SNOOW!

[Gimi]

...and the UK slides to a halt.
I can see us building a full size cobby in the garden.

As a Scandahovian living in London I have to say I am fascinated. Don't get me wrong. I refuse to drive my car with summer tyres on un-gritted roads as well, but I just don't understand why trains stop and and and. But watching the news on telly yesterday was great entertainment....

[Screet]

As a Scandahovian living in London I have to say I am fascinated. Don't get me wrong. I refuse to drive my car with summer tyres on un-gritted roads as well, but I just don't understand why trains stop and and and. But watching the news on telly yesterday was great entertainment....

Hm. I do remember that we had much fun at our skiing vacation in italy (some years ago) while watching tourists with summer tyres there. Took them some attempts, but every time they made it up the hill.

The strange thing is, that the people in italy don't use salt (good idea, I'd say), while those stupid germans here are so afraid of snow and ice that they use enough salt to ensure that it won't freeze over within the next days. Take that literally - you can clearly see where my shoes did stand, because of the big crust of salt crystals around them. The italians are better because the salt isn't that good for nature and dogs and at some point it will freeze over...and then you're in trouble. I remember a quick-ice day shortly after receiving my driving license. It was so bad that on some parts only one car could use the road at a time, because the ice would always cause the cars to slip from one lane onto the other. There wasn't any accident though, as humans are typically able to adapt to situations, and especially that if their own property is endangered. So it's salt&ice in germany, while in italy they just ensure that your tyres or shoes will have enough grip. If the sun melts that a little, it still does work after freezing over again. However, they may need more time to clean-up the roads in spring.

I find it pretty strange how they handle things so differently in nearby regions of the world!

Screet

[JensAyton]

I remember a quick-ice day shortly after receiving my driving license. It was so bad that on some parts only one car could use the road at a time, because the ice would always cause the cars to slip from one lane onto the other.

I see your one-lane-onto-the-other and raise you this.

[DaddyHoggy]

[Commander McLane]

Just to say that in the part of the world where I am living most roads are effectively one-lane-only, although not at all caused by snow. The problems have to do more with mud, and poorly maintained unpaved roads with a badly chosen surface material (if it's soil it tends to turn into mud; if it contains too much clay it tends to turn into, errmm..., soap). But the worst case scenario is practically-no-road-at-all, if for instance a sudden flood after a tropical rainfall has washed away the small wooden construction that is defying the term 'bridge' in the first place. Then you either go through the riverbed (not particularly advisable if you can't see the ground, which you can't if there's still water in it), or you don't go at all.

I use to laugh very much when I see people in car shows driving 'off-road', because I can't help thinking, "Where is the 'off-road', guys? This is how it looks on road here. If there are visible tyre-tracks, it's a road, not 'off-road'."

[DaddyHoggy]

Just where the hell are you based!?

[Commander McLane]

See the location under my avatar. The Oolite-speak translates into 'rural East Africa'. So the location is no exaggeration at all.

Fortunately we have got a (quite expensive) internet connection via satellite for about a year now, at least solving the half-of-the-time-there-is-no-internet-at-all-and-the-other-half-its-speed-is-reminiscent-of-the-early-300-baud-days-if-you-know-what-I-mean problem we had before (and this is only a very slight exaggeration).

[DaddyHoggy]

Wow! Impressed. My next question of course is: Why? Feel free to decline to answer - I'm just curious, your RL is your business after all.

[Commander McLane]

Wow! Impressed. My next question of course is: Why?

Fleeing from the snow, of course. And like for the British chances are best at the equator.

[Disembodied]

Hee hee ...

[JohnnyBoy]

I see your one-lane-onto-the-other and raise you this.

Add extra kinetic energy and more idiots, and you get this!

[Gimi]

I find it pretty strange how they handle things so differently in nearby regions of the world!

Well back home they tend to use salt in cities and motorways in the southern part, but apart from that they just clear roads and then you just have to put on the right shoes for the days weather. Don't like salt at all, and it mostly stops working below -10 anyway.

[Screet]

Add extra kinetic energy and more idiots, and you get

...this: http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotos ... cle=605506

This shows clearly, what happens with high kinetic energy. Both crashs happened recently.

The first was a car that flew 30m across a hill until it did "land" in the roof of a church - 7m above the ground. The second is a truck that drove onto a bridge that was being torn down. He flew over a 6m hole without falling down!

Sometimes I don't get it. Have these people really been driving that fast, is gravitation that heavily overrated or how can such things happen? Almost as when I tried playing billard and my balls did move directly to the target and just jumped over it without hitting anything. I never understood what caused those jumps...

Screet

[Cmd. Cheyd]

OT @ McLane:
Wouldn't happen to be around Lakes Victoria, Tanganika, or Malawi/Nyasa by chance, would ya?

[JensAyton]

The first was a car that flew 30m across a hill until it did "land" in the roof of a church - 7m above the ground. The second is a truck that drove onto a bridge that was being torn down. He flew over a 6m hole without falling down!

Sometimes I don't get it. Have these people really been driving that fast, is gravitation that heavily overrated or how can such things happen?

In the first case, we’d need to know more about the geometry of the situation to say any sensible.

In the second case, assume the truck was travelling at 12 m/s (43.2 km/h). Traversing the six-metre hole would then take 0.5 seconds. Making standard simplified assumptions (that the truck was not moving up or down when it hit the gap, that gravity’s a slightly strong 10 m/s², that air resistance doesn’t matter) the fall distance is 10/2 * 0.5² [m/s² * s² = m], or 1.25 metres.

That seems a bit much, so let’s instead assume he was going 64.8 km/h (18 m/s); then the traversal time is 1/3 s and the fall distance is 10/2 * (1/3)² [m], or 0.56 metres. It seems entirely reasonable a truck’s wheels and suspension could manage that with minor damage to the truck. Given the autobahn context, a speed of 64.8 km/h or more is reasonable; at 24 m/s (68.4 km/h), the drop distance is only 31 cm.

In practice, gravity’s slightly less, the truck’s suspension would push the wheels down slightly, and air resistance really is negligible in this context.