[quote jacks11]@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.[/quote]
What alternative mode of transport would you suggest? For those thta live rurally. It takes us 40 minutes to get to a town. So should rural residents ride a horse to work?
Again, great if you live in an urban area and work locally. Not so if you're rural.
Why do so many schools close in snow and bad weather? Yet they too are essential services.