Leave snow on car or sweep it off?

ic

vikingaero wrote: »

Sweep it off without damaging the paintwork if you can. What happens is that the car roof gets warm and at some point in the journey when you brake for a junction or another motorist the whole load on the roof will slide down onto your windscreen. Extremely hazardous and your wipers will be overwhelmed and useless. If you can't sweep it off then at least take it all off except for an inch or so.

This exact situation happened to a colleagues wife last winter. She had to stop abruptly on the motorway, all the snow and ice on the roof slid forward on to the windscreen, and the wipers SNAPPED under the weight of it all. She had to limp over to the hard shoulder with no forward visibility and clear it best she could.

alanrowell

I cleared the foot or so of snow from my car today and it was soft all the way down to roof level. Then went for a short drive and reparked the car. Came out an hour later to find that there had been a short snow shower which froze on the car.

adouglasmhor

alanrowell wrote: »

I cleared the foot or so of snow from my car today and it was soft all the way down to roof level. Then went for a short drive and reparked the car. Came out an hour later to find that there had been a short snow shower which froze on the car.

I had refrozen snow on my windscreen after work, jagged and hard, today I have old mailsacks over the windsceen - hopefully no 15 minutes of scraping today.

seasalt_2

I read on another forum this morning that the police are fining people £60 plus 3points for driving with more than 3" snow on their car roofs - danger of it sliding off and causing problems for themselves (as above) or those behind.

ETA OOps I should have read first post shouldn't I. Didn't realise we were talking about parked cars - sorry - just that I'd seen the above on another forum.

Gordon_Hose

I've just been down and dug out and started my diesel Escort, started 2nd time...better than expected :T

Lum

seasalt wrote: »

I read on another forum this morning that the police are fining people £60 plus 3points for driving with more than 3" snow on their car roofs - danger of it sliding off and causing problems for themselves (as above) or those behind.

ETA OOps I should have read first post shouldn't I. Didn't realise we were talking about parked cars - sorry - just that I'd seen the above on another forum.

That's just a viral text message. There's no fixed penalty for excessive snow.

That said, pass it on anyway, maybe it'll get people to clear the snow off their cars?

Gordon_Hose

I cleared the OH's roof this morning, she was gonna drive off with 6 inches of snow on top of her car!!

mcjordi

have to agree comfirmed with durham constabulary they are not issuing fpn for snow on the car..
although they are advising clearing all the snow off the vehicle, if the snow thats on the roof causes an accident then they will prosecute

dzug1

I do remember an occasion where a neighbour reversed off her driveway without clearing her rear windscreen - and collided with another car. She (sorry for being sexist) seriously argued that it wasn't her fault because she couldn't sse.

Gordon_Hose

dzug1 wrote: »

I do remember an occasion where a neighbour reversed off her driveway without clearing her rear windscreen - and collided with another car. She (sorry for being sexist) seriously argued that it wasn't her fault because she couldn't sse.

Oh dear :eek: