Believe it or not the biggest problem I have when called to a plumbing problem is turning the water off. In an ideal world as donny has already stated ' It pays to turn it on and off regularly' .. but in reality I can count on one hand the amount of people who have easy access to their stop cock. Which means the only time it gets touched is when there is a problem .. by that point it is often seized solid. Most people now have water meters which that are made of poly, these cant seize, so for me it is the first port of call when isolating a water supply.
The Sureflow valve eliminates having to lie down on the pavement to turn the meter off and they are easily fitted in minutes.