument as an excuse to not grit pavements and car parks, interview with a guy from ABI said it's rubbish you're safer gritting as you've shown a duty of care by gritting

[David H]

A couple of points here about gritting.

First if anyone can find a salt supplier let the Councils know. You have every single council asking for salt from suppliers.

We're told that the suppliers stock pile has run out and any salt supplied now is directly mined and loaded into boats.

You have to have the plant machinery and personel to mine it 24/7. Its been 3 weeks of constant mining. Obviously salt at the suppliers can't be stockpiled.

Secondly, if the Councils do get salt, how do you spread it when the vehicles and staff have been working round the clock. Drivers are only allowed to drive for a certain length of time.

One point to mention is that all other road related works have stopped. All the potholes still require filling and water, freezing and roads do not mix well.

I know they're trying their best, but as always the best is never enough for some folk.

There's been colder spells but its the length of the spell. Do the Councils keep equipment and staff to cope with a one in 30 year event. Council tax would go up, what an uproar.

[Osbourne One-Nil]

-14.8º overnight here, and The River Eden, outside my office, is frozen!

[Iceni]

A couple of points here about gritting.

First if anyone can find a salt supplier let the Councils know. You have every single council asking for salt from suppliers.

We're told that the suppliers stock pile has run out and any salt supplied now is directly mined and loaded into boats.

You have to have the plant machinery and personel to mine it 24/7. Its been 3 weeks of constant mining. Obviously salt at the suppliers can't be stockpiled.

Secondly, if the Councils do get salt, how do you spread it when the vehicles and staff have been working round the clock. Drivers are only allowed to drive for a certain length of time.

One point to mention is that all other road related works have stopped. All the potholes still require filling and water, freezing and roads do not mix well.

I know they're trying their best, but as always the best is never enough for some folk.

There's been colder spells but its the length of the spell. Do the Councils keep equipment and staff to cope with a one in 30 year event. Council tax would go up, what an uproar.

Are you saying the that the Cheshire salt mine (one of the largest in the world) only cranks into action once there's a demand i.e. once snow's fallen? I find that very hard to believe.

As for council tax going up because of extra salt/grit stocks, that's rubbish, it's the labour, transporting and spreading the stuff which is expensive 30% of the cost wouldn't count if it was more a DIY locality specific regimen. They could have 'grit bins' placed in strategic places on streets so people or shopkeepers could spread the stuff themselves.

In 1963, the council came round after the first few days and dumped a huge pile of grit beside the lane on our 1:7 hill — we spread it on the extra-steep bit at the top and sort of managed. Front-wheel drive cars were fairly rare and usually only farmers or the Army had 4x4s in those days.

[Thundery wintry showers]

And as I mentioned earlier- it's not enough to grit and be done with, you need to grit enough to make sure the walkways are clear. Otherwise you end up with half-melted slush and ice which is more dangerous than snow. My old school used to do its "duty of care" by gritting the yard and as a result I slipped on the half-melted slush and ice on several occasions during snowy spells there. I notice that at UEA most of the main pathways are being cleared using shovels rather than just gritted, which prevents that problem from arising.

Regarding "duty of care", some aspects of the system are pretty screwed. If a minority's abuse of something is a health and safety risk, and you clamp down specifically on the abusers, and your method turns out to be less than foolproof, you risk being sued because you haven't done what is deemed necessary- namely legislating for idiots by punishing the many because of the few. If you do the latter, you won't get sued even if your method is totally ineffective (in my experience banning of snowball fights in schools is a classic example- they say it's necessary because if you ban just irresponsible snowballing, you can't always tell if people are throwing snowballs irresponsibly- but a blanket ban does nothing to address that problem either).

Of course there's more to it than the circular reasoning surrounding "the few have to spoil it for the many", there's the authoritarian line that you have to be as "hard" as possible (hang 'em and flog 'em) and that anything that involves compromise (e.g. trying to minimise inconvenience to the responsible law-abiding majority) is too "soft" and thus mustn't work. It all leads to the same thing.

However, although South Tyneside Council banned conkers fairly recently for the same reasons as why snowball fights are banned in schools, I don't see much sign of councils banning playing in the snow... yet.

[Iceni]

Almost forgot— can I be the first to coin the phrase 'Post-even larger teapot' on here? <ducks and runs>

[David H]

Are you saying the that the Cheshire salt mine (one of the largest in the world) only cranks into action once there's a demand i.e. once snow's fallen? I find that very hard to believe.

As for council tax going up because of extra salt/grit stocks, that's rubbish, it's the labour, transporting and spreading the stuff which is expensive 30% of the cost wouldn't count if it was more a DIY locality specific regimen. They could have 'grit bins' placed in strategic places on streets so people or shopkeepers could spread the stuff themselves.

In 1963, the council came round after the first few days and dumped a huge pile of grit beside the lane on our 1:7 hill — we spread it on the extra-steep bit at the top and sort of managed. Front-wheel drive cars were fairly rare and usually only farmers or the Army had 4x4s in those days.

What I'm saying is that yes they do mine constantly throughout the year and stockpile it, but you can only stockpile so much. When demand inceases like it has just now that stockpile rapidly diminishes to meet the massive demand. Once that stockpile goes then it goes directly from mining to customer. I wonder how much plant and machinery is required just now to meet the demand.

As for the council tax going up it wasn't rubbish, you misunderstood. If the councils had to buy more plows, plant and employee more staff to be ready for this type of event in the future then all this would have to be paid for.

As for grit bins, how many would you need, how many people would need to be employed to keep them stocked. Do you use the rapidly diminishing salt stocks to fill grit bins or keep the main roads clear.

In an ideal world you could do all that, you could have hundreds of plows, hundreds of vehicles, thousands of tons of salt stockpiled but it all costs money - and then it rains all winter !

As you know 1963 was a world away, times have changed everyone wants things done for them instead of doing it for themselves. How may people have cleared the footway in front of their own house just now.

[Thundery wintry showers]

Almost forgot— can I be the first to coin the phrase 'Post-modern winter' on here? <ducks and runs>

"Post-modern winter" is a pretty good one. Another one I thought of was "Modern Winter of Discontent" (after all, we're having economic recession issues- just as we did back in 1979).

[Polar Gael]

Almost forgot— can I be the first to coin the phrase 'Post-even larger teapot' on here? <ducks and runs>

I believe that phrase may have been deployed on this forum at the end of November 2009, but it's more apposite than ever now.

Unless of course, this winter turns out to be a mere blip...

Edited January 8, 2010 by Polar Gael

[Backtrack]

Had a low of -7.3c overnight, it rose very quickly. -4.9c at 11am it's now -2.4c !

[Polar Gael]

"Post-even larger teapot" is a pretty good one. Another one I thought of was "even larger teapot of Discontent" (after all, we're having economic recession issues- just as we did back in 1979).

Or how about, in the best political makeover styley, the New even larger teapot.

I'll get my coat (and I'll need it: -6.2°C and foggy here this morning).

Edited January 8, 2010 by Polar Gael

[Richard Lake]

Regarding lack of salt.

The average person buys Table Salt perhaps once every 2 years? Therefore there must be a mountain of Table Salt somewhere.

Hey if the councils of Scarbrough and Cleethorpes are using sand from the Beach then surely its worth a try \o/

BTW last night on my local BBC big story regarding the condition of the actual road surface atm. The story was mainly focused in and around Hull, but the situation is pretty much the same in Grimsby. There are many roadworks planned here to take place during January and February on south-band routes of the town to repair roads which are riddled with huge potholes and uneven surfaces.

The council blames the cold conditions that have persisted throughout December until now. If you ask me its a case of cheap materials...

One of the main roads into my village was only resurfaced in October and already it is falling to pieces with road chippings spread everywhere and deep holes in the road surface. So yes, local councils trying to spend as little as possible.

Edited January 8, 2010 by rikki

[David H]

even larger teapot II; The polar revenge.

Either that or its the recession and the jetstream can't afford to put the heater on.

Regarding lack of salt.

The average person buys Table Salt perhaps once every 2 years? Therefore there must be a mountain of Table Salt somewhere.

Hey if the councils of Scarbrough and Cleethorpes are using sand from the Beach then surely its worth a try \o/

BTW last night on my local BBC big story regarding the condition of the actual road surface atm. The story was mainly focused in and around Hull, but the situation is pretty much the same in Grimsby. There are many roadworks planned here to take place during January and February on south-band routes of the town to repair roads which are riddled with huge potholes and uneven surfaces.

The council blames the cold conditions that have persisted throughout December until now. If you ask me its a case of cheap materials...

One of the main roads into my village was only resurfaced in October and already it is falling to pieces with road chippings spread everywhere and deep holes in the road surface. So yes, local councils trying to spend as little as possible.

Trying to get table salt just now is murder. I don't want salt for the footway I need it for my chips, our two year supply ran out last week.

We could always go and borrow salt from mcdonalds.

"spend as little as possible" = stretch the limited resources as far as possible

[cuckoo]

Love those pictures of the frozen river. Thanks for posting them Osbourne One-Nil.

[igloo]

the way this winter has been i would not be to surprised if feb was the mildest feb on record after all no one would have thought the past 4 weeks have been this cold the jet stream will come back in to its normal position shortly

[Crimson_Sprite]

I have to be honest here, but this cold snap has been nothing spectacular here in south wales. Yea we had a lot of snow for 1 to 2 days of the whole winter, but this is nothing out of the ordinary.

Here the snow has almosst gone anyway with the sun being out. yes its been cold, but its been cold and mostly sunny which is actually what I like. The adlantic weather is awfull here. It just misserable and damp.

Everyone here keeps talking about the East side of the country and the midlands but what about us welsh folk. Surely the breakdown would occur here much faster than the east side if the adlantic is pushing in.

Whats the mean charts saying about wales as a whole. I would imagine the temps here increasing a lot quicker and to more a degree than the east. I really dont want this break down to occur and hold hopes like everyone else because I love the sunshine even if it is -10 outside.

This is going to sound mad , but we have had snow for about 2-3 hours the whole time and its been light. We probably had about 1-2 CM maybe I was very unlucky.

I started a Snow Challenged Club in the Midlands Thread, sounds like you fit the criteria to join us! Rushden/Nottingham & Derby City have between 1cm---3.75cm since the new year. As much as I suffer the cold, I would prefer to have -10C and sun, than to have 7C and rain/cloud or whatever. 7C or even 5C just isnt winter to me

Bring on sub zero temps for the winter, and make winter PROUD TO BE CALLED WINTER. Only in March do I want to see the temps recover to 7C, then I am ready for Spring. Winter should be severe Blizzards and cold, and summer should be 30C heat and mega storms!!!

Edited January 8, 2010 by Crimson_Sprite

[butler_son]

Just out of interest, is that an English Channel Snow Streamer that's piling into the Cotentin Peninsula of France on the radar? Looks like places between Valognes and Isigny-sur-Mer are taking a pounding!