Getting snowed in

[myoho]

We are forecast heavy snow tomorrow. I live at the very end of a long windy road which is downhill. I park on my own driveway. In the past when we've had heavy snow I have been snowed in either because I can't get up the hill and/or because other vehicles are stranded up the road.

This is my first winter in a new job and my manager expects me to park my car away from my house on the main road so I can get to work. AIBU to worry that my car might get damaged by someone ploughing into it in bad weather and/or my insurance company would not pay up if they did as I clearly state that my car is parked on my drive overnight?

Would you do this?

To assist:-

You are very likely to be insured in you park away from your house occasionally.

You have an obligation to get to work if you possibly can. That includes taking reasonable measures; such as parking away from the house, or getting a taxi.

Your employer would not reasonably be expected to fund a taxi.

Your employer is not unreasonable in their expectations of you.

Best of luck

[quote MotherExtraordinaire]@Aiaiaicorona
Great for you.
I'm sure that if you were killed trying to get in, your work would miss you for that shift and by the next an interim replacement would have been put in place.
I'm sure however, that your family would be devastated.
Yes you have a commitment. But don't turn this into who can be the biggest martyr if it's not safe and if the police advise against travel.[/quote]
Well if I didn’t get in the ICU patients would have had to make do with either unsafe staffing levels or being looked after by tired staff who have alreAdy worked 15hours +. Not sure how deadly driving in the snow at 15mph is to be honest?!

@myoho do you know anyone wit a Landrover who might help you ?
We have an emergency 4x4 response team here innthid hilly county. They will pick up nursing stafff etc.

Perfectly reasonable for you to be expected to leave your car in an accessible place enabling you to get to work in view of your job. What do you think other people in key worker roles do?

Your insurance question is where do you “normally park your car overnight” it’s not a demand. You can always say that your drive was blocked and you parked elsewhere. Insurance will cover that.

In your shoes I would leave car where you think is the most accessible and safest. I lived in a location sounding similar. My parents still do and left their car on the main road last week to make sure that they could get to their vaccine appointment

What a fuss over nothing

I'd park the car on the main road. One or two nights parked somewhere else is not unreasonable. Given your job your manager is being reasonable in expecting every effort to be made, your length of service makes no difference.

It's a Sunday and so there will be fewer people out and about especially at the time you wish to travel.

Book a taxi and be prepared to meet it on a main road. Leave extra time.

@Aiaiaicorona
Are you not aware that the number of Road traffic fatalities increase every year if there was snow?

I presume that you're also aware that ice and snow tend to go hand in hand. And guess what, more accidents in ice.... So OK if you get to work in the lovely fluffy stuff, not so good if you don't make it back home because of the ice after....

I'm surprised that all of these supposed NHS medical professionals are so reckless in their responses. I thought your morals were all based around protecting life.

@MotherExtraordinaire

Good lord, it’s snow for goodness sake and it really is not a reason to stay at home. If everyone decided to stay at home every time it snowed/there was a yellow weather warning it would be chaos. People are getting a very risk averse, without seeming to think of the consequences. It’s bordering on pathetic really. I sometimes wonder if there is any resilience left in a significant proportion of the population. The most likely outcome of venturing out in the snow is really not death. It really isn’t. And if you aren’t confident to drive in the snow, use another form of transport. They do exist.

Honestly, I don’t know how most of the people around here survive the winter! I think I must have had a terribly lucky escape, reading your posts perhaps I should be surprised I am not dead by now because we get snow EVERY winter. Quite often deep snow and we often have sub-zero temperatures (especially overnight) for long periods. It is an expected part of life. If we all just refused to leave the house every time it snowed, we’d grind to a halt. I would spend weeks not at work, children not at school. How we’d get food is beyond me (as after all, we couldn’t go out to get food and nobody could be expected to deliver given how dangerous it is). I think sometimes you just need to put your big girl pants on, be prepared as best you can and have a back up plan if you don’t feel confident driving in the snow (e.g. walk to bus stop and get a bus, use the train or get a taxi).

What about scandinavia? Or alpine Europe. Or large parts of the USA and canada? They manage to carry on for the most part, only really stopping in very deep snow and very cold weather.

I'm surprised that all of these supposed NHS medical professionals are so reckless in their responses. I thought your morals were all based around protecting life.

How on earth do you imagine emergency services keep running in the snow if you imagine workers just stay at home in case it is risky? Healthcare workers are regularly expected to put themselves at risk in order to do their job.

Are you for real? NHS staff should encourage absolutely everyone to stay at home if it snows to save lives? So, if all the staff who work for the NHS simply stopped going to work in the snow then what exactly do you think will happen?

Lots of people not getting in if it is snowing is a very different proposition to the odd person being off sick, for which there should be contingency plans. That’s different to virtually everyone deciding it’s too dangerous to venture out in the snow.

If all NHS staff simply stayed at home when it snows (or is icy- incidentally heavy rain also increases the number of RTA’s, so maybe we should also stay at home if it is raining heavily or windy?), then this would make the safe care of patients impossible. As even the people on shift who presumably would not be able to leave (as getting home would almost certainly equal death, surely?) would not be able to work for days on end until the snow and the ice melt.

What about district nurses who HAVE to travel to their patients- would you be happy if no-one bothered to turn up to them for days on end? In our area, it is rare that DN’s don’t get to a patient. Same goes for home carers- if they all refuse to leave the house if it snows/there is a yellow weather warning what happens to all the people who rely on them?

Honestly, snow is not a reason to stay at home the vast majority of the time. It can mean modification to journeys, taking alternative routes/leaving later etc.

@MotherExtraordinaire How much snowfall is the cut off for me to look out the window and think “no sack it, I’ll protect the NHS and stay home by making my colleagues even more overworked so that there are potential errors/theatre lists need to be cancelled due to staff shortages and cancer patients don’t get their treatment”?

Can I ask what you do for a job seeing as you have so many great ideas on how the NHS should work in the event of snow????

[quote jacks11]@MotherExtraordinaire

Good lord, it’s snow for goodness sake and it really is not a reason to stay at home. If everyone decided to stay at home every time it snowed/there was a yellow weather warning it would be chaos. People are getting a very risk averse, without seeming to think of the consequences. It’s bordering on pathetic really. I sometimes wonder if there is any resilience left in a significant proportion of the population. The most likely outcome of venturing out in the snow is really not death. It really isn’t. And if you aren’t confident to drive in the snow, use another form of transport. They do exist.

Honestly, I don’t know how most of the people around here survive the winter! I think I must have had a terribly lucky escape, reading your posts perhaps I should be surprised I am not dead by now because we get snow EVERY winter. Quite often deep snow and we often have sub-zero temperatures (especially overnight) for long periods. It is an expected part of life. If we all just refused to leave the house every time it snowed, we’d grind to a halt. I would spend weeks not at work, children not at school. How we’d get food is beyond me (as after all, we couldn’t go out to get food and nobody could be expected to deliver given how dangerous it is). I think sometimes you just need to put your big girl pants on, be prepared as best you can and have a back up plan if you don’t feel confident driving in the snow (e.g. walk to bus stop and get a bus, use the train or get a taxi).

What about scandinavia? Or alpine Europe. Or large parts of the USA and canada? They manage to carry on for the most part, only really stopping in very deep snow and very cold weather.[/quote]
European countries that have frequent snow are set up for thta weather in the same way that Asian and African countries are set up for hot weather. We're not set for either!

Given the snow AND ice warnings for swathes of the country the arrogance on this thread is amazing!

Anyone ever crashed as a result of ice and snow? I have twice. And I would not ever go against the advice again! I value life too much.
You may not. And that's fine.
Let's hope that your children never have to suffer the pain of you being injured, or worst being forever lost to them as a result?

[quote Aiaiaicorona]@MotherExtraordinaire How much snowfall is the cut off for me to look out the window and think “no sack it, I’ll protect the NHS and stay home by making my colleagues even more overworked so that there are potential errors/theatre lists need to be cancelled due to staff shortages and cancer patients don’t get their treatment”?

Can I ask what you do for a job seeing as you have so many great ideas on how the NHS should work in the event of snow????[/quote]
I wonder how many of you live rurally? Not in a built up area with all gritted roads.

Before this role, I worked in a role that included a NHS nursing element that funnily enough had plans in place for such inclement weather, including how it would manage on skeleton staff and plans based on the distance that staff worked, so that contingency plans re who could walk or ger to a point that an organised minibus could get to. These plans were necessary as it was a key service that ran 365 days a year and had many staff, who like me at the time, lived 50 to 70 miles away.

It's your responsibility to find a way to get into work - you either need to park on the road or get a cab. I can't see your employer paying for a cab - you can't claim getting to your normal place of work as an expense.

It's something people do. I can tell when snow is forecast as I'm driving home as I see all the cars parked on the edge of the estate. Our estate seems to get snowed in easier than other areas and we're surrounded by fairly main bus routes that get gritted so if you can get off the estate then normally you'll be fine.

@MotherExtraordinaire

You are ridiculous. No, I’ve never had an accident purely because of ice. That’s not to say that I never will. I have, however, had an accident due to a deer jumping out and practically landing on my bonnet. This was at night. Perhaps I should stop driving at night? I’ve also had an accident when an idiot tried to overtake on a blind bend and couldn’t quite make it.

If I never ventured out in the event of snow/ice/high winds or rain, I’d spend much of the winter stuck indoors. Instead, I am sensible enough to make sure I take appropriate precautions and only stay at home if absolutely necessary. Which has been only a few occasions. The appropriate precautions I take are the following: because I live rurally, with single track roads that are not usually cleared by a snow plow (and if they are, tends to be later on in the day) I have an appropriate vehicle for where I live; I put on winter tyres in the winter, and change them to more appropriate tyres in the spring; I keep my car well maintained; I have blankets/snow shovel etc in the car if it’s really cold or snowy. But if I didn’t get to work every time the weather wasn’t great, I would be sacked. Rightly so. And my children would spend much of the winter out of school. It’s not arrogance, it’s called being responsible and sensible.

So I ask again- if everyone takes your attitude and does not go to work what do you think will happen? Hospitals will be unable to care for patients, community nurses will not provide care to their patients, carers will not provide care to the elderly and vulnerable clients they help. Ambulances will not attend emergencies, ditto police and fire service. Oh, and nobody will clear the roads to allow those emergency services to get where to where they are needed as safely as possible, as you can’t possibly expect the snow plows/salt spreaders to be out and about in the SNOW, can you?

What about vets? If they all took your attitude- well if an animal is sick it will just have to suffer as it is not safe to be out in bad weather.

There would be nobody to run other essential services- e.g. power and utilities. So, if power lines go down, for instance, you’ll just have to manage for however long without heating/light/running water etc.

Obviously, I wouldn’t advocate going out for a non-essential shopping trip or a drive for a picnic or to pop out for a coffee or something like that. But yes, I would expect you to go to work, especially if you work in an essential role, unless it is genuinely impossible or very unsafe. If you don’t feel confident driving in the snow, find an alternative way in.

And if your employer managed with skeleton staff, that means SOME people must have had to go out in bad weather. Or the service would have halted completely. So what you really mean is that someone else can go out, just not you.

And yes, I do live rurally. Very rurally, in a mountainous area. I accept that as part of living here I need to be prepared for travel in inclement weather.

Anyone ever crashed as a result of ice and snow? I have twice. And I would not ever go against the advice again! I value life too much.You may not. And that's fine.
Let's hope that your children never have to suffer the pain of you being injured, or worst being forever lost to them as a result?

Let's hope that your children aren't negatively impacted by your severe diagnosis of drama queen syndrome

A few years when I couldn't get to work nor could the people I worked with. Our home manager came out in her car to pick us up, just had to get to the main road.

I ended up stay there for 3 nights because i work nights.

www.theaa.com/driving-advice/seasonal/how-to-drive-in-snow

See above @MotherExtraordinaire

Imagine if everyone just stayed home with a sprinkling of snow. You say people saying to go to work have never lived rurally and I haven’t you’re right, just like the majority of the population of the U.K. The country can’t just grind to a halt because of snow. My friends who live rurally tend to have 4x4’s or winter tyres to overcome the troublesome roads. My old street was impassible in snow/ice so as I said previously I used to park it 15 minutes walk away, put my salopettes and snow boots and walk. Even at 18 that’s just what I did.

I do think you could find Aimee get to park at the top of the hill? Maybe not on the main road, just a side road at the top of the hill.

Imagine if everyone that worked at the care home just said "I can't get in".

You've got to make a real effort, that's the nature of your job.