Snow brings difficult driving and school closures

Friday 7th January 2011, 3:00PM GMT.

Two cars in an accident in the snow in Alberbury

Further heavy snow fell across Shropshire today, closing dozens of schools and causing chaos for motorists.

More than an inch of snow fell in just an hour this morning with forecasters predicting up to 4ins in some areas.

But the latest spell of wintry weather, which comes just two weeks after the country’s big freeze, is expected to be brief with snow turning to rain by the weekend and milder temperatures forecast for next week.

Today’s heavy snowfall caused chaos for motorists, with crashes reported in Oswestry, Craven Arms, Alberbury

and Ludlow.

The Highways Agency confirmed that the A49 had been closed south of Ludlow for just over an hour due to a jack-knifed lorry at Dinmore Hill, and a lorry blocked the A4169 Telford to Much Wenlock road when the driver failed to get up a bank.

There were reports of drivers becoming stuck on Harley Bank, near Much Wenlock, as motorists struggled to cope with the snow.

In Shropshire, schools closed today include Farlow Primary School, Clee Hill Primary, Donnington Wood Junior School, Lacon Child Secondary School at Cleobury Mortimer, Stottesdon Primary at Ditton Priors, Hopton Wafers Primary School and Kinlet Primary School and playgroup.

South Shropshire appeared to be one of the worst hit areas this morning with Ludlow police reporting several collisions in the south of the county as it experienced heavy snowfall in a short period of time.

In Mid Wales, the main A483 and side roads were “treacherous”. Motorists claimed the weather had doubled journey times.

Lee Evans, Powys County Council spokesman, said: “The gritters treated the roads at 4pm yesterday, again at 4am today and are out again this morning.

“Because of the volume of snowfall some roads are treacherous – but passable with care.”

Tiffany Curnick, a forecaster with MeteoGroup, said: “We’ve got a front moving in from the south-west that’s going to bring southern counties rain and possibly snow over the hills.

“It could be up to 5cm (2in) in places across Wales and the Midlands and 10cm (4in) is possible across higher parts of Wales.”

By Andrew Morris

Weather Forecast – click here

1
George @ Dawley

January 7, 2011 at 09:10

Unbelievable!!!!
1/2 inch of snow now is all it takes to shut down Shropshire & Telford.

The world has gone soft.

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- spencer
  
  January 7, 2011 at 12:48
  
  No it didn’t, it just took everybody a little bit longer to get to work…to be expected really
  
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2
Vic

January 7, 2011 at 10:37

Unbelievable,…when I was younger and lived abroad you still went to school no matter how high the snow. Only time you didn’t go is if the heating was broken. Perhaps we should also adopt the same rule if it gets too hot in the summer? …yeah, didn’t think so.

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- DevilsChair
  
  January 9, 2011 at 00:22
  
  Armchair whinging at its best.
  
  We’ve had about 30 years of mild wet winters – do you want to pay more taxes to pay for winter machinery that may not get used for 5 years or 2-3 weeks a year? Fine if you do. Though – if this keeps up you may have to.
  
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3
Suzanne Carey

January 7, 2011 at 11:17

I got behind a car that was going so slow this morning that my rev counter wasnt even registering my own speed. It didnt really start snowing here until about 7.30/8.00am.

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4
Darren

January 7, 2011 at 11:25

Guess what they didnt go out with the gritters again!!!!
Prior Planning Prevents P*ss Poor performance.
In realtion to Shropshire Council the last 3 P’s are the common norm. They knew the forcast of the weather but did they prepare….errrr let me guess…. NO

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- Mark
  
  January 7, 2011 at 12:49
  
  Guess what? – they did go out last night because I saw them.
  
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  - Rene Tipton
    
    January 7, 2011 at 14:27
    
    yes they did go out with the gritters I sore them with my own eyes!!!
    
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    - LJ
      
      January 7, 2011 at 16:06
      
      I saw 4 on my drive to work (5am) this morning.
      
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    - Telford Girl
      
      January 7, 2011 at 16:26
      
      I also saw them at 9.00pm last night.
      
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- George Buckley
  
  January 10, 2011 at 16:13
  
  Where on earth do you get your information from?
  Or is this just knee jerk assumptions based on speculation?
  
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5
Matty

January 7, 2011 at 11:41

Ridiculous!! EP today ground to a halt as 1 person decided to drive at 10MPH. Thats called being over cautious and that causes accidents. If you drive normally and be aware everything will be fine.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Rant over

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6
LJ

January 7, 2011 at 11:47

I saw 2 gritters last night in a 15 mile journey through North Shropshire into Shrewsbury. To break the norm of people moaning, I’d like to say THANK YOU to the hard working men and women who grit our roads, I appreciate it even if nobody else does!

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7
Ed

January 7, 2011 at 11:56

People moan way to much. If the roads are dangerous or the heating isn’t working then the school should close. It happened in the good old days too.

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- twisting my melon
  
  January 7, 2011 at 12:52
  
  yeah you say that, but the snow had more respect for people in the olden days, winter of 1947 blah blah blah, all this used to be fields..
  
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- telfordfan
  
  January 7, 2011 at 12:57
  
  No they didn’t. I can remember NO days when school was ever closed, just one where the heating broke down and we sat in coats. Overblown “Health and Safety”, the scourge of common sense. Kids used to fall over, get a graze, be patched up with a plaster. Now it’s someone else’s fault and the ‘no win no fee brigade’ have a field day trying to make easy money and clogging up the legal system. The sooner the law is changed here the better for all.
  
  Half the problem of course with schools is the false God of choice, so kids get shipped around for miles rather than going to the school around the corner where, heaven forbid they used to walk, and in all weathers…the additional traffic causes half the issues we have in rush hour. Gone are the days of kids making ice slides on the playground and actually having FUN
  
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  - Ma
    
    January 8, 2011 at 09:59
    
    NO days! You seriuosly saying there were NO schools closed due to snow in the past. How far back are we going here? As for H @ S gone mad, where? Our children are free to play in the ice and snow at school, there’s no ban. They have lots of FUN! it’s also very difficult to get your child into a school out of your catchment area. sick of hearing that everything was better in the past.
    
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    - roadrunner
      
      January 8, 2011 at 11:07
      
      i went to school in the sixties and seventies and never had a day off school because of the weather. Then again, the school playgrounds weren’t a massive car park in those days.
      
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    - telfordfan
      
      January 8, 2011 at 11:21
      
      At my school there was NEVER one day off for bad weather – EVER in all the time I went. The ’70′s were far from a golden age, but Thatcher saw to common sense under the guise of choice – kids being ferried around everywhere, mindless performance statistics and interminable ‘Baker Days’ – you went to the school closest, maybe some caught the bus but most walked or biked in.
      
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    - twistring my melon
      
      January 8, 2011 at 11:24
      
      My School closed in the winter of 1976, i can remember my mum having to come and collect me early. And guess what, i also remembered my dad saying they wouldn’t have closed when he was at school..
      
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    - roadrunner
      
      January 8, 2011 at 14:41
      
      And he was dead right , too
      
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    - roadrunner
      
      January 8, 2011 at 14:44
      
      Every class had it’s own heating, a big coke burner and we had to thaw out the frozen milk bottles in front of it before we could drink it at break time (free milk before Snatcher had her say)
      
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8
The Original Jake

January 7, 2011 at 12:39

The roads were slippery this morning, but perfectly passable with appropriate care. Appropriate care doesn’t mean driving at 25-35mph on the A518 in one millimetre of snow (person at the front of the queue this morning) by the way.

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- Mark
  
  January 9, 2011 at 17:49
  
  Erm, yes it does. Every car handles different in different conditions, due to weight, tyre size, tyre width and tyre depth. If you think you should be going 10 mph quicker just overtake. If it is too dangerous to overtake safely and timely by going 10mph quicker then 25-35 is probably the right speed to be traveling. Doing an extra 10mph will only save 10′s of seconds. I am an enthusiastic driver who has lots of experience of high speed driving in many differing circumstances. I drive a car that can do 140+ mph on an autobhan safely, but you would not get me driving more than the questioned speeds in snow. Also would you want to push somebody to drive quicker to suit your needs if they were a new driver or a little less confident in slippery conditions, and then they get involved in an accident?
  
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- Mark
  
  January 9, 2011 at 17:51
  
  Oh, Just to conclude, I have seen enough first class pratts driving too close to the car in front in these conditions, in fact for any conditions.
  
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9
Sue Denim

January 7, 2011 at 13:51

There doesn’t appear to be any particular set of rules regarding school closures during snowy weather. Some schools seem determined to stay open regardless of how difficult and unpleasant it is for parents and children to make it in on time, whilst others barely seem to open at all at this time of year, making children miss an awful lot of lesson time. It would be nice if these decisions were based on something a bit more concrete than just whether a headteacher is overcautious or overzealous.

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10
Mark

January 7, 2011 at 13:58

The only frost here in the Philippines is around the neck of my beer bottle, its tough in the tropics.

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11
Jan

January 7, 2011 at 14:38

With regards to driving slowly, is it not better to take a little longer and be safe than to rush and be oversure of yourself. Perhaps the person driving slowly has had an accident in the past and is a little nervous!

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- The Original Jake
  
  January 7, 2011 at 17:48
  
  Of course it’s better to drive more carefully when there’s snow and/or ice on the road. 1mm, however, doesn’t require an instant slowdown to 30mph on a perfectly clear, straight main road. There’s cautious and there’s over-cautious. Once said driver had turned off into Newport, everybody else seemed to manage to proceed at a reasonable (but still careful) pace.
  
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12
BamBam

January 7, 2011 at 22:19

An inch of snow, unbelievable. At 5:00pm on Wednesday I cleared my deck of 4 inches of snowfall. At 8:00pm those 4 inches had returned. The following morning we had 15 inches of snow fall, the snow was up to our knees. What did we do, well cleared the laneway with the snowblower and went to work. Plows had been running all night so the roads were snow packed but clear. Just a regular winter day in Southwestern Ontario.

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13
eva land

January 10, 2011 at 23:28

There was a problem on Kingsland bank that morning when it snowed around 8am. A woman had got stuck having almost reached the top and a man in a Mercedes coming down the other way slid to the side into the queue of cars behind this lady. Another car coming down the hill then slid also mounted the kerb and into the wall.

The man in the Merc looked well shaken but eventually remembered he had a bag of grit.
By this time the lady at the top whose wheels kept slipping had contacted the school and was going to be pulled up with a tractor.

The man in the Merc put his bag back into his car on the basis that there would not be enugh grit for the whole hill!
This was daft as sufficient grit to get this stuck car up the worst bit of the hill and a bit for the other side on the bend for those coming down would have mean’t everyone could get moving.
Those behind had to then turn round and find another route whilst this lady waited for the unnecessary tractor/knights in shining armour to arrive!

Did it really ruin anyone’s day Original Jake that people travelled at 30 mph? It may have only been 1mm of snow but it was falling on top of ice.

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