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[keasy]

Given teh recent travel debacle in Scotland due to FORESEEN weather do you have faith in the Scottish government ?

I was beginning to sway towards the SNP again, but after this, I really do think they have shown a complete show of Incompetence.
I know the major roads were inaccessible but I really feel the national government let us down by not responding during the snow fall when scraping the roads to keep them clear may have prevented this.

As for local authorities, right now I hold them in equal contempt.

[Condor Baggins]

The problem I have with the whole thing is, we all know this was coming 6-10 days before it actually did. We didn't know how bad it would be but I'd have thought 'Siberian weatherfront' might have been a big enough clue...but they somehow still weren't organised. It's a fail on the governments part on an epic scale but tbh we're lucky we still have ploughs on the road because of these Tory bastards being well....bastards?

[Wooster]

The local authorities are who I hold responsible since some have performed far better than others.

Take our beloved Crony/Labour run North Lanarkshire who actively removed the grit bins in many areas over the past couple of years and never bothered their arses to fill the bins that were left.
There's one at the end of my street and it's been empty for two years, one further down the street is the same.
This is why it's taken me four days to get the car out of the street..I had no option but to let the ice melt by itself (even after spending an hour clearing the snow from around the car yesterday there was nothing I could do about the layer of ice underneath).

The Met Office did drop the ball (surprise surprise).
I knew I was heading to Aberdeen on Monday morning and checked the forecast in the early hours of the morning. They did forecast snow, but nowhere near the levels we actually got.
I wasn't alone, Justin was heading to Inverness, nearly got caught out himself and called to warn me.
I was watching the news at the time and there was still no mention of how bad it really was on the 9:00 broadcast on BBC News 24.


Good old Met Office: Less reliable than looking out the bloody window.  


p.s. If it wasn't for word of mouth I reckon a lot more people would have been caught out.

[keasy]

The MET surely supplies the Beeb with forecasts no ?

The beeb said 15" of snow to come on Sunday night.

[corroded]

You know the leading cause of Black Ops lag is actually the Tories have cut down the packet size on the Internet to save money...
Tonsillitis is actually a Tory engineered illness to silence those who have other opinions...
The reason there was so much snow was because the Tories didn't turn up the heating enough, so it didn't become rain.

Not far off getting to that, ya'know :P

Labour spent too much money on a lot of things, for a lot of time... then the economy collapsed and their action plan was 'Lets try not to get elected and gloss over this and let the next lot sort it, and LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU'

[Wooster]

On higher ground they said, but on the Met Office site they'd lumped almost the whole of Scotland under that forecast.
And 15cm is nowhere near the amount that actually fell on lower ground, 15 inches was closer to the mark (two and a half times more, and God knows how much on higher ground).
Even at the lower end of the scale, the councils should have had the gritters out, but as usual waited until it was too late.

Ten years ago you'd see gritters on the roads regularly during the winter and on the M8 they'd be out all night (I had to follow them often enough when I was coming home from Glasgow after nightshift), but these days you rarely see the things.
I take it they don't want to/can't pay the nightshift rates these days.  

p.s. Found this on Annabel Goldies Tory Blog..

Please find below a copy of the severe weather warning issued on Sunday 5th December 2010 at 8.44pm

From: SMTP Gateway - Met Office, Aberdeen (Scotland)

[mailto:nimbusautombu@metoffice.gov.uk]

Sent: 05 December 2010 20:44

Subject: NSWWS Flash Warning

Importance: High

NATIONAL SEVERE WEATHER WARNING SERVICE

Flash Warning of

- Widespread Icy Roads

- Heavy Snow

For the following areas

- Strathclyde (Severe)

- Edinburgh (Severe)

- Falkirk (Severe)

- Midlothian (Severe)

- Stirling (Severe)

- W Lothian (Severe)

A band of wintry showers will spread southeast early on Monday

morning, the showers turning increasingly to snow away from the west

coast. Initially the showers will fall onto frozen surfaces with

widespread ice developing on untreated roads and pavements, and

accumulations of 2 to 5cm of snow are expected, locally 10cm over

the hills. The public are advised to take extra care and refer to

"Traffic Scotland" for further advice on road conditions.

Issued by the Met Office at 20:42 on Sunday, 05th December 2010

Valid from 05:00 on Monday, 06th December 2010

until 12:00 on Monday, 06th December 2010

On the one hand they say 'severe' but then say it's going to be 2 - 5cm except on the high ground.
Personally I took that to mean that there might be problems with visibility at times, but the roads would stay relatively clear (2-5cm of snow isn't a great deal to cope with on Scottish roads in winter).
I suppose most people who saw that probably thought the same way.

[Roscop]

I think the phrase is it was a cluster fuck. I dont belive the blame can be put firmly at one authorities/governments feet. Apparently all local councils get there forecasts from different agencies so there was a few different weather predictions about, although I would imagine the worst one should be what was getting planned for.

The snow was not that cold to begin with melted then froze. then lorries got stuck on hills traffic backed up then gritters got stuck in the traffic no amount of planning could really have got on top of that situation. The only way that could have been avoided was to tell everyone to stay at home and thats never going to happen the loonies will still go out, trust me I was one of them, but as I said the roads were drivable for most of the roads I was on for most vehicles all it takes is for someone to misjudge the conditions and it goes to pot.

 Traffic scotlands site was not worth a toss there was no information for a good couple of hours, and even the next day there was 3 warnings when I checked even though the radio was giving out loads of road closure details.

The police took far to long to close the M8 at least, gritters were still getting past on the hard shoulder as well as the police 4x4's but they never stopped or slowed down to see how folk were getting on, I know that they were hard pushed but a couple out on the road to at least assess peoples situations. Radio Scotland had reports coming in from loads of folk stuck with weans in the car who had not even seen anyone in authority all day even drive past them or on foot. TBH the best information that was getting given out was from listeners texts.

[keasy]

You know the leading cause of Black Ops lag is actually the Tories have cut down the packet size on the Internet to save money...
Tonsillitis is actually a Tory engineered illness to silence those who have other opinions...
The reason there was so much snow was because the Tories didn't turn up the heating enough, so it didn't become rain.

Not far off getting to that, ya'know :P

Labour spent too much money on a lot of things, for a lot of time... then the economy collapsed and their action plan was 'Lets try not to get elected and gloss over this and let the next lot sort it, and LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU'

 

We're talking about the Scottish Government which is lead by the SNP mate    

[corroded]

You know the leading cause of Black Ops lag is actually the Tories have cut down the packet size on the Internet to save money...
Tonsillitis is actually a Tory engineered illness to silence those who have other opinions...
The reason there was so much snow was because the Tories didn't turn up the heating enough, so it didn't become rain.

Not far off getting to that, ya'know :P

Labour spent too much money on a lot of things, for a lot of time... then the economy collapsed and their action plan was 'Lets try not to get elected and gloss over this and let the next lot sort it, and LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU'

 

We're talking about the Scottish Government which is lead by the SNP mate    

 

Connor did actually say "Tory bastards" ;D

[Wooster]

Aye, but he's tuned to The Moon. 

[Condor Baggins]

? 

[Wooster]

 

Just yanking yer chain..

The current crop of cuts probably explain part of this years fiasco, but they did the same last year. (although not quite to the same extent)

[Condor Baggins]

You lookin' at me funny?  (personal joke)
This is getting a bit confusing now so carry on lads. 

[corroded]

Ooooh Matroooooon

In your best 60's campness please

[Glamdring]

You can say it all with a daffodil inserted in the right holder.