"Mizter T" wrote in message
...

On Sep 16, 8:44 pm, Neil Williams
wrote:

On Thu, 16 Sep 2010 07:56:49 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T
wrote:
I've seen it somewhat more than that, though I also see it happening
with conventional buses as well as lorries and other traffic.

Builders' lorries are in my experience the real scourge of London
traffic. Badly-driven, noisy, smelly and just plain large. Even
though it might contribute to congestion, a larger number of smaller
vehicles would be preferable in that context.

Hard to fit 6.3 metre scaffolding pole on a smaller vehicle though. Re
the driving - well, scaffolders have something of a general
rapscallion reputation.

(Yes, I know there's all multitude of other builder's lorries on the
road hauling all sorts of supplies, but I'm being completely partial
and picking on the poor scaffys - they can take it though!)

True story, one of the first really major incidents I had to deal with as a
DMT involved some bunch of cowboys demolishing a house hard up against the
wall protecting our railway. I turned up to find an unprotected gable end
wall swaying gently in the breeze about a metre away from the eastbound
Picc. where it exits Southgate tunnel, a representative of the local council
surveyors department who had stopped further work and called us and a
somewhat sheepish looking builder who was having the riot act read to him by
said council chappie. We suspended the service and told builder to get some
protective scaffolding up pronto. A scaffolding lorry turns up about 45
mins. later only to discover that Mr. Scaffolder has left his ladder back at
base. More agitated telephoning ensues and we are assured that the "boy" is
hotfooting it from base with the errant ladder. Another 45 mins. passes, by
which time my RDO has finished having kittens over the delay and gone on to
giving birth to tiger cubs, before the "boy" arrives with the ladder in a
van and with truly awesome accuracy drives the van straight into the back of
the scaffolding lorry! Oh how we laughed.
--
Cheers, Steve
To reply change the exclamatory smelly stuff to a well known mobile telecoms
company.