I love Amsterdam when it snows, but omfg the number of drivers sliding around with summer tires on their cars ...
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I love Amsterdam when it snows, but omfg the number of drivers sliding around with summer tires on their cars ...
Thankfully traffic was light, as most people were smart enough to stay home or take public transit instead.
@notjustbikes Summer tyres are illegal in Sweden this time of year. NL doesn't do this?
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@82mhz @notjustbikes given the amount of snow we normally get ... no. It is pretty reasonable to take a bicycle for those three days you might see a bit of snow, especially as the odds of the roads getting white (as in the picture) is much lower still. We measure snow in "measureable amount in part of the country".
@dascandy @notjustbikes
Ah interesting, thanks for the clarification! -
I love Amsterdam when it snows, but omfg the number of drivers sliding around with summer tires on their cars ...
Thankfully traffic was light, as most people were smart enough to stay home or take public transit instead.
@notjustbikes Similar conditions here in the UK. I'm WFH, my partner takes public transit and my son walks to school.
My smol car is encased in a mound of snow and will stay there until it melts
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I love Amsterdam when it snows, but omfg the number of drivers sliding around with summer tires on their cars ...
Thankfully traffic was light, as most people were smart enough to stay home or take public transit instead.
@notjustbikes having 2 sets of tires (summer and winter) is expensive.
Yes, I know all seasons tires exist but for some reason manufacturers never uses those when delivering a new vehicle. You probably can ask, I guess. But who does?
It is even worse! When you get a company car as part of the salary, winter tires are usually never part of the standard contract, and I can speak from experience. Like with my current employer. As an employee you may need to pay extra to get them.
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I love Amsterdam when it snows, but omfg the number of drivers sliding around with summer tires on their cars ...
Thankfully traffic was light, as most people were smart enough to stay home or take public transit instead.
@notjustbikes The one benefit of giant parking lots is hooning around like a fool doing donuts in the parking lot on fresh snow and summer tires when no one sane is out driving
Years ago did that with a friend's Subaru Outback wagon and found that if you could break all four tires loose that it'd rotate around the center of gravity for as long as you held the accelerator down. Fun times. -
I love Amsterdam when it snows, but omfg the number of drivers sliding around with summer tires on their cars ...
Thankfully traffic was light, as most people were smart enough to stay home or take public transit instead.
@notjustbikes Same here in Switzerland. Sure, most switch to winter tyres or use all-year tyres. But there's a significant number of people who believe that summer tyres in winter are perfectly fine.
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@dascandy @notjustbikes
Ah interesting, thanks for the clarification!@82mhz @dascandy @notjustbikes How many minutes has it bees since you last saw a driver not care about a law?
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I love Amsterdam when it snows, but omfg the number of drivers sliding around with summer tires on their cars ...
Thankfully traffic was light, as most people were smart enough to stay home or take public transit instead.
@notjustbikes so you changed to winter tires (with or without spikes) on your bike? 🫣
(But agree, it would be wiser to leave the car parked when there is a code orange for weather, and especially if driving on non-winter tires on icy conditions. But there is no law prohibiting the wrong tires for extreme weather)
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I love Amsterdam when it snows, but omfg the number of drivers sliding around with summer tires on their cars ...
Thankfully traffic was light, as most people were smart enough to stay home or take public transit instead.
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@notjustbikes so you changed to winter tires (with or without spikes) on your bike? 🫣
(But agree, it would be wiser to leave the car parked when there is a code orange for weather, and especially if driving on non-winter tires on icy conditions. But there is no law prohibiting the wrong tires for extreme weather)
@cejjacobs I do have winter tires for my bakfiets, yes.
But of course the real issue is that cars are really dangerous to other people while bicycles are not.
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I love Amsterdam when it snows, but omfg the number of drivers sliding around with summer tires on their cars ...
Thankfully traffic was light, as most people were smart enough to stay home or take public transit instead.
@notjustbikes that's interesting I'm not too far from Amsterdam and our snowfall is way worse
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I love Amsterdam when it snows, but omfg the number of drivers sliding around with summer tires on their cars ...
Thankfully traffic was light, as most people were smart enough to stay home or take public transit instead.
@notjustbikes Flowers in February not late April, temps of -2, not -25. I love the weather here although it got a bit hairy on the bus this morning.
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I love Amsterdam when it snows, but omfg the number of drivers sliding around with summer tires on their cars ...
Thankfully traffic was light, as most people were smart enough to stay home or take public transit instead.
@notjustbikes It happens once in 3 years. And it’s a lot of fun!
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I love Amsterdam when it snows, but omfg the number of drivers sliding around with summer tires on their cars ...
Thankfully traffic was light, as most people were smart enough to stay home or take public transit instead.
@notjustbikes The modern trend is for 2wd cars (that look like 4wd Tonka toys) running tyres that are too wide, meaning they need a lot of water-clearing tread, which is naff-all use in snow--might as well send people out on skis (or slicks?).
These days I can't even raise the energy to be surprised when people and their cars can't cope
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I love Amsterdam when it snows, but omfg the number of drivers sliding around with summer tires on their cars ...
Thankfully traffic was light, as most people were smart enough to stay home or take public transit instead.
@notjustbikes just recently my timeline on the other website was inundated by photos and dashboard camera videos of the chaos that sudden negatives and snowfalls wrought on my home country, including a horrible pileup and fire on the Kan’etsu
People from warmer/milder climes just don’t realise how much snow might affect their driving
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I love Amsterdam when it snows, but omfg the number of drivers sliding around with summer tires on their cars ...
Thankfully traffic was light, as most people were smart enough to stay home or take public transit instead.
@notjustbikes what is Amsterdam’s policy with regards to snow clearing of bike paths ? Do they have the equipment for it?
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@notjustbikes what is Amsterdam’s policy with regards to snow clearing of bike paths ? Do they have the equipment for it?
@jfmezei @notjustbikes the bike path on the photo on the right was cleared at some point, it just snowed a bit after but it's not a lot
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@notjustbikes what is Amsterdam’s policy with regards to snow clearing of bike paths ? Do they have the equipment for it?
@jfmezei @notjustbikes i live in the east of the Netherlands and this morning i noted that the schoolchildren had cleared the cycle paths quite well by the time i passed by. I don’t know if this is policy though....
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@notjustbikes Which public transport exactly?
@gkaper @notjustbikes yeah NL definitely doesn't see this much snow that often especially where I am. If this continues (unlikely hopefully) they'll need to add some defrosting measures.
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@gkaper the trams are running great!
@notjustbikes @gkaper The trams in Amsterdam were running fine after the freezing nights thanks to an employee initiative called 'Night Riders'.
During the night they would ride trams to keep the overhead lines ice free. They came up with this solution after a similar cold situation years earlier.
It worked and they were proud. With the compliments to them from Melanie the city elder on LinkedIn. And many inhabitants.
