To think there is a complete over reaction to a bit of snow?

[MycatsaPirate]

Firstly I'm on the south coast of England but I lived in Scotland for 23 years where they get proper snow. It wasn't unusual to have months of icy pavements and roads and it was regularly below zero.

The amount of snow that has fallen in England (particularly the south) is pitiful and the BBC have devoted their entire morning to it. Reporting live from Canterbury is some poor reporter who has to pan the camera round to the grass where it looks like they may have had a heavy frost.

I have already seen two threads about ice and snow and how they can't possibly leave the house today.

Every single time there is snow in England, the whole place seems to grind to a halt. It's actually embarrassing.

1cm of snow is not dramatic, nor will it stop you going about your daily life. Just wrap up warm and leave earlier than usual.

Scotland, I apologise for the BBC this morning. You must all have been cringing into your cornflakes.

[derxa]

Yes that poor bloody man in Canterbury

[wifeyhun]

We have had a good few inches here in Staffs, one child at school, the other ones school shut. We were all prepared to walk but the roads are completely grid locked I guess the teachers can't get in.

[mambono5]

Oh YABU

Canada is a lot worst than Scotland in the winter, and they cope beautifully.

We don't have the right equipment here, but it wouldn't be cost efficient to kit the whole country for snow, would it? Do you want to pay more tax to plan for a couple of days we might have?

It's sheer ice here. It only snow for a couple of hours, but it was heavy enough and today the main roads are ok, but the small ones are not. It's dangerous. It's too icy to go on your daily life I am afraid. Schools are sensible, allowing people to take more time to arrive today instead of rushing and having accidents.

I am bored of the smug attitude, I am fine so others should be too. I hope elderly people are staying inside instead of falling down and breaking a limb.

Start a petition demanding an increase in your council tax to deal with snow if you want. When there's not enough people to arrange weekly rubbish collection and other essential items, I am not sure you will go very far.

[KitKat1985]

I'm in the South East too. I do agree that people down here do massively over-react to snow. I think it's partly excitement and wanting a day off from work / school, as there seem to be a lot of people who are very quick to announce they are 'unable to get to work' and the schools down here will take a snow day for any small amount of snow. Whereas I guess if we had snow all the time we couldn't get away with being off work / school for several weeks at a time.

[OvariesBeforeBrovaries]

I have already seen two threads about ice and snow and how they can't possibly leave the house today.

One of these is mine, and we don't live in England, but your scorn is appreciated

Snow by itself isn't a problem. Ice, high winds, uncertain forecasts for later and long, rural journeys to work? I'm not going to apologise for asking whether it's worth risking it, sorry

[NickMyLipple]

It's taken me an hour and a half to go 10 miles this morning because idiots are driving at 5mph and braking every time a car comes the other way - this is dangerous!!!

[pho3be]

Yabu its extremely icy here, cars slipping about all over the place. People don't know how to drive in these conditions & should stay at home!

[TheWoodlander]

People live further away from their work/schools now than in days of yore. More drivers on the road, travelling further.

I did actually start the journey to school this morning, and there are about 10 cars abandoned on the side of the main road (presumably from last night when the snow started).

And yes, when the infrastructure isn't in place to deal with snow, because it happens so rarely, then things grind to a halt.

[PollyPerky]

YANBU
I think we've all got soft.
When I was a child there was never ever a 'snow day' at school. Sometimes there was a 'boiler broken down' day but it rarely coincided with snow.
I used to walk to school - one mile each way- in severe snow, drifts high into the hedges each side of the road. People who had cars managed fine. Maybe they knew how to drive in snow more than they do now. This was in The North mind you.

Now it's a national emergency if there are a couple of inches.

[AlcoChocs]

I don't understand why the pavements can't be gritted/salted. Even a tiny amount of snow can make pavements very slippery and a nightmare for people already a bit unsteady on their feet.

[fourpawswhite]

Yanbu.

Scotland here, people here to have gone mad. I went to work yesterday, then around six inches of snow landed. It was carnage. There were six accidents on the high street that I saw, goodness knows how many more. The streets were empty, everyone just vanished. Staff in office were getting hysterical.

I live miles away on a hill farm. Dh made me learn to drive in the snow years ago, and he clears the local valley roads. I left work in daylight, mainly because the police were asking people not to drive at rush hour. The statement released was that people were to remain indoors as they were not adjusting to the weather conditions and were unable to drive in same.

The roads were indeed very slippy. However I witnessed lots of silly driving, overtaking, speeding, driving to close to the car infront. I am not a confident driver and would stay at home if it was really bad. I was shaken by the time I got home but more by what I had witnessed rather than the actual road conditions.

[C8H10N4O2]

mambono5 yes that nails it.

I've worked in wintertime in Snowbound US, Scandinavia and others. I've also worked a Winter in Edinburgh where they didn't cope any better than Manchester.

Countries that invest in bad weather transport and infrastructure do so because it happens year in and year out. When London transport is frozen to a standstill getting out the car for a motorway trip isn't an alternative. People buy the insulated boots and clothing, keep snowchains in teh cars etc because they have to every year.

Media goes bonkers usually because they are having a slack news period (or a repetitive news period).

[AliceInUnderpants]

YABU, just for generalising about "Scotland". Scotland is a pretty big place and has different weathers.
Barely anything here (in Scotland!)

[shovetheholly]

I don't think channels like the BBC realise how funny us lot in the north finds the 'EMERGENCY- THERE HAS BEEN A SNOWFLAKE IN LONDON' stories. It does feel like there's a bit of a media bubble around the areas where journos tend to live and work!

[BathshebaDarkstone]

Not in my bit of London Buggerit

[C8H10N4O2]

This was in The North mind you.

Aye - in my day we walked 15 miles up hill to school in the snow, and another 15 miles uphill to get home.

[Herschellmum]

My husband and I have a right laugh at the craziness of it, we live in South Wales so snow Isn't that common, in the fats 6 years we have had one episode of actual snow. Today my mum called to say they can't leave the house because of the snow, it's already melted now.

My husband is Scottish and we lived there for a few years so I find it crazy how much we over react. Not sure if it's the same everywhere but here in Wales if there is a hint of snow everyone panic buys up 20 loves of bread and trolley fulls of milk, I still have not figured out why people need to eat more bread when there is risk of snow, but the supermarkets run out!

However that being said there is massive differences how we are geared to handle the snow here and in Scotland. For example the roads are treated the entire winter with some wet anti freeze with grit, it's amazing for keeping the roads clear although hell on your car, here in South Wales we have just grit out down only when there is a high chance of snow. Also I'm Scotland they have snow ploughs on every grit truck whereas here I don't think they have one at all!

Also cars and drivers are more geared up, understand how to drive in the snow and are more experienced in the snow, when it's heavy snow they still manage to keep one lane open on major motorways and dual carriageways, where here the council just give up and go home, people just adandom their cars in all sorts of stupid places and people don't take the safest routes. Also here in South Wales everything seems to be built in a hill, whereas in comparison residential areas were more on a level gradient in comparison.

My parents I'll is quite steep and it makes it hard to get out, then people despite being able to avoid the steep hill still drive down and up it like they always do, which results in cars sliding all over the street every time!

I guess the fact snow is uncommon makes us less likely to invest in winter tyres and snow chains (not that we actually ever need snow chains), so we are less set for it too.

The media reporting is way over the top, but I guess January is a slow news month, media will jump on anything and it's good for ecconmy because people will go panic buy and buy salt, wonder tyres, shovels, etc for the pending doom of being snowed in for months straight 😂

But yes, Scotland; sorry if you are having to watch our snow reporting, it's a bit embarrassing!

[C8H10N4O2]

media bubble around the areas where journos tend to live and work

SO in the case of the BBC and ITV that would be Salford?

[KayTee87]

Haha yeah I'm in Scotland and I don't think it's actually all that bad just now (other areas are worse affected than where I am though)
I remember the snow we got in either 2009/2010 was so bad people had to sleep in their cars on the motorway overnight
Having a hard time keeping our house warm enough for our baby though even with oil heaters left on overnight - had to bring him in the bed with us at 5 this morning.

[empirerecordsrocked]

I'm in the SE, little bit of snow, mostly ice this morning. Dts are in school.

I thought the roads were quiet and it turns out the school next door to theirs is closed - ludicrous. It's literally next door.

[Huldra]

I'm in the South and all we got was a short blast of wet snow, it is icy out there but everything is working as expected. The roads have all been gritted and the traffic is flowing, which happens often in the winter when ice is expected. It's a normal winters day and we haven't ground to a halt.

The media seem over joyed that there is a story that isn't Trump or Brexit and are making as much of it as possible. Whenever you get ice on roads and heavy rush hour traffic it only takes one person to make a mistake and hours of delays are created. Some of it will be normal driving stupidity, some lack of winter driving skills. I live in a very traffic congested area and the roads frequently come to a standstill for acidents and road works. If a lane on the motorway closes 5 miles away it isn't unheard of that I won't be able to get out of my road, or it will take me 2 hours to drive 7 miles home from work on a route that doesn't touch the motorway.

This time the media can show the same delays but with a smattering of snow for extra excitement. I think there is an element that it is a media created story rather than the geneal public wringing their hands. This Morning are always able to make a story out of nothing. I love it when they do a small poll, or investigation and then create a mornings program around it. Or they get a politician to say something, then you get the quote referred to over and over and over an over again, you heard it here on This Morning. I can see the producers jumping up and down in excitement when the warnings first came out, nice easy content for Thursday.

Of course in other parts of the country the conditions are much worse and un gritted rural roads can be lethal without any snow. Snow chains are only useful in proper snow and aren't going to help on an icy slushy road. Some parts of the country are having problems rather than the uk has ground to a halt fo snow. Heathrow did cancel flight yesterday but that was to avoid problems from occurring because of how tight their scheduling is.

[ILostItInTheEarlyNineties]

I saw a dad pulling his child along in a sledge this morning. There's less than 1 cm here and a bit of frost.

The sledge was literally dragging along the pavement making a terrible noise.

[TheViceOfReason]

We very very rarely get "months" of snow in North Scotland either (unless you are talking about the cairngorms of course).

2010 was terrible - we had -18 and 2 feet of snow for a month. But since then we've had an inch or two of snow each winter that's lasted a few days.

It's really not a big deal and i am perpetually bemused by people who seem to think Scotland gets snow like Sweden / Norway etc do. It just doesn't.

My facebook feed is filled with locals harping on about the bloody snow - there was about 1cm last night! It's January - what do people expect??

It's not hard, put an extra jumper on, leave 15-30 minutes earlier and drive sensibly. If you are frightened to drive in the "snow" then don't - you will simply slow all traffic and cause problems.

[FairyHoneydragonTwinkleScrotum]

1cm of snow is not dramatic, nor will it stop you going about your daily life. Just wrap up warm and leave earlier than usual

I fell over this morning. Clearly here we have 1cm of MURDER SNOW! Please send in the Armed Forces immediately. It's a crisis. My knee is bruised.

[Bec21]

Once London get it it's a tragedy!!!!!