New driver - can employer force me to use my car if it’s snowing

notanewuser

Gilbert2 wrote: »

You do talk some rubbish.

South wales is a large area, south of Caerphilly it hardly ever snows to the extent where it causes chaos.

Since 1977 there have probably been only 6 or 7 times where areas like Cardiff have suffered bad snow, enough to cause chaos.

And even then it's probably for maybe a day or two, 2010 was an extreme year and everything was cleared within 4 or 5 days anyway.

Therefore, even in the Welsh valleys, severe snow does not last for weeks on end but, in the great scheme of things since 1977, snow is hardly an issue. It causes just odd days of inconvenience.

I'd calculate that in 35 years, since 1977, maybe a week or so of work has been lost to snowy weather in all that time.

The average person probably loses that in the times they have had a cold in the past 35 years.

It's not even an issue.

I'm north of Caerphilly, on the side of a hill. Snow has been an issue for at least a week every year since I bought this house in 2004.

If the OP is in Cardiff, where I agree the problems are fewer due to less snow and better infrastructure, then what's the whole bellyache about in the first place?!

Joe_Horner

Lum wrote: »

Me? After getting stuck sideways, in 2009, while failing to do a 3 point turn in the Brecons, shortly after deciding I wasn't even going to attempt that hill, then having to get out and manually push the front end of the car around. I decided to stay at home until I got some winter tyres. Screw driving to the conditions, I'd rather adapt the conditions to my favour. This includes staying at home when necessary.

Exactly the point I was making when I used that phrase, Lum. "Conditions" isnt just about the weather and, sometimes, "driving to the conditions" means "walk".

You learnt from the mistake in judgement that got you stuck. Going out in that weather, on summer tyres in your car and that geography, was a mistake of judgement - you judged that you could get where you were going when you couldn't.

If you'd decided that "getting stuck was out of your hands" and gone on to get stuck repeatedly over the next few days then you'd deserve all the derision and scorm that would be heaped on you. But you didn't - you learnt from the mistake and decided that "driving to the existing conditions" meant "no driving" until the conditions changed.

How they changed was then a matter of personal circumstances for you, including whether having your car available was important enough to justify winter tyres.

C_Mababejive

My vehicle which runs 24/7/365 all weathers has just had some new boots on the front so max tread and it can still be hard moving off in snow/ice no matter how gently i feed the power in.

esuhl

There's an article on the BBC site regarding "snow difficulties and your rights": http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11886185

My boss is really unhappy and I feel under pressure to try to get in.
The Acas advice is clear on this. "Your employer cannot force you to attempt the journey."

caz_cardiff87 wrote: »

The way i see it, it’s your car, you pay for it and if you don’t want to risk driving it then you shouldn’t be pressured to, especially when you are willing to get in any other way possible.

Absolutely. That seems perfectly reasonable and I'd be pretty unhappy if my employer pressured me to take risks that I deemed unacceptable.

StrongWork

Wow, this got heated (despite the low temps!).

Throbbe wrote: »

Part of being a good driver is understanding your limits. If you didn't feel you were able to drive, you were right not to do so and find another way into work. That said, some lessons or even a bit of practice at a quiet time in an out of the way car park wouldn't be a bad idea in case you ever get caught out in snow.

Best advice of the thread imo. One has to be sensible but also realistic.

That's not to say you shouldn't attempt to improve/better yourself and gain experience of snow driving. To not do so suggests a 'head in the sand' mentality and no prospect of bettering/improving oneself.

I don't think it's a coincidence that Europe seems to take snow in its stride whereas the UK appears to grind to a halt after 2cm worth!

FWIW I wouldn't be attempting snow driving with a tread depth of 2mm.

Throbbe

redux wrote: »

None of this macho posturing bollux would be necessary if the councils would get themselves and their contractors off their !!!!!! and treat the roads

Presumably with magic pixie dust that works instantly, never gets washed away and is so cheap councils can afford to treat all roads without making cuts elsewhere.

Gritting makes things a lot safer, but it can only do so much.

Lum

Joe_Horner wrote: »

Exactly the point I was making when I used that phrase, Lum. "Conditions" isnt just about the weather and, sometimes, "driving to the conditions" means "walk".

You learnt from the mistake in judgement that got you stuck. Going out in that weather, on summer tyres in your car and that geography, was a mistake of judgement - you judged that you could get where you were going when you couldn't.

It wasn't actually a mistake per se. I was fully aware that the trip would be problematic and risky, it wasn't even an essential trip, my GF just wanted to take some nice pictures and I wanted to see how the car handled in the snow while there was plenty of time to deal with any negative consequences.

I suspected that particular hill might be a problem and had planned to turn around just before it, fortunately there is a nice flat area at the bottom with space to do a 3 point turn. What I didn't plan for was that the space in question would contain a smashed up Renault Clio forcing me to turn around in a more difficult space. That photo also demonstrates why I didn't want to attempt the hill.

I also discovered at that time that the front diff on my car is open, only the rear is an LSD.

Next year we had a lot more snow, had winter tyres on went up to the same place and things went much much better (and resulted in much prettier pictures). I still didn't go up that hill though, not worth the risk.

Joe_Horner

Lum wrote: »

It wasn't actually a mistake per se. I was fully aware that the trip would be problematic and risky, it wasn't even an essential trip, my GF just wanted to take some nice pictures and I wanted to see how the car handled in the snow while there was plenty of time to deal with any negative consequences.

Yeah, sorry, by "mistake" I mean it in the widest sense of a judgement that turns out to be wrong for any reason - in this case because of factors you couldn't have known about but, just maybe, could have anticipated - steep hill, sharp bend & bridge, crap conditions, some arrse might have done the world a favour and stuffed a Cleo at the bottom. I bet you were aware of that possibility the year after

As you say, you also went into it with eyes open to the risk involved rather than on a blind "I know what I'm doing and have 4wd, what could possibly go wrong?". Unlike the driver of that Cleo who, it's quite likely, will still be instsiting that what happened was unavoidable - from the damage they were probably "only doing 15 - 20mph and it just went" :rotfl:

Lum

They were probably doing 15-20 mph at the start of the downhill. Probably a bit more by the bottom.

At the bottom of the hill is a 90 degree bend with a bridge on it. It's pretty clear that the Cleo simply failed to turn after sliding down the hill.

I presume the occupants were ok. Although the airbags had deployed, there were no people in there and it had obviously been there a while due to the snow on the windscreen.

That particular journey was more of a "see what happens" journey, it was the next step up from arseing around in the Pizza Hut car park. This kind of thing is the only way to learn. I regard the entire journey as a success.

Gilbert2

StrongWork wrote: »

I don't think it's a coincidence that Europe seems to take snow in its stride whereas the UK appears to grind to a halt after 2cm worth!

.

This always crops up.

You have to realise that the UK is not in mainland europe, it is an island with quite a different climate.

Even German, Dutch, French, Polish etc airports have problems regularly, as does their roads, with snow despite seeing a lot more of the stuff and having a better infrastructure to deal with it.

When taking into account the relative historical rarity of significant snowfall in the UK, to how we cope, then it isn't really such an issue.

Get over it!