Why the ballyheck do Brits not use winter tyres?

Superficial said:
Just taken a look at that document.

First thing to note is that the UK does better than equivalent sized nations even in a document that admits that the term accident is a legal definition that is different in many nations. It is also using data from 2009 in places.

The reason the WHO (which is an extremely respectable source) uses deaths per 100,000 is because this is a metric that can be used conclusively with little to no debate over what constitutes an RTA related death.
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Your missing my point mate.

Standards in the U.K. are falling, I don’t give a crap what some report from the WHO states, I’m just saying it from what I see - from behind the wheel of a bloody dangerous vehicle - yes, U.K. standards are good, that doesn’t mean we - or anybody else - is doing it right nor is there massive room for improvement.

Personally I find the drivers in Southern Spain and Cyprus especially far worse but, thankfully they don’t encounter snow too often.

But, alas, occasionally here we do and the vast vast majority of UK drivers have neither the ability or means (winter tyres in context of the thread) to counter it.

Superficial said:
Face it - your comments and general attitude say more about you as a person that hates your menial job than offer anything of substance on the state of UK drivers. You hate your job so you whinge about it using ignorant rants on the internet.

Undoubtedly UK drivers are not perfect and accidents and poor driving happen but that was not what you were saying - you were saying UK drivers are worse than others nationalities and you are wrong.
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Au contra ire mon ami, I love my job and take pride in it, I’ve driven professionally for ~ 22 years now and can’t imagine nor want to do anything different.

If I hated my job that much, would I really want to bring my HGV to the upcoming Motors meet?

We’re not going to square this circle, I guess agree to disagree is the exit route here.
 
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Scania said:
Your missing my point mate.

Standards in the U.K. are falling, I don’t give a crap what some report from the WHO states, I’m just saying it from what I see - from behind the wheel of a bloody dangerous vehicle - yes, U.K. standards are good, that doesn’t mean we - or anybody else - is doing it right nor is there massive room for improvement.

Personally I find the drivers in Southern Spain and Cyprus especially far worse but, thankfully they don’t encounter snow too often.

But, alas, occasionally here we do and the vast majority of UK drivers have neither the ability or means (winter tyres in context of the thread) to counter it.
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No one has missed your point. You are trying to move the goal posts. If you had posted that anecdote, that standards we falling, there'd be no issue. It wouldn't be supported by evidence but whatever.

What you actually did was decide that UK drivers were worse than others in spite of the evidence to the contrary and have failed to retract, let alone apologise for, your ignorant, baseless comments.

I mean seriously calling all UK drivers "Cretins" I mean why are you bothering to defend yourself.
 
Superficial said:
No one has missed your point. You are trying to move the goal posts. If you had posted that anecdote, that standards we falling, there'd be no issue. It wouldn't be supported by evidence but whatever.

What you actually did was decide that UK drivers were worse than others in spite of the evidence to the contrary and have failed to retract, let alone apologise for, your ignorant, baseless comments.

I mean seriously calling all UK drivers "Cretins" I mean why are you bothering to defend yourself.
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What part of in context of this thread don’t you get?

U.K. drivers can’t handle snow, not helped by the lack of winter tyres.

Looking back through my posts, I didn’t specifically mention “uk drivers are crap in snow” but, as I said, in the context of a thread about people being unable to drive in snow it should have been bleeding obvious!
 
Scania said:
What part of in context of this thread don’t you get?

U.K. drivers can’t handle snow, not helped by the lack of winter tyres.

Looking back through my posts, I didn’t specifically mention “uk drivers are crap in snow” but, as I said, in the context of a thread about people being unable to drive in snow it should have been bleeding obvious!
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LOL you realise this is an internet forum right? And people can simply re-read your posts. I have already quoted you SPECIFICALLY denigrating UK drivers exclusive of the snow tyres issue:

Scania said:
People don’t have a clue how to drive in the first place, never mind on summer tyres in snow,
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Scania said:
TLDR Winter tyres are great, British drivers tend to be cretins ergo winter tyres would be pointless.
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As if somehow someone is not a cretin when they decide to use winter tyres (which, as established, Uk drivers tend not to do anyway so even using your BS backtrack logic you are STILL saying the vast majority are Cretins)

Like I said cut it out. You made stupid and baseless comments - just admit it.​
 
someonehassaidhispeicefromaperspectiveoflivingonukroadsbutisignorantsothereforewrongbutfranklycouldndcareless.Jpg :P

Goodnight all.
 
[TW]Fox said:
Why isn't it?



Most people will encounter actual ice on the road perhaps a handful of days a year at the very most, otherwise it would be absolute carnage out there rather than pretty much the safest roads on the planet.

Winter tyres are absolutely fantastic in snow and the benefits are clear and obvious but the whole '7c' thing doesn't seem to be borne out by reality, the closest you get are generic charts showing the performance of the latest UHP Super Amazing Ultra Winter tyre against unnamed and generic 'Summer tyre', as if all tyres perform the same..

I've no axe to grind here - I've bought a set of winter wheels! But the reality is that they are simply unnecessary for most people in England.

We suffer flooding more often than we suffer snow, should all cars be forced to carry mandatory inflation rafts?
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You said it’s largely a myth that Winter tyres are generally better in on cold and icy conditions, then said that they’re better in icy conditions...

The problem is most of the tests never say at what temperature the wet and dry tests are done at either, so it works both ways.

Basically it boils down to - do you sacrifice some grip in marginal conditions (dry chilly roads) for much more grip in those times you may hit ice when the winter tyres will perform significantly better.

If you live in the south west/south coast then it’s be probably not worth it, but if you live further north then it may well be a good option.

Alternatively if you own a 4x4 a decent set of all seasons is a good option.

adolf hamster said:
nope, even a 3 series, with mine you can fit both fronts (225's) in the boot, but only 1 rear, so you'd have to put them on the rear seats.

which is fun when you've just bought a new set of wheels and the seller had tyre black on them, ever tried getting tyre black off cream leather? it's not fun.
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So moral of the story is that saloons aren’t very practical? On that (not) bombshell...:p

On the space issue you may well be able to store the wheels you aren’t using at a mechanics, which is what a lot of people do here if they don’t have anywhere to store them. No need to take them back and forwards to the mechanics if you don’t do it yourself.
 
Housey said:
No, no no no and no.

Stop this, it's silly.

Snow tyres are great in snow. Outside of that a good all round tyre is 100% fine.

I have never put snow tyres on any of my cars and though I have considered it for my wife's car it has stopped me doing nothing I needed to do or caused me pain I could not easily deal with.
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Agreed with you there. The size and tread of snow tyres makes them useless on road.

0179_F1_E4-3_B5_B-422_B-_AC2_C-_C5_E43_DCCD843.jpg


It’s why most people stick with winter tyres, usually good enough in snow covered roads... ;)
 
The problem is we dont see snow for prolonged periods in this country often enough. We had 1 or 2 bad nights in 2012 and a bad week in 2010. This winter has been odd in that we've had a couple of spells.

I have "professional" drivers that have refused to go out in better weather than this. @Scania is correct standards have fallen.....Or people use it as a get out
 
mattyg said:
The problem is we dont see snow for prolonged periods in this country often enough. We had 1 or 2 bad nights in 2012 and a bad week in 2010. This winter has been odd in that we've had a couple of spells.

I have "professional" drivers that have refused to go out in better weather than this. @Scania is correct standards have fallen.....Or people use it as a get out
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What "standards" are you referring to?

Scania was referring to standards of driving becoming poorer - how is that related to drivers not wishing to do their job in light snow presumably on safety grounds? Surely, within the context of this thread, things would be the opposite...drivers going out without the correct winter tyres?
 
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SDK^ said:
I'm sure it does only take an hour if you're familiar with changing tyres & wheels over and have the tools to do it. However I imagine 95% of the general public either can't do it or couldn't be bothered.
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Two years ago I’d never changed a tyre and only had the tools that came with a vehicle... It’s honestly not difficult, the most difficult part is moving the wheels around on the pickup as they’re rather large, not an issue on a normal car.

As you say, the issue is botherdness, rather than “can’t” do it.
 
Amp34 said:
Two years ago I’d never changed a tyre and only had the tools that came with a vehicle... It’s honestly not difficult, the most difficult part is moving the wheels around on the pickup as they’re rather large, not an issue on a normal car.

As you say, the issue is botherdness, rather than “can’t” do it.
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With some modern cars, it can actually be very tricky. Wheel nuts are sometimes made of soft metal which is easily rounded off, plus the alloy can get fused to the wheel hub and require a lot of force to get it off - I witnessed an AA worker having this exact issue in a carpark once, and he told me it was something to do with the different metals used for the wheel and the hub. Equally, lazy mechanics can over tighten wheel nuts with their air guns, making them impossible to get off with a standard wheel brace, or even damaging the studs themselves.
 
2011 is the last time the roads were in a state where winter tires might have been needed and it lasted more than 1 day around here, don't think the wintery spell in 2010 quite had as much impact on the roads, 2009 so-so I think 1-2 days were bad, previous to that around 2005 was so-so but another marginal case the odd ice day aside then you have to go back to like 1991/92.

Might have been the odd year(s) where I was living elsewhere that conditions were worse during the winter and I wasn't aware of it.
 
geekman said:
With some modern cars, it can actually be very tricky. Wheel nuts are sometimes made of soft metal which is easily rounded off, plus the alloy can get fused to the wheel hub and require a lot of force to get it off - I witnessed an AA worker having this exact issue in a carpark once, and he told me it was something to do with the different metals used for the wheel and the hub. Equally, lazy mechanics can over tighten wheel nuts with their air guns, making them impossible to get off with a standard wheel brace, or even damaging the studs themselves.
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Yep Ford are one of those manufacturers, they stick chrome/aluminium over the steel nuts and it doesn’t go well. In fact there’s a class action lawsuit on it.

https://www.carcomplaints.com/news/2017/ford-swollen-lug-nuts-class-action-lawsuit.shtml

The lawsuit alleges the swollen lug nuts are installed on the Ford Fusion, Escape, Flex, Focus, F-150 and F-350.
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I have alloy wheels on one of those vehicles.

It’s also worth pointing out the fusing issue is largely due to the wheel not being removed regularly (eg for rotation). Problem solved when they’re removed every 6-8 months. Wheels should be rotated regularly anyway so there’s even wear, swapping from summers to winters and back is an ideal time to do so, so realistically no more removing and putting back on than you should be doing anyway.

You’re right about using air guns. I’ve had some fun trying to remove the nuts when I had new tyres put on, if you do it yourself you don’t have that issue, and if you get someone else to do it you also don’t have that issue... ;)

Point being the vast majority of the time it’s not hard, and in fact it’s easier if it’s done regularly. I was shown with one wheel and now do it all myself. It’s not rocket science! If you can’t do it yourself it’s a quick nip to a nearby mechanic who’ll do it in 20 minutes for you.
 
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