A colleague, who made it into the office, albeit from London today, remarked, somewhat sarcastically, that
"as soon as the cataclysmic -2 degrees that paralyzed Great Britain subsides"
in response to needing to have a meeting in person.
As you might have guessed I
didn’t make it into the office today – not because I couldn’t - I could have cycled on my mountain bike (
Specialized M4) all the way there (have done this in the past - it's only 19 miles), but it was/is the getting back that causes the most anguish. Instead I stayed in the warmth and comfort of my home and worked remotely (see other post on using Microsoft Office, Sharepoint and Exchange).
It’s not just Britain that is being affected by “snow” and “cold” temperatures. Various parts of the world are too, and yet as my colleague, who lived most of his life in Poland and Germany, also quipped
"Well. London is -3.3 though. Not exactly ‘Diesel freezing in the tank’"
– and he’s right.
My sister lives in B.C. Canada and she regularly experiences sub -30 degrees Centigrade during the winter, and her Diesel doesn’t freeze either. Apparently, Alaskans are running vehicles regularly at minus 51 degrees. Actually it’s pretty impossible to freeze Diesel naturally (in the outdoors), it normally requires laboratory conditions – I might get one of the people at work (Imperial College London) to try it.
So, why does snow cripple Britain?
(My colleague chose his words carefully to prefix Britain with "Great" so as to run salt [pun intended] into the wound of Britain not so great when it falls foul to some snow and -3 degrees C.)The answer lies in the fact that we experience vastly different and rapidly changing weather throughout the year, making planning for specific events or extremes of weather conditions difficult and most important not cost effective.
Local councils could easily buy more grit, invest in snow ploughs, and other snow defeating/clearing equipment, but the cost to reward ratio is probably disproportionate, such that it doesn’t make efficient use of the budget that a council has to mitigate risk of event that will materially affect transport.
It’s basic risk assessment. How often does it snow in specific areas of Britain? Take Watford for example. Not that often. Then ask, of those times that it does snow, how much affect will it have on roads (taking into account such things as, how heavy, frequency, length of downfall, etc.) and you probably get an answer of very little. Enough to dedicate £250,000 of budget to it? Less? More?
Who knows, as predicting the same as last year or even a trend over decades will be difficult, because we experience such variance in our weather.
You see, other countries, where they know they are going to get snow and they know it’s going to be freezing for the whole season, can predict this and gear up for it and deal with it accordingly. Take Latvia, I was over there around this time last year doing some consultancy work (bizarrely with my CEO of my current company – see other post), and the guys we were working with told us that on a specific date each year (1st December until 1st March) it becomes illegal to drive without snow tyres!
Other countries can predict their weather so well that they can legislate for it! In fact the following countries have specific requirements (for tyres) during winter:
•France
•Switzerland
•Austria
•Italy
•Finland
•Latvia
•Norway
•Sweden
•Slovenia
•Germany
So, whilst another Twitter mentioned to me that we should learn from our European cousins, the problem is they have generally more predictability in their weather, or at least the colder regions therein have.
As an island, stuck where we are, getting hit by up to seven different weather systems, we tend to have more weather variance; that’s weather variance rather than climate variance; I make the distinction as the same Twitter also mentioned “if the weather pattern is changing we need to adapt”, which is true (we should adapt), but not just to the weather, but to the change in climate.
The irony is that climate change will likely mean more variance in weather rather than more predictability (colder or warmer), so it may become more difficult to keep Britain’s transport systems operational, as it may be heavy snow one week and floods the next, followed by mild and calm the next.
So how do we avoid becoming parallelised by snow (or indeed the weather, full stop)?
Well, one suggestion already mentioned is to bike it – decent mud tyres on your MTB will cut through the snow and slush and get you safely, legally and quickly to work. You also have more flexibility on route – cross country is not out of the question!
Another is walking, although less practical for long distances.
Another is a four wheel drive vehicle (not the silly ones, like the X6), which frankly is unnecessary to own except in these circumstances or if you live/work on a farm/dirt-track, but they do have their uses and this is one of them. My good friend Matt has a Land Rover and he rarely gets stuck. I actually recommend one of these:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_F7QrR4Ur8Silliness aside, does snow really cripple Great Britain?
I don’t think so, it merely hampers things for a while. Remote working (read: staying at home) is probably the solution and that doesn’t really affect work if done appropriately, with the obviously exception on critical services, teachers, nurses, nuclear power station operators, etc.
Far be it for me to spank an App development company for their App, but the irony of this is just too sweet not to highlight. 
