Over the last couple 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 stranded unable to get to work. Most public transport was disrupted or cancelled completely, and many roads were deemed unsafe and closed off due to the icy conditions.

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

All this is bad news for car owners, not just because of the heightened personal risk of driving on the roads, but also because a damaged car is a costly business. With the recession, most people just wouldn’t be able to 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 good 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 your car has been paid for, it then becomes entirely your responsibility. Then the older the car gets the more likely it is to go wrong, especially in extreme weather conditions like those we have been experiencing, and the more it will cost you when it does. And even when you do get it fixed, a car only ever decreases its value over time so it still won’t be worth half what you paid for it.

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’s not yours, it just means that you pay for it in regular monthly instalments and you often get extra benefits thrown in as well like road tax and servicing costs. So if something did happen, you wouldn’t have to pay 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 won’t have had time to wear out and is less likely to break down in the first place!