Simple question. Does anyone know whether the emergency vehicles and police cars in the UK are ever fitted with winter tyres? If not one would ask why, given that it seems important for these people above all to be able to get where they need to be in safety.
Ian
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No! Because the bean counters say so. We have to cut 10-15% from our budget this year. There's hardly money for fuel, let alone winter tyres!
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There would be a training implication - drivers would have to be trained to drive on snow - probably to risky and expensive to justify it.
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You can see the snow chains hanging under our fire engines, sea level central Scotland, usually a couple of days light snow a year. Up north in the highlands the emergency 4X4's have snow tyres
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in parts of rural kent - those farmer type landrovers driven by cops appear to have very chunky tyres.
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I'm old enough to remember ambulances with snow chains and fire engines with sump heaters.
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Interesting. I saw our local village policeman here in France driving with chains on last week. They were the new lightweight style though, made of a network of cords rather than actual metal chains.
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With a little more research, here are the new composite "chains":
tinyurl.com/yzq25c6
They weigh nothing, maybe a kilo for a set. I see they also do a version for your shoes!!
Ian
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Are they any good (lightweight chains). I heard a description over the weekend of a chain that looked like a hairnet and was useless. Possibly these?
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Good question, I don't know. I have seen good comments on the web, and although I have a friend here who has a set in his car he hasn't tried them yet. Like many people we have chains in the car, but the winter tyres make such a difference that the chains are rarely needed.
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