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February 8th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
By
Ross Clark
Last updated at 12:48 AM on 8th February 2012
Whenever it snows I look out the window, enjoy the rare beauty of the falling flakes and white-washed streets — and feel thankful that I don’t live in Germany.
Not just because the temperature in Berlin at noon on Monday was minus 14c, but because I don’t have to rush outdoors with a shovel every time I see a snowflake.
German residents, in common with those in Switzerland, Austria and the Netherlands, have a legal duty to keep the pavements outside their homes free of snow — in fact, in Germany, the duty extends to half the width of the road as well.
Valiant effort: A woman clears the path outside her home of snow. But should such gestures be made compulsory?
It is a serious business when it snows in many American and Canadian cities, too. In Boston, residents who fail to clear a 42in-wide passage through the snow on the pavement outside their homes can be fined $250 (£157) for every day that snow remains on the pavement.
On that basis, in the current cold snap, I would already have run up a bill of $1,000 (£629). It would be pretty hard work to avoid the fines, too: I have 200ft of pavement around my detached house in a Cambridgeshire village.
While residents of much snowier countries beaver away with shovels, we remain slovenly about shovelling snow outside our homes. Neighbours were out in force on Sunday, but they weren’t clearing snow: they were building snowmen and igloos.
One North London resident this week reported that just two homeowners had bothered to clear the pavements outside their homes, one of whom was German and the other Indian.
In many British towns, pathways are still covered with compressed ice and slush four days after the weekend snowfalls, with residents braced for another wintry blast that could plunge temperatures to minus 12c in some parts of the country.
We are very quick, as a nation, to grumble when public authorities, train companies and airports fail to keep the country moving during our rare snowfalls, but shouldn’t we all be doing our bit to keep pavements clear?
That is what more than half of us apparently believe — even if we don’t practise it. An opinion poll commissioned by the Local Government Group in 2010 found 59 per cent of us would support a German-style law requiring householders to clear snow from outside their homes.
Whether we would continue to say that if — as would be the inevitable result of such a law — elderly ladies with chilblains found themselves under threat of prosecution for failing to do their bit is another matter.
There is a good reason, however, why so few of us bother to clear the pavements outside our homes. There remains a deep suspicion that the reward for our efforts might be to end up in a court of law being sued by someone who slipped and fell on any snow, slush or ice that we leave behind.
Snow cover over Europe indicated in cyan: Residents of other countries in the continent are compelled to clear snow from the around their homes
There have been plenty of intimations of this. In 2010, 68-year-old Michael Pepper of Bar Hill, Cambridgeshire, rang his county council to ask if it would be all right if he spread ‘grit’ (usually rock salt, which lowers the freezing point of water and thus melts ice) from a council salt bin onto his frozen street.
He was warned he could be sued if someone slipped and was advised to take out public liability insurance. A local insurance broker quoted him a policy of £500 a year.
Predictably, the roads went uncleared. In Portsmouth, however, 120 residents ignored similar warnings from their council and clubbed together to clear snow from their street. Once they had completed the work — which took them only an hour — the council changed its tune, congratulating them on their efforts.
Both councils may have been acting on advice given by Labour transport spokesman Lord Davies of Oldham in the House of Lords in 2004. He said that householders faced lawsuits from any pedestrians who slipped on the ground from which they had cleared snow outside their homes.
As a result of the lamentable failure of the transport system to cope with the snows of late 2009 and early 2010, the then Labour Government commissioned a report on winter ‘resilience’ from Sir David Quarmby, chairman of the RAC Foundation.
One of his suggestions was that the Government issue a ‘snow code’ —guidelines on how residents should approach the clearing of pavements outside their homes and protecting them from being sued if they stuck to the code. Sir David stopped short, however, of recommending German or American-style laws, making it obligatory for residents to clear pavements.
The Government did, indeed, issue a ‘snow code’ in October 2010, which is available in leaflet form and on the Directgov website. It tells us not to be ‘afraid’ of clearing snow from outside our homes, and not to believe the ‘myths’ about being sued.
But some of the specific advice is less than reassuring, saying: ‘It’s unlikely you’ll be sued or held legally responsible for any injuries if you have cleared the path carefully.’ The inference is that if we do the job less than carefully, we are very much liable to be hauled into court.
To clear a pavement, it goes on, we should shovel away the snow and then use salt or grit to melt any remaining snow. Bizarrely, it adds that we should not use grit from council grit bins because that is only for roads.
What the leaflet tells us not to do is to attempt to clear snow using hot water, for fear that it might freeze and create black ice.
A London street under a blanket of snow: Britons are often the first to complain if authorities fail to keep things running smoothly in inclement weather
While no British homeowner can be sued or fined for leaving the pavement outside his home knee-deep in snow or coated with naturally-formed ice, the same is not true of paths on our own properties.
Under the Occupiers Liability Act 1984, householders do have a duty towards visitors to their homes. If the postman or the milkman slips and injures himself on your driveway or garden path, you most definitely can be sued, as Beverly Jones, of Stockton, found to her cost in 2010 when her postman slipped and banged his head in her garden on his 8am round.
Initially, he gave her some flowers to thank her for ringing an ambulance. But two months later she received a letter from his solicitors seeking damages. He later dropped the case.
As long as Britain remains in the grip of a compensation culture — fuelled by greedy lawyers and people lured by ‘no win, no fee’ deals — homeowners are hardly going to clear public pavements when we already run the risk of being sued for failing to keep the paths on our properties clear.
Especially when even residents of extremely well-heeled areas leave the pavements slushy. The most spectacular fall I’ve witnessed was that of a businessman who slipped on compacted ice right outside Buckingham Palace, crashing to the ground and sending his briefcase skidding several yards into the gutter.
Perhaps Her Majesty is too wary of being sued by one of the many American tourists who crowd the Palace gates to send a footman to clear the snow with a royal shovel.
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