Assignment 2- article 2

How the cold weather affects...

I have already looked at how the weather affects the elderly and I wanted to take a completely different slant on the question and decided to look at how the weather affected the roads.

I had a pre-conception that a lot more accidents would occur in the winter due to icy road surfaces and poor weather conditions but was surprised to find that this wasn't necessarily the case.

I spoke to Emma Reynolds who works for the Road Safety department of the Lancashire County Council to ask her about how drivers, cyclists and pedestrians can all be affected by the winter weather.

Making sure you have plenty of time for your journey is essential things like de-icing the car and scraping ice of the windows takes time.

"Drivers take notice of the weather conditions, get up a bit earlier so you can de-ice your car and you can make a slower journey", said Emma.

"Ask yourself at the end of the day is your journey really essential?" She added.

Keeping your distance between the car behind you is also essential because stopping distance can be affected by slippery road surfaces. Checking your car thoroughly before a journey is useful. Check the amount of water, oil, electric and check all your tyres.

“ Check that your tyres have plenty of tread depth as well and enough air pressure because if it’s very icy and you’re likely to be skidding around it’s very important that your tyres are at the correct measure of tread to stop you from skidding as much”, Emma continued.

Although she told me that there weren’t that many more incidents to occur in the winter in Preston, she also told of some useful safety tips for pedestrians and cyclists:

“Pedestrians be safe and be seen. If you have any kind of reflective clothing that you can wear- strap bands, reflective capes, it’s difficult in dark nights and mornings for drivers to see you so be aware of that”

“Cyclists should also make sure they’re seen by wearing reflective clothing and having the bright white light at the front and the red light at the back of their bike.”

It was surprising to here that there isn’t that many more road accidents in the winter, as I presumed with the harsher weather conditions there would be. Having said that, it can only be beneficial to take on board safety advice given to you.

Another interesting point Emma made was that it’s not necessarily the roads that are the problem; it’s just as much irresponsible drivers who can be at fault:

“Is there such thing as a dangerous road? You can do as much as you can to make a road safer but at the end of the day if drivers are going to take risks then it isn’t going to make a lot of difference.”

I made the google map after looking at this article.


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For more information on the subject. I used this website which I found useful.