The first casualty of winter

Experts recommend a scraper over any other method of ice removal. Every year insurance companies receive dozens of claims for windscreens cracked by people pouring warm water over the glass. Determined not to join their ranks, we bought an ice scraper for the car four years ago. However, we've never had cause to use it until now.

Today we carefully scraped a week of accumulated ice and snow off our Saab, only to find that the bitterly cold weather had already claimed a casualty. Ice appears to have found its way into a old scratch or stone chip, shattering the glass. The windscreen is now blighted by an ugly spiral crack. It's completely ruined and needs replacing. I've never seen anything like it.

Our misfortune isn't as dramatic as that of one car owner. A national insurer reports that a Harrier jet was blamed for one recent windscreen claim. The motorist in question claimed his windscreen melted when the aircraft crash landed nearby and burst into flames. I'll take an ice crack over a plane crash any day.