London suffered from one of the worst snow storms in a decade yesterday and only now are we slowly getting back to normal. Having lived in the countryside all my life I have come accustom to the occasional snow shower but it was quite novel to have so much in London.
What surprised me most was how quickly the public transport system ground to a halt. Surely trains should be able to operate in snow and quite how it affects the underground system is beyond me. It meant we operated the office with only half the staff being able to make it in but due to the joys of VoIP and remote working (selling it means we should be able to use it!) nearly the whole workforce were able to work from home and our clients received the same high level of service.
A couple of points I would like to raise is that if global warming for the UK means wet summers, and by wet I mean proper floods and the winter means snow then surely we need to have a policy to get people into 4x4s? Otherwise our workforce isn’t going to be able to get to work. Sound a bit silly? Well our economy can’t function without people working, so if public transport doesn’t work how do the greens expect people to move about?
Secondly I spend a bit of time each year skiing and these countries seem to manage ok when they have feet of snow let alone a few inches. One of the major differences is that they use winter tyres by law on all their vehicles. Maybe a policy for all buses and taxis to use winter tyres between November to April will help to keep Britain moving in times of bad weather? They make a massive difference and would help when the gritters aren’t enough to keep the roads clear. Interesting fact for you is that we are unable to snow plough our roads in the UK because of our cat’s eyes which you will notice are missing on the roads in Europe.
Thirdly the best form of transport for the deep snow or ice? A foldaway bicycle! I managed successfully to commute in over the past two days without any bother and surprisingly found it easier than walking. Also when I did hit that patch of black ice I didn’t have far to fall.
A caveat to this – on the monday all the snow came, the only tottenham hotspur players who made it in to training were the ones driving their 4×4 range rovers. The ones who chose to use thier bentleys, aston martins, etc, all got stuck in the snow!