Its not just us...

[jaysus]

...that struggle with snowy weather.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8489123.stm

This isn't the only motoring forum I'm a member of, and the amount of bleating over councils not gritting roads well enough mixed with the cries for mandatory winter tyres for the three days a year we normally get any snow annoyed me somewhat. (I could live with the endless "should I get a FWD car" posts because we'll all use any excuse for a new toy - thats fair enough.)

So I was relieved to see that even Germany (who are held on a pedestal by such people) haven't had an easy time of it. I feel in a bit of a minority in that I thought the way the councils managed things (or the ones I had dealings with - two councils in two counties on a daily basis) did a pretty reasonable job. I felt the issues were with people who were either massively overconfident, didn't have enough respect for the weather or didn't have any basic knowledge of how to best handle snowy conditions.



Feel better for that. That rant was a long time brewing.

 

[mjt]

Every time there's heavy snow in Oslo, there's chaos.
Airports are shut and it takes for pavements and roads to be plowed, gritted and salted.
Trains were delayed and all sorts.

Last year they ran out of place to store the snow they plouged off the motorway

Everybody has the same problems, it's just they don't moan about it as much

 

[[DOD]Asprilla]

In the two weeks after Xmas there was something like 400 accidents in and around Stuttgart because of the snow and the lack of grit.

140 people froze to death on Poland.

There was terrible damage caused by flooding in Spain.

The 'freak' weather conditions that turn this country into chaos do exactly the same for the rest of Europe.

 

[Felix]

I had a friend in Germany over xmas and she said round the Munich area it was just as bad as the UK, roads weren't gritted or hadn't been ploughed.

I was in Portugal over xmas and there was heavy rain for the 2 weeks I was there and at time there was heavy flooding across the main roads and some areas were only really passable in a 4x4.