For the first time in as long as I reliably recall, I almost slipped and fell on the ice outside. Many places it's just pure ice on the sidewalks. That is, I did slip, and would have fallen if I hadn't been walking next to a fence I could grab.
This was actually the way my maternal grandfather died. After slipping on ice on a sidewalk.
Back in Denmark, all the sidewalks are shovelled and sanded, enforced by law. This seems not to be the case in the UK, which is a pity. There must surely be a big price to pay every winter in broken hips.
Update:
Anon points to "snow chains for boots". Not elegant, but then neither is a crutch.
Eolake said...
ReplyDelete"Anon points to "snow chains for boots". Not elegant, but then neither is a crutch."
GOOD ONE and SO TRUE! :-/
The last few winters I've been using "Wintertrax", a stretch over the shoe with wire coils for the sole. Very effective, even here in balmy South Bend. ( It has snowed significantly every day in December, and 4 of the days were a "lake effect snow monster")
ReplyDeleteBron
Yaxtrax and wintertrax are from the same company; I think the wintertraz are lighter weight.
ReplyDeleteBron
"lake effect"?
ReplyDeletePrevailing winds from the NW cross the relatively warm waters of Lake Michigan, collect moisture, which then is precipitated as snow, and often, very heavy snow, known as "lake effect" snow. Any place south and a little east of one of the Great Lakes suffers from "lake effect" snow.
ReplyDeleteSouth Bend averages about 82 inches of snow, much of it from lake effect "snow monsters".
More on the 4 day "snow monster" at my blog:
ReplyDeletehttp://frame-notes.blogspot.com/
Bron
Back in Denmark, all the sidewalks are shovelled and sanded, enforced by law. This seems not to be the case in the UK, which is a pity.
ReplyDeleteWe have the same law here, and I've been campaigning against it for years. It is typical socialist thinking: force property owners to sand their sidewalks so people don't have to wear proper shoes. I.e. rather than apply traction to the bottom of your shoe, try to apply it to the ground everywhere where someone might conceivably step.
The government's solutions always have the opposite effect to the stated one. Here the tons of sand cast on the streets every year put thousands of people to an early grave.
Good to hear the U.K. has no such idiotic laws.
Yeah, I can see that viewpoint too.
ReplyDelete---
Snow Lake effect:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake-effect_snow
82 inches on average, muthafrig!
ReplyDeleteYeah, I can see that viewpoint too.
ReplyDeleteDespite it being sheer idiocy? I wish more places had that law, or at least one that forced people to shovel their city sidewalk or face a stiff fine. It makes walking very difficult when you're goiong through three feet of snow. Either that or spend a bit more of the tax money on plows.
I can't help but laugh when morons complain about "socialist" governments, thinking, etc. They wouldn't want to live in a pure capitalist society, and certainly not in a libertarian one.
Well, the shoveling part does make sense.
ReplyDeleteWhat I am against is the sanding. In Helsinki they dump tons of it on the streets every year. And in the spring they then attempt to "vacuum" it back using those special vehicles.
The only problem is that they only get about 70-80% of it back, and way too late in the spring. The rest enter the sewage system, gets stuck on the walls of buildings, gets blown inside apartments ... and finds itself in our lungs.
If you are any kind of asthmatic, you basically have to stay inside all of April, until the rains have cleared the air somewhat. And even after that the city is never really clean.
This stupidity causes many more premature deaths in asthmatics and the elderly people than it saves in preventing slippage.
It the law was repealed, people would quickly learn to use proper winter shoes, and the air would stay breathable through out the year.
If you think sand is bad you should have to endure the salting of roads and sidewalks in the US... Here is one effect and another.
ReplyDelete