Over the last few of weeks the UK has been hit with some of the most extreme weather we’ve seen in ages. The first week of February brought the heaviest snowfall we’ve seen for 18 years, causing hundreds of schools to close and leaving over 6 million people unable to get to work. Most public transport was cancelled and many roads were deemed unsafe due to the icy conditions and closed off.

The continuing bad weather is a real worry for drivers, with an increased risk of accidents on the icy roads as well as other problems caused by the extreme conditions. There have been a number of incidents of sudden heavy snowfall trapping drivers in their cars, while in other parts of the country the melting snow has combined with heavy rains and severe flood warnings have been issued.

All this is bad news for car owners, not only because the personal risk of driving on the roads is higher, but also because a damaged car can be a costly business. With the recession, most people really couldn’t afford to splash out on a new car if something happened to theirs. And this is the real problem with owning a car. It’s brilliant until something goes wrong, but then it can just become really expensive. You might think it won’t happen to you, that you’re a safe driver who won’t get into that sort of situation. But as the last few weeks have proved, you can never help what happens on the roads, and you certainly can’t predict it.

The problem is that once you have paid for a car it becomes entirely your responsibility. Then the car is more likely to go wrong the older it gets, especially in extreme weather conditions like those we have been experiencing, and the more money you’ll have to shell out when it does. And even when you get it fixed, it still won’t be worth half what you paid for it in the first place as a car only ever decreases in value over time.

The people who manage to avoid these worries are those who opt for a car contract hire deal instead of buying a car outright. It doesn’t mean the car isn’t yours, it just means that you pay for it in regular monthly instalments and often you get additional benefits thrown in as well like road tax and servicing costs. So if something was to happen, you wouldn’t have to cover the whole bill yourself. And the best thing is that when the contract hire expires after a couple of years you can trade the car in for a new one, meaning you’ve always got the latest updated model. And as you’ll always be driving a new car, it’s less likely to break down in the first place as it won’t have had time to wear out!

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