I found one !

After more than 3 weeks of snow and Ice I finally witnessed the rarest of breeds seen in the British isles, a gritter.
It plodded past me on it's lonely journey, oblivious to the fact that it's numbers are obviously dwindling and soon they will be an extinct species.
Amusingly the hill it gritted as I traveled home was virtually impassable the next morning so a cruel twist of fate if ever there was one.

True to form the local council then announce they only have enough salt for the next three days i.e until today and they have been putting less on the roads to conserve stocks - now anyone with a radio or TV will have seen plenty of notice about the snow and ice coming and plenty of notice that it was going to be here for quite a while but as usual these things always revolve one thing and one thing only - Money.

Fair enough, I don't expect my cul-de sac to be gritted (it never is) and once we were snowed in until all the residents dug the entire road out but you expect Main arterial roads to be usable.

Trundling down the main A38 was "lively" to say the least with more icy patches than a badly organized wedding anniversary, most people were being sensible and driving in the inside lane but as usual you get the loonies who think it's dry and sunny, you can see them sliding as they fight to control their vehicles but death it seems is not a deterrent for this part of the gene pool.

I got onto the Motorway which was better and was passed by Captain "I'd like to die soon" in his BMW at well over 100mph, now had he bothered to look through his tinted view on the world and actually realize the other objects moving near him were other motorists he would have seen that anything rear wheel drive was having serious issues in this weather.

So at the moment we have the local council not putting anywhere near as much grit as they would bother to, gritters nowhere to be seen anyway and the whole system creaking under strain. In the confusion and general fun and games it's nice to see the loonies don't care if it's gritted or not, they see such things as mere inconveniences anyway.

The perfect example of this was a part of the A38 that widens to 4 lanes (left lane turns left, 2 middle lanes are straight on and the right hand lane runs for about 250 yards then filters right).
Bear in mind the right hand lane had 4 inches of snow on it and only the left and middle lanes were clear enough to use I spotted a Zafira shoot out of the middle lane into the outside lane (people often use it to try and out run the traffic because they can't wait 10 seconds), he was about 200 yards in front of me and obviously wants pole position at the lights.
The lights changed and off he pops, all you could see was snow spraying from his wheels, his car slipping and sliding left and right violently and amusingly all the traffic undertook him, he then got to the limit of this lane and decided to try and swerve his car in front of me - Under normal circumstances he would receive a good dose of my car horn and hopefully lip read the word "Wanker" as he makes eye contact but in this case I decided it was better to let nature take it's course as I'm due a new car soon so if he smashes the right hand side up then it will just speed up the process.

Unfortunately Mr. Dim the driver of the Zafira noticed me just in time and in between his slipping and sliding managed to slip in a few cars later on.

I often think the real issue in this weather is these idiots, yes I like to drive fast but there is a fine line between placing the odds in your favor or against when it comes to obtaining fairy wings and a harp.

No amount of grit will get past these people, I'm sure they have an anti-grit mentality anyway, I've seen more cars in ditches than ever before and looking at the skid marks many of them were doing a fair whack.

So the freeze continues, Britain is running out of grit and the loonies are happy anyway, darting about the roads wondering what the problem is and smiling out their tinted windows as they look upon a world that one day they hope will conform to their way of thinking and abandon common sense in favor of all out stupidity.

People may think I'm being harsh but if your out in these twitchy and unpredictable conditions take a look at them as they zoom past you and smile as you know it's only a matter of time until they get enough points on their card to qualify for the celestial wings and harp.