Didn't think much of it at first but as time goes on im hearing more and more of peoples cars being taken away at a cost of upto £150 to the owner because of them being abandoned due to the bad weather and lack of being able to move them at all?!???!?

This is sick. A guy i know on the estate just phoned me to ask if i could help him move his car off the roundabout cos he just had a copper come round warning that if the car isn't moved off it by the mornin its goin to the impound. this is disgusting, people can't move their cars cos the councils are soo stupid they didn't even grit the roads let alone the bus routes.

What hope do we have???? seriously what hope

Snowchains and mates with 4x4's

Seriously though, that sucks - but I was yakking with a mate whilst getting the tracking done today. They grit no roads on the continent, it's up to the driver to be prepared - and they seem to have nothing like the problems we have over here.

Cotton wool society, mate...

....it does seem a little ott Mr.Moe, but doesn't the highway code state that your car must be in roadworthy condition to bu used on the highway ?

Technically it's the roads that aren't roadworthy

it was in a roadworthy condition. Sorry maybe i didn't explain it properly. the easiest road(one of 2) onto the estate is concrete, sloping down to a roundabout which is still on a hill. the get to this side of the estate you have 2 roads, both take a steep uphill entry off the roundabout. none of this was gritted so where people couldn't get up the uphill part of the roundabout (goin back out of the estate) or up the hill into the roads, they just plonked their cars on the roundabout (which i also did for a while)

When i moved my car off earlier today, a tipper loaded with grit on the back went round the roundabout and back out without doin a thing. i've got a pic ill put up later once i've found the cable again.

i spun my coupe twice before having to give up last week myself and several members of the public pushed it out of the way into a single car width sideroad leading to a culdesac and abandoned it for the night at 6am thw next morning i had a phone call from the police apparently the 1car width side road is the only way in or out of this 25house culdesac they just asked me to politely move my car.

The residents were enraged but i just had to ignore them it not like they could drive anywhere any how.

Maybe its down to the location in the country the whole impounding thing.

looking at your avatar did you hit the kerb?

I came close to having my v6 abandoned the other day, I went to pick up a tv that didn't fit in the car in the slightest, so the guy got his father in law to follow me back to camp with the tv in his van. It was only about 10 miles but this was when the snow was at its worst, and satnav took me a different way back for some reason lol.

It brought me out onto a t-junction that emerged slightly up a BIG, STEEP hill, I was bricking it because when you see cars on the news that failed to get up icy hills, well, this one was much worse :-(
So I set off, making the turn easy enough, but with no momentum it was never going to be easy! The TCS on my car has never worked so hard in its life! I was creeping up at around maybe 1/2 a mile an hour in 3rd gear with the TCS light going mental and what sounded like a steel pole jammed in an electric pencil sharpener. I really thought it was a no-hoper but with a little luck, switching between full left and full right lock to keep the car going straight I made it up the hill :-D only to be faced with the downhill!

Now it wasn't a daunting task in itself but at the bottom was a sweeping right hand bend with what looked like a very slow moving car manouvering it, as I got closer (remeber the snow was so big ad heavy that visibility was very poor) it dawned on me that the car, half way round the outside of the bend, was actually abandoned with it's lights on (arse!). So I knew I would have to turn even harder right but as I got closer and closer it became apparent that I couldn't turn that much right in that space of time so "left it is!"

Luckily to the left (all around the outside of the bend) was a nice sized grassed area that didn't even have a kerb, the ABS was earning its supper this time as I couldn't even hope to stop behind the car yet still managed to slow enought and steer onto the grass. Now take into account this grass area is under a good few inches of snow I thought I did a fantastic job of slowing, making a good snap decision, steering away while maintaining enough momentum to navigate the grass too and not get stuck on that, find traction on the grass and get the coupe back on the road ahead of the car... essentially passing the car on the outside of a right hand bend using a grassy area.

There was no damage to the coupe and looking back it was funny, I'm richer for the experience and it has chaged my outlook. I mean I considder myself to be a very capable driver in all conditions including ice, and in the past I have laughed at cars stranded where I feel I would 't have personally gotten stuck, but now I realise that even with all the safety gadgets of the v6 no driver can say "I won't get stranded!" or "I won't crash" when driving on snow and ice because sometimes there is literally nothing that ca be done, and every time that ABS rumble kicks in and I steer out from going into the back of someone I don't see it as "I had it under control, the car helped" I see it as "Frig me that was close!" lol.




However if you are going to abandon a car in the ice don't leave it on a bend, don't just leave your lights on, either use just hazard lights or both or you just look like a stopped/slow car! and if there is a safe place to ditch like a grassy area... then stick it there, not on a bend!! Lol, some people have no sense!

sorry tris got to be said.......your life would have been alot easier with the traction control turned off.....its the worst thing you could have in these conditions.

Have to say, I've found the TCS to be very useful, my mums 2.0 gen3 coupe couldn't get off the drive, mine did fine. worked for me down my brothers street aswell, couldn't get up it with the TCS turned off. (Was an empty street, so thought i'd play and test out what the TCS does )

i've always been told that it should be off, which for this reason makes sense.

the TCS stops the wheels from spinning once moving which is not what you want as you will lose momentum and get stuck. When trying to move off, unless you make a completly clean getaway the TCS will kick in, stopping you and then you'll have to start over again. When i was in the work van (Merc Sprinter, remember you can't ever completly disengage TCS on Mercs) yesterday is was definately apparent that it was not helping in the least bit. No matter how slow or wide i would turn into a side road it would always end up sideways in the road. I appreciate driving a RWD van is different to a fwd car but i've been driving vans for 4 years and a varity of different ones (transits, crafters/sprinters,maxis'/Dailys) and the others have been perfectly fine in the snow and ice. the best was easily the LDV Maxis, front wheel drive with no TCS/ESP or ABS nothin, and that was soo easy to drive.

I can go with that, my mr2 had tcs and was awsome with it turned off, useless with it on. guess rwd don't like it. but my coupe definately did. was sliding round side to side with it disabled on me coupe trying to get off the drive

traction control is to sensitive for these conditions imo, they cut teh power from the engine and you go nowhere. best practice is low revs and gentle clutch use. ive had no problems climbing any hills (and there are many steep and snow covered ones around hear). yet i see lots people thinking that because its slippy and steep they have use more power. they then simply lose all traction come to a stand still and often even start sliding backwards. one prat in vectra a black 53 plate one (looked quite embarassed when i managed to drive up the same bit without even wheel spinning) even spun his car around going up a tiny little hump rising about 3 feet in the space of 15 feet. people just simply dont have the brain power to think about how drive in snow and these the fools causing crashes and making what isnt actually that dangerous a task very dangerous for the rest of us.