On Fri, 25 Nov 2005 11:10:38 GMT, Alex Stephens Jr wrote:

Local radio repoting trouble on the major roads (M8 & M74).

Tell me about it, M74 was 'orrible. Heavy snow, stop/start from
somewhere between Lockerbie and Moffat to where I left to join the A71
to Kilmanock. Must have taken me 2hrs to do that stretch. On the
slight grade before the roadworks between 11 & 10(?) the heavies were
starting to get into trouble with loss of traction on the compacted
snow.

I've revised my views about "poor driving" causing major roads to
become car parks in the light of what I saw yesterday morning.
Motorways don't exactly have steep hills and several trucks were
really struggling to keep moving on the 2" of slush/compacted snow. It
would only take one truck to lose traction completely and another to
fail to get past for the road to become blocked.

I did see a Sainsburys arctic with drive wheels slowly rotating and
gently steaming but the wagon totally stationary, mind you he was
trying to get up the 3" deep snow covered outside lane at the time. He
did manage to get back onto the slush tramlines just after I went past
on the inside but he then pulled out onto the snow again, obviously
not a very quick learner... Before that a rigid had had to reverse off
the snow back to slush lines.

I also wondered how a people carrier could loose it so badly on a
black (not slush or compacted snow) tramlined road at no more than
30mph such that it had done a complete 360 bouncing off the barrier
twice. A small twitch that is easy to correct maybe but a 360 and
hitting the barrier?

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail