On 12/03/2013 20:36, Lawrence13 wrote:
Hardly any snow here in London and although there were heavy showers in Kent and Sussex all this 'snowed in stuff' has me puzzled. Eventually however I put it down to several things


There are more cars on the road now than ever seen in the winters that took place in the eighties, 81/82, 78/79 and 62/63. Apparently in 1960 there were a total of approx 7 million vehicles in the UK and by 2002 some 35.5 million vehicles (note not just cars)

We also have the fact that the current young generation of drivers has virtually no experience in driving in severe cold snowy conditions in the UK between 1997 and 2010 there wasn't a lot of it about, snow that is.

Add on to that for every car accident the police want the close the road of and if fatal treat it as a crime scene.

I also think that the modern cars start so readily and warm so quick that they belie the actual conditions giving a feeling of unfounded security -especially with sharp hills.


Finally wall to wall communication with texts, emails and mobiles etc means any problems are news immediately whereas in the past the news would have taken days to filter through.

So cars abandoned as a proxy for severe weather is constantly exaggerating something that wouldn't have been thought newsworthy several decades ago.




Seeing the news reports from Kent and Sussex earlier, I don't think many
people in those counties would have put the snow in the "heavy shower"
category!!!

Otherwise, what you say is probably true.

jim, Northampton