I once spent three years in the USA and every winter we had pretty severe snow (I was living in Washington state) but once you become used to the conditions you adapt your driving accordingly. Here we simply do not get that experience so when we get an inch or two the road system and the drivers cannot cope. In the States they make the most of it.

I can remember heading for a huge supermarket car park at around 6am on a Sunday morning with a couple of mates. It had snowed lightly but steadily all night and the car park was a massive area of untouched snow. Along with a couple of mates in their Corvettes (I was in an Austin Healey 3000) we proceeded to spend an hour having a fantastic time sliding, handbrake turning, skidding, throttle steering et al.

I learned more in that hour about driving on snow than ever I learned on the road and I’m grateful that the lessons have stuck with me. If winters turn out to be consistently bad perhaps we need some form of snow driving courses? An open area of tarmac and a couple of snow machines should get the show on the road…..