It was brought to my attention last night that the police are starting to pull over vehicles which are driving with large amounts of snow on them, as it is classed as a risk to other vehicles as if it was an unsecure load.

They are giving out on the spot fines of £60 and also 3 points on your licence, four people I know have been fined that I am aware of already in the Wigan area.

This has safety implications to employees with regards to working at height. My company do not have roof racks on our company vehicles purposely to remove the working at height hazard, it may be worthwhile mentioning this issue to employees.

We instructed our teams to use webbing, slung over the vans to remove the snow, this was prior to the knowledge of the police fines.

What does the forum think?

Without knowing the type of vehicles it's hard to help. For Transit connect, Kangoo, Berlingo size vans I've found that a soft broom is quite effective, for a full size van I'll ask our drivers as I know they do clear snow of the roofs without climbing up. But of the cuff the webbing sounds like it could work.

The police throughout Lancashire are enforcing this and when you've seen some of the vehicles traveling round in the region during the inclement weather its not surprising.
The webbing idea is genius and something we'll be adopting if there's any significant snow fall.

Doesn't that damage the paintwork?

Park in a garage....Job done!

While driving to work this morning I saw a number of snow-laden cars on the A6 near Stockport which had probably come from snow girt areas like Buxton in Derbyshire. In addition to having significant amounts of snow on them - which tends to slide off and pose a distraction for their drivers and others, some of their windows, including rear windows, were obscured by snow to varying degrees. Evidently the drivers couldn’t be bothered to stop and wipe the soft snow off - it’s not difficult and doesn’t take long to do.

Also, some drivers seem to forget about keeping their vehicle lights and number plates reasonably clear of snow. On a related theme, it's worth mentioning that vehicle lights can also become obscured by a hard film of salt crud, especially through driving at speed along clear but salted roads and motorways. I experienced this myself after driving up the M6 to the Lake District just before Christmas. The hard crud wasn't easy to shift, so the message from this experience is to check and clean your lights fairly often. As the water in the buckets by the pumps at the petrol station where I stopped had frozen, a bottle of water in the car came in handy when cleaning the lights and windows.

Thus, for winter driving, don't forget your snow brush as advised by the previous posters, plus some water in a bottle and also some rags for dealing with the salt crud.

Graham Bullough

Thanks to "Blonde Bandit" for enlightening us about the police 'on the spot' fines being an urban myth. If the information on the website quoted is correct, the advice in its final paragraph remains valid. The problem for traffic police officers presumably is deciding what constitutes an excessive amount of snow on a vehicle.

Also I agree with the comment about people who drive with just a small amount of windscreen defrosted. Perhaps their vehicle heating systems have failed and they're having to maintain the small patch of clear window with some prolonged heavy breathing on it from inside! Seriously though, as measures to help defrost a windscreen I can recommend cutting up a black plastic sack to form an overnight cover sheet so that frost forms on the sheet rather than the screen itself. The sheet can be held in place by opening the doors and then closing them against the ends of the sheet inside. Mind your fingers while holding the sheet and closing the doors. Don't forget to locate the sheet so that the windscreen wipers rest on it rather than freeze hard onto the windscreen. Also, try putting one or more hot water bottles on the dashboard say 15-20 mins before you want to drive off. The gentle heat rising from them helps to warm up the inside of the screen and stop it misting over after you drive off and before your heating system really gets going.

Some people prefer to have their engines running for a while to produce ample heat before driving off. I'm no expert but apparently this practice is not great for petrol engines or fuel economy and generates a load of exhaust fumes. Anyhow, if you like to do it, either stay with your vehicle or use a second key to lock your vehicle. Every year newspapers report cases of thieves stealing vehicles which have been left unlocked with the keys in the ignition and the engine running on cold winter mornings. People who lose their vehicles in this way face a double whammy because their insurers usually respond by refusing to pay out on the grounds that the drivers didn't take reasonable care to prevent theft.

The same advice goes for drivers who leave their vehicles unattended and unlocked with engines running or at least keys in ignition switches while visiting a shop or cash machine for example. Leaving vehicles in this manner is apparently also a criminal offence, so such drivers could face a triple whammy if the Police decide to prosecute them. If your employer or client organisations have fleet vehicles, it would be well worth ensuring that drivers are well aware of these points so as to try and avoid the various problems which arise from such thefts.

Now for some Friday frivolity: "Urban myth" is a common expression. Is there such a thing as a rural myth and even an intermediate category of suburban myth? If so, how does one decide which category to use? Perhaps a matter to ponder during an idle moment.

Also, I'm slightly intrigued at being categorised as a 'new forum user', considering that I've contributed a fair number of postings on this forum, although admittedly few since the time of its format change. Though the info may be available in the FAQs or somewhere else, please can anyone tell me briefly how one qualifies as a 'forum user' and even a 'super forum user'? I'm just curious to know rather than possessing any great aspiration to change my forum status.

Graham Bullough

Re urban/rural myths.

I always thought that "red sky at night: shepherd's delight, red sky in the morning : shepherd's warning" was the rural equivalent of the urban myth "red sky at night : your sheds alight, red sky in the morning : its still burning"

Merv

From the FAQs:
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All forum users start off with a New forum user rank. Once you've posted more than 10 messages, your rank changes to Forum user. If you post more than 300 messages, your rank changes to Super forum user.

Back in December in Yorkshire there was a chain text going around saying police were to apply fixed penalties and as I understand they are well within their rights to do so. this was followed on local radio by a police statement saying they had no intention as they had far more importnat things to do, keeping traffic moving and attending incidents etc.

The chain text (though in general i can't abide them) probably had a beneficial effect and made some people think twice!!

As for removal on larger vehciles (it is not an issue for us so this is theoretical only) you could try an angled snow rake - designed for removing snow from low roofs. Not ideal and some have metal blades but they are out there. the long pole also means you can stand off and avoid a shower of snow on your head. Alternatively we have telescopic aluminium poles and squeegees for high windows. i reckon these would lend themselves to bending with a pipe bender and serve a similar purpose. probably cost effective if you have a small fleet of vans and your worried about a fixed penalty!