@@UnipornFrumm We barely had 0,2cm snow in the NORTH of Norway this year, it did not snow until late November and its still forecasted plus degrees in coming weeks. People who deny global warming are a joke to the human species.
I think because people aren't used to skidding anymore, all the technological features like traction control make such an event quite rare in most cases.
In the days before alternators became standard on British cars, they relied on dynamoes to generate electric power. If you used headlights in slow-moving traffic, and used your wipers and heater, you'd soon find you'd drained your battery.
Couldn't agree with you more. Many people used to run with choke (remember manual choke ?!) to keep the revs high to help charging and of course because the cars never warmed up in cold weather. I remember towns stinking of over rich fuel mixture on a cold day...
Not sure I'd agree with that. All cars I owned had ammeters which always showed a nett positive charge current with normal loading and reasonable engine RPM ( normal load = all lights on - only other load was ignition coil and a radio if you had one ! - and don't forget - heater was fed from engine hot water coolant - not electrically driven - other than a fan to blow air) This would have to be the case otherwise normal driving at night would also flatten the battery A dynamo is in essence no different to an alternator. - they are both rotating machines that generate electrical current either by rotating coils ( the armature) of wire in a magnetic field ( produced by a "stator winding" in the case of the dynamo or rotating the "magnetic field" in the case of an alternator A dynamo used brushes and a commutator to connect to the armature - to provide Direct Current in conjunction with an electromechanical regulator to correctly adjust voltage and output current. An alternator uses an armature with windings connected by a slip ring - this provides a "rotating magnetic field The stator winding is a three phase winding which produces a three phase alternating current and uses a solid state three phase rectifier and electronic regulator In fact - early alternators weren't that reliable - the rectifier diodes ( fitted on small metal fins) would often fail - and I've replaced many of those - including the regulator pack !
@@eric4709 If I go outside, start my hobby car (a 1965 Hillman Super Minx), let it warm up to an idle then put the headlamps, heater fan and wipers on, the (optional) ammeter indicates a negative charge of around 0 to -5 amperes. Driving the car in the same state of electrical load however, increases the charging state to a positive. Speaking to parents (born '30s and '40s) they recall similar experiences of battery drain and having to use the starting handle the next day.
Nothing worse than a poorly adjusted voltage cut out, cut out too soon at low Revs and you get a discharge. Not something I suffer with in my 1930’s car, thanks to careful adjustment. It’s original dynamo runs all I ask it to, including modern head lights. I get sick and tired of people slating Joe lucas. Peoples low expectations of old cars are always met because the owners don’t know about the car, or don’t do anything about the car...
@@chriswilson2431 Totally agree Chris. As Ive mentioned earlier - there is no fundamental difference in how the "older" dynamo works ( it doesn't matter if the coil moves relative to the magnetic field or vice -versa) other than the fact it has a commutator and an electro-mechanical regulator - which when properly adjusted will work properly even at lower RPM
Back in the early 1960's I had an old Austin A30. Went out in all weathers without problem, if there was a lot of snow then a bag of sand in the boot to weigh it down a bit and a shovel just in case. Nowadays a sprinkling of snow and everything grinds to a halt and the buses stop running.
What I notice is how well those narrow cross ply tyres deal with snow and ice, whereas our low profile radials are confused by just a dusting of snow. However in the dry and rain there is no comparison.
The best car I ever drove in ice & snow was a Mk1 Mini... it’s phenomenal handling really came into its own during the often snowy winters we had during the 1960’s.
Lightweight, physically small, and with precice steering. Only downside was the electrics were on the front of the engine and got wet. Screwing the number plate on the grill cured that.
@@sallybutton6237 And the barsteward cold hearted teachers would kick us all out into the playground at dinner time regardless of the weather ! There were only so many corners of the building you could claim to shelter from the biting wind ! Then we emigrated to Western Australia and it was one extreme to t'other ! 39c and sitting on plastic chairs in a prefab building (Demountables). No point opening the window as it just let the flies in !
0utcastAussie I remember that too, often sent out at lunchtime and break time in sub zero temperatures, the only time we stayed in was if it was raining or snowing. Maybe my memory is playing tricks 55 years on but I seem to remember being sent out onto a snow and ice covered playground for weeks at a time of course now they shut the schools down.
@@0utcastAussie the school I went to had an outside swimming pool that we didn't stop using until the October holidays, teacher had hat coat and gloves to keep warm we had trunks and a towel, he then held a pole just above the water that you all had to swim under, the water was freezing!!, and when you got out the wind whipped across the playground as you walked to the changing room just to add to the experience, it did mean that the cold classroom felt quite warm, so that was a positive!.
So true. I could manage snow easily but I once hit black ice driving a fully loaded coach coming off the M25 at the Orpington turn off. No control whatsoever, luckily the coach came to a standstill all on it's own
My old 1931 with is skinny 19 in wheels was just great in the snow never got stuck and if it was really bad I just tied rope around the wire wheels to create rope chains!!
On motorbike trips when [what's now called] 'wild-camping' I always carry rope for exactly that purpose, using a marling hitch to fix it round the tyre and through between the spokes. Really good solution for soft ground and mud, as well as snow, when your bike has smooth tires for long-distance road work.
@@christhjian9923 Neither had I, until one morning in the middle of a big French forest I awoke to heavy rain - the dry weather had broken. Some hours later, soaking wet and muddy, exhausted after several diggings-out, it just came to me! [I just happened to have a length of rope there]. There's a saying: "Necessity is the mother of Invention". :-) Used the method often since, all over the place. Works really well. Rope is always handy to take with you anyway, erecting shelters, etc, and it doesn't have to be very thick to be effective on the tyre. Cheers!
In the west country at this time we had drifts of around three metres and we all went to work. I worked in a shop and I cannot remeber it closing for one day. At Sturminster Newton in Dorset we went to a barbecue on the side of the river and there were dozens of people skating.
My Dad tells me how he used to walk to school in 3 feet of snow - but the whole country used to carry on with business as usual; not the palaver we see when there's half an inch of snowfall.
I was brought up in northern England in the 50s/60s so I know what you're getting at but things are completely different now with traffic density much higher and much longer commutes. In the old days most people lived within a few miles of their place of employment.
The comment at 0:46 about driving on side lamps 'not good enough' still applies today 50+ years on! People still drive in poor visibility on dim parking lights (fitted but not needed in the UK). The UK rule is either no lights or headlights. See and be seen.
The only real wreck I’ve had in my 40years of driving happened because I didn’t realize how slick leaves on the roadway can be. I straightened out a curve and hit a tree, I steered around the corner but the car continued forward with the wheels turned. Leaves aren’t talked about much but in the right conditions they are very slick.
Road safety has greatly improved in the UK. Tragedies still occur, but we have the safest road record in Europe and despite more vehicles on the road there are much fewer fatalities today than there were in the early 60s
Accelerate gently, steer smoothly, allow plenty of braking distance and learn to read the road. Now, when we get a puff of snow, it's DON'T GO OUT! IT'S TERRIBLE OUT THERE!
Think it’s more to do the shit standard of driving today than the weather when it snows these days.. half the muppets who get a license these days can’t handle our current drippy cold winters, they wouldn’t stand a chance in the winters in the old days.
@Discofelsi yeah, don’t get me wrong the systems are a great addition for safety, but yeah some people just don’t get driving and what it means to be in “control” of a couple of tonne of metal moving at speed.. and what happens to the soft squidgy occupants when the metal stops too quick thanks to a barrier or other vehicle. Not sure what it’s like where you are, but learning to drive in the UK is a joke.. You go on your first lesson, and they book in your test. The poor learner is then either good enough to pass by their test date, or they are lined up to bounce off of test until they either learn to pass, or pass due to luck on the day. Ive known people who I wonder how they passed a test, and they joke about how many tests they’ve had.. and as you suggest they seem to be oblivious to what’s going on.
@Discofelsi My Volvo doesn't have too many 'driver assist' devices - more expensive models have more than mine - but it does have 'city brake assist' and the darn thing locks on if I approach my garage door a little too quickly. The thing is, it only works if I'm pushing the brake pedal - if I wasn't, the car would go THROUGH the garage door! So I am braking, I AM in control, I DO know what I am doing because I can see a dirty great white garage door a few feet ahead - but unless I trickle the car up to the door, ON goes the ABS - DOWN goes the front of the car and ON comes an orange warning light on the dash. STUPID brake assist...
I think the point people aren't explaining, is not that those were better times, just that cars on skinny tyres coped far better than the cars of today. Instead of 135, 145 155 (or Imperial equivalents) width tyres, we now routinely have 215, 235 255, 275mm tyres which do not cope as well in snow and ice (unless winter patterns and compounds). So, I recall cars coping with 4-6" snow, no 4wd, but skinny tyres. Of course, no one can argue that the cars of today have better traction and grip in all other situations
Those high profile tyres were average in all weather, modern "performance" tyres turn into tea tray sledges in light snow. I used to love cruising past bmws in my classic mini in the snow.
Modern all seasons are pretty decent year round. You're defeating the point of summer tires by running them in winter, and snow tires are better than ever before. 60 years of development in tread pattern and chemistry goes a long way.
@@no-damn-alias Just that thousands of people died in road accidents and of course many more were maimed in England back in those days despite everybody in the comments reflexively glorifying it as a better time. The roads were relatively treacherous compared to today and collisions much less survivable. So I reckon making a bit of a fuss about hazardous driving conditions is possibly justified.
Owing to the winters always giving us lots of ice and snow, sometimes for months on end, drivers, as you say, just got on with it, and also the experience made them better and more competent and resourceful drivers. Gaining experience is always better than some authority protecting you from getting that experience. But so few people think that way now, especially the generation whose ideas have been formed since the creation of the notorious Health & Safety Executive.
t Todays drivers still don't know about light usage, they either blind those behind with fog lights on when theres no fog or forget to use them at all when fog is thick, not to mention only side lights on in heavy rain.
So much easier when cars had narrow tyres that enabled the weight of the car to “cut through” rain and snow. Today’s cars that are almost all over-tyred for appearances sake, literally “float onto of rain and snow giving dramatically less traction.
Well it really depends on conditions. It's true that narrow tires are better in slush and fresh, un-packed snow than wider equivalents, up to a point. But on packed snow and ice they won't help at all, whereas a modern winter tire is excellent.
That bloke chucking the car around on that surface has some skills actually. Must have been a professional driver in some capacity? (not just public info films..)
Been to Britain a may times in winter including northern parts, never remember any snow in winter. Looks like in 1960 it was a proper snowy winters, nowadays Britain people can only dream about.
the Menace is driving a Wolsely fifteen hundred, not the best handling car in the dry (lots of body roll due to stiff rear suspension and soft front suspension and poor damping from lever arm dampers.) so this chap is showing a fair amount of skill sliding it around like that. That said i own the more powerful Riley version, (65bhp) and it will go round corners quite well if you are brave enough to put up with the disconcerting body roll.....
Lovely, hope-giving music; (unlike the modern miserable death-intonoting tones). And this, despite the possibly fatal subject matter. Thanks very much.
In the 1960s, people didn't tend to use their headlights unless it was actually dark, because the batteries are weak and relied on dynamos or something. Nowadays, it's common for people to turn on their lights in gloomy weather, which is good, although some people still forget! Sometimes people leave their lights on in full daylight, which is a bit pointless, but I guess the electrical systems are more efficient now.
Back then they told you the most obvious and intuitive thing: learn to read the surface. Nowadays people are just helpless if their ESP and TCS and Surface Selection doesn't work while I disable ESP and let the car move and do what it needs to do while controlling the direction and speed. So much more relaxing to drive. As a kid everyone here knew when the car would skid and when it would halt. Now they drive into each other at walking speed. "Technological progress" "Safer driving because driving aids" "Teslas ESP shuts down when tested thoroughly"
Why not? They survived and drove back then - unlike the over compensated, over gadgetised crap of today where a fault in the 'wonderful' computerised electrics would mean a repair bill almost equal to the cost of a car of that past era.
I think I’ll stick to modern front wheel drive cars with traction control, abs, lights that actually give out something to see by, and modern tyres. Although you can keep the global warming that has made winter nothing more than a week of damp weather, I did like the six foot snow drifts.
''whats this chap up to?'' - i would say he has probably been down the pub and got a bit drunk but they didn't mind that sort of thing back in them days - if a policeman stopped me and asked have you been drinking i'd say ''im robert shearing the wet fish van driver'' and he'd let me off (of course that meant i had to give him free mackerel next time he came round but i'd give him some old brown ones that had been there for a few days) 👍 have a great day
Ah back in the days of pencil thin concrete hard rubber tyres,also back when we used to have weather types other than constant rain.Frost/snow/fog what are those??
Older cars gave you a much better feel for the road. Modern cars have had the “ feel “ engineered out. This could be argued why people feel much safer in a modern car and drive much faster than they should.
Beängstigend, dass kaum jemand mit vollem Licht fährt , selbst heutzutage fahren Autos in der Dämmerung manchmal ohne Licht - Die Licht Automatik, eine gute moderne Erfindung
Yeh, all those bloody foreigners have ruined our winters, don't get snow like that anymore, I blame the EU, blah blah blah. Good thing we've got Brexit, we can start having proper cold winters again, none of this foreign climate change nonsense. Boris is going to bring back proper British weather from now on!
@bob brookman Codswallop ! Love it , not heard that since around 1976 when they were predicting global cooling (during the drought) and the impending Ice age .
Does anyone remember or know where I could put my hands on a British road safety advert from 1967 featuring Adam West as Batman teaching children how to cross the road? Or even who would have produced it?
Ben...Network released a DVD named "Charlie Says" It's a 2 disk set. I have it, but i don't see anything featuring Adam West. It's a fascinating set to watch thou, over 240 mins of a mixture of live & animated videos.