Snow chaos
Tuesday 3rd February 2009, 3:00PM GMT.
DESPITE plenty of warning, an inch of snow has yet again caused chaos in Jersey.
Icy roads led to a spate of accidents, cars were abandoned and, despite schools being open, buses did not run. Hundreds of people walked to work as roads were like skating rinks, but many parents ended up driving children to school who would usually travel by bus.
The honorary police say that, since 4 am, they have dealt with 16 minor collisions around the Island. These included a bus sliding into a wall in St John. Despite a decision being taken at 5 am by Education director Mario Lundy to keep schools open, bus company Connex later decided that roads were too dangerous for its vehicles.
Mr Lundy said that he made the initial decision having been advised by the director of municipal services at Transport and Technical Services, Chris Sampson, that the roads would be sufficiently gritted for the school bus service to operate. But Connex managing director Eric Le Roux said that they had not been consulted when that decision was made.
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Absolutely pathetic, The island knew the snow was coming so what happened:- The states couldn’t get the roads gritted in time, people drove around as they would normally, and connex were as useless as always – I hope that the states has the balls to ask for a rebate on its subsidy. I have a car that is useless in snow but i got around OK, just by being extra careful. If there had been a foot of the stuff i could of understood it but one inch, its truly pathetic. And if you have a “proper 4×4″ then its even more pathetic
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As we saw it was alot of fuss about nothing in the end, But how confusing this morning was though reports on Radio and TV warning us of the treacherous conditions on the roads, but then in the next sentance schools will be open everyone. Mr Lundy & Mr Sampsom should take the blame
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Why would you take your lovely shiny chelsea tractor out on a gritted road, surely that is as bad as driving it off road. What I mean is grit might fly up and cause a little mess same as using a four by four for its intended purpose. When will people learn 4 by 4s are not to be used for their four wheel drive capability they are for driving kids to school and doing the shopping!
This is not meant as a slur on those who really do need them, to drive up their gravel paths.
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The JMT used to fit chains to a certain number of buses when it snowed. I would like to remind Connex that they run public SERVICE vehicles!
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Its only snow you don’t see norway or sweden shut down when they get 6foot of snow,,,,, Pathetic
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I live in Scotland, there was three inches of snow in my car yesterday morning and I drove 200 miles north without a problem.
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I live in Edinburgh, and despite the snow no schools were closed, university lectures and tutorials continued as normal and people were still driving to work. Only disruption was at the airport because of flights cancelled from Heathrow and Gatwick!
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The snow came on the evening and by 11.30pm had settled….less than an inch.
The next day it was ice due to it been compacted by the cars.
By the evening the snow & Ice had disappeared yet i still got home to find the lane i live in had been blitzed with Grit!
Why not the day before? or even in the early morning?
The grit will now be washed away by the rain and then the rain will freeze to provide more ice!
Waste of tax payers money
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People should think before they moan. Countries that experience heavy snow every year (i.e. Scotland/Norway) are much less affected because they have an abundance of equipment specifically designed to deal with it. Jersey on the other hand has ‘proper’ snow every 10 years or so. Personally I’m not prepared to pay for services and expensive equipment that will collect dust and not snow for 10 years then be used for 1 day when this funding can be put into education or health services. Instead I’ll take the morning of chaos once every 10 years.
The authorities are dammed if they do, dammed if they don’t. Even the south of England got caught out and their authorities are in the same predicament.
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Taking the kids to school yesterday morning was terrible! The car was skidding, sliding even the car parks and entrances to two schools were not gritted and the car parks were just like an ice skating rink! And despite that the schools were still open i was very surprised that there wasnt a tragic accident! On one road, i had to drive on the wrong side because with it being on a slope, my car couldnt get any grip because of the ice! During that morning when the snow and ice started to clear in certain areas, we took a drive around different parts of the island only to find the road from St Martins school down to the church was well gritted! Well done St Martins! With the schools being kept open, i would of thought for the safety of not only the children but also parents, school car parks and roads should have all been gritted, you would have thought it would have been common sense!
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Pedigree Bean
As a driver its your responsibility to decide if a road is safe to drive on. If you are sliding all over the road dangerously, “go home.
You don’t wait for someone else to make the decision for you.
I too am suprised there wasnt a tragic accident!
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Re Craig, I was in Edinburgh yesterday the 4th and there was no snow at all, very cold and a heavy frost but no snow. Also no snow between Edinburgh and Glasgow visible from the train or on the 900 bus between the two cities.
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Hi PJG, We only found out the roads were very bad after we had eventually made our way out of St Helier, we listened into the radio to see if the schools were shut, they stated that they were open so we presumed that the roads were safe enough to venture out on but they werent, especially when we came across the car parks of the first school drop off as i share a car with my friends children also! By the tme i had driven to another school just across the way, the roads seem to get worse! I can assure you that i did venture back down to St Helier outskirts until the roads were clearer and safer. Other wise, they should have really been shut until the roads were alot safer to drive on.
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Even if they closed the schools for two – three hours in the morning until the snow and ice had cleared that would have been alot better for everyone! Hopefully they will grit more roads next time. I also feel for these guys that drive the Esso lorries etc etc, they cant use chains on their vehicles and with the roads not being gritted for them, its a hazard waiting to happen! So for the people that arent doing their jobs properly, are you going to wait until tragic accident happens where more than one person gets killed?
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Hmmmm… an interesting thread about Jersey’s inability to deal with ice on the roads?? I’m a professional driver with over twenty years experience of driving all sorts of vehicles around this rock. I too was out on the road and the driving conditions were very tricky indeed.
However… it was MY decision to drive across Jersey, on ice. If I had been involved in a crash, I would not dream of trying to apportion the blame to “the Schools who opened”,”the buses who didn’t run” or “the lack of grit on the roads”. The risk Assessment is always the driver’s responsibility. The moral of this tale is… if you don’t feel safe on the road, then stay at home until the conditions improve. Connex made the right decision and told all their drivers to stay put until the roads were gritted.
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jersey all the trimming but no stuffing…1 inch of snow…get a grip or grit.
only in jersey.
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Snow joke we don’t want snow more
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It was all gone by 10am…
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the difference is road surfaces. Jersey roads are made of different stuff to those in the UK and hense when it snows it makes conditions a lot more difficult than driving in scotland. The schools should have closed as driving conditions were terrible in the north of the island
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Your damned if you do, you’re damned if you don’t. Years ago when the last Director of Education closed the schools in conditions worse than we had this week he was heavily critized for doing so.
The confusion this year arose when the bus service, after saying the buses would be running, then changed their minds. This created the problem as they did not communicate this back to the education department until 1) many children/parents had already set off for school, 2) many children were waiting for a bus that was not to arrive.
You then had a situation where half the kids made it in, and half the kids didn’t.
Blaming Mr Lundy for this one is harsh, this chaos was created by the bus service and I believe Mr Lundy made absilutley the right decison based on the information and advise he was given at the time.
You can rest assured that had he closed the schools and the buses ran all day, he would have come under severe critism by some for doing that.
It was a no win situation as far as I am concerned.
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