Went for my morning walk at 7.40am in 5cms of snow which had fallen overnight, partially melted and then frozen hard. Lovely crunchy slippery surface on pavements. Main roads were fine : they had been gritted but - as normal - the country roads had not but had been plowed this morning.
Near the top of the Moor about two miles from home is a short 300 meter section which winds uphill from a small bridge with a right angle bend.. so a car ascending has no chance of gaining any speed. The hill is about 1 in 4, is single track, is partially covered in water from a drainage pipe from the local fields. Covered in hard frozen snow in the centre about 5cms deep and rutted from the snowplow with ice in the tracks.
I was about half way up, when a (c 2006) Micra came up the hill and stopped with wheels spinning. Driver got out and the lady beside him took over the driving. I helped and we pushed. Utter failure.. more wheelspin. Sacks out of boot and shovel. Sacks under front wheels , ice and snow dug away and try again.. We made about 2 meters and then wheelspin.
Moved sacks, moved two meters and more wheelspin. #
Repeated - another two meters. Repeated. And repeated.
We were now about 260 meters up the hill and only 50 to go. Both pushers were very hot and sweating hard...(no wind, dry but about 1C).
We were just about to start again when a Toyota Land Cruiser came up behind us and stopped 40 meters away. Great we thought: more help which we badly needed. The driver (a male in his early 50s?) got out and shouted..
" if you reverse down into the entrance in front of me, we'll be able to pass you" (!)
Said entrance was virgin snow and sloped down off the road, and once the Micra had got into it, we would never have got it back up..
Needles to say, we did not reply.. (IF I had it would have been very rude)...
We just kept on with our push and move attempts and after two more, the Micra managed to reach the brow of the hill under its own power..
The Landcruiser drove past me and the car owner at teh side of the road without a wrod.
What a rude miserable unhelpful... words fail me.
Fortunately people as selfish as that are few and far between.. What a plonker..
Rant over
# the front passenger wheel without any driver weight.. The driver side wheel gripped and did not spin.. ,No traction control.
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Unless of course what he meant was, " if you can let me past, I'll get my tow rope and give you a pull up the hill " but having been ignored / scowled at, thought " stuff you then "...
;-)
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>> Unless of course what he meant was, " if you can let me past, I'll
>> get my tow rope and give you a pull up the hill " but having
>> been ignored / scowled at, thought " stuff you then "...
>>
>> ;-)
>>
A Land Cruiser pass a Micra on a single track road? You're having a larf:-)
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>> Unless of course what he meant was, " if you can let me past, I'll get my tow rope and give
>> you a pull up the hill "
But he didn't say that.
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No snow in my bit of sunny Scotland. :)
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>> No snow in my bit of sunny Scotland. :)
>>
Must be the radiation from the nukes then :-)
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>> >> No snow in my bit of sunny Scotland. :)
>> >>
Yup, when you only get one a year I suppose its something to be excited about.
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No snow down here in the southern part of Carmarthenshire either. in fact quite a nice day, the odd light shower notwithstanding.
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Bright and dry out here in the wild west of Pembrokeshire. Bleedin' taters though.
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Fortunately, not all LC drivers are knobs. I've used mine for a variety of rescues from towing the (fully laden) UPS van up the hill to taking a child with suspected meningitis for medical care including a sheet ice hill which hadn't been passed in days. Getting up the hill was easy, but coming down was a bit dicey.
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>> Fortunately, not all LC drivers are knobs.
Indeed. Guy over road kindly towed our BX home from where it expired half a mile away by primary school. His brother in law then helpfully diagnosed the cause - a perished fuel line allowing air to enter.
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>> Must be the radiation from the nukes then :-)
>>
There may be a hint of truth in that. when the nuclear submarines were refitted in Rosyrth, after the reactor had been refuelled it was run at various power outputs for calibration. This was done with the submarine floating in a dry dock filled with water which was used for cooling. On cold, clear, winter mornings this warmed water would cause a bank of fog over the dry dock, much to the consternation of the non nuclear trained people. Not helped by us saying "Don't worry it is only the reactor boiling the dry dock".
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The micra may well have made it up the hill if you'd put it in reverse - with the weight over the driven wheel.
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>> The micra may well have made it up the hill if you'd put it in
>> reverse - with the weight over the driven wheel.
>>
Unfortunately I doubt if the lady driving it could have reversed it 350 meters dwon the hill - the nearest feasible turning point..(and a 10 point turn..).. let alone up the hill again!
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No snow here in north Devon either.
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>> The micra may well have made it up the hill if you'd put it in
>> reverse - with the weight over the driven wheel.
>>
I was going to say that.
Of course that helps to prove that RWD (with weight over the rear wheels) is better than FWD....
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>> Of course that helps to prove that RWD (with weight over the rear wheels) is
>> better than FWD....
>>
Only if you have an engine in the boot.
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>> if you'd put it in
>> reverse - with the weight over the driven wheel.
But reversing uphill for any distance on a slippery, icy surface would be extremely difficult, needing skill, sharp reactions and luck. Don't forget how capricious and violent steering becomes in reverse.
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Don't forget how capricious and violent steering becomes in
reverse.
I had a bubble car with a 2-stroke that reversed by starting the engine backwards.
Became quite a party trick, going down the road backwards and changing up. Never got beyond third because of rear wheel steering and short wheelbase!!!
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Some miserable and unhelpful plonker in snow - Runfer D'Hills
