They’d have to actually be at work to be attacked.
I can’t remember the last time I drove past the ongoing roadworks at the motorway where I’ve seen a single soul.
Been going on for 3 years now for a 20 mile stretch with the speed limit stuck at 50mph to ‘protect workers lives’.
I went on a 1 week holiday to Switzerland and they managed to resurface an entire 15 miles road in the span of my holiday. And that was up a mountain.
Reddit_kiss_my_arse on
What the heck is the world coming to? Road workers being threatened now? The world has gone mad. When there’s nobody to repair the roads, you know who to blame. Idiots.
Tartan_Samurai on
>*Ms Ryan, 24, who was once threatened with a gun, says being on the receiving end of abuse has become par for the course.*
>*“I really enjoy my job, but I know people who have left the industry because why should they come to work just to get screamed at?” she asked.*
>*“Abuse is just like a normal thing for us and you even get drivers throwing bottles of urine out the window at you.*
>*“But it ranges from a swear word to someone actually trying to get to you – and, God forbid, but someone could actually run you down.*
>*“I’ve had to lock myself in my van because people have slammed their hands on the bonnet and tried to get in – people get angry really quickly and it is worrying.”*
iamezekiel1_14 on
It happens – not our borough but elsewhere I’ve heard of stories of people booby trapping the doors on lamp columns (like razer blades and other delightful stuff on the inside of the door). The country genuinely has gone mental in a lot of respects.
bigfathairybollocks on
I dont understand why you would attack the people trying to fix things? In the USA the emergency services are seen as heros and everyone criminal or not lets them do their job but here in the UK they set places on fire then throw bricks at the firemen, its shameful. This is a new low.
badgersruse on
Ok. The road workers themselves indeed do not deserve the ire of people complaining that there’s noone there, or the cones are up with no one working. That is true, they don’t schedule where they work each day.
So those of us annoyed by ‘they’re never there’ are angry with the processes that leads to being delayed for no apparent reason. No, that doesn’t mean urine should be thrown at anyone.
Better?
As far as l can tell it’s the system whereby work is subcontracted that is at fault. The cones guys put the cones out separately from the digger guys delivering the diggers separate from the actual workers being scheduled on site.
And nowhere in there is the motorists time considered. It seems.
DoneItDuncan on
Can’t help but link this to the histeria over the “war on motorists” in recent years – the radicalisation of car drivers is just another facet of the ongoing culture war.
Intelligent_Put_3520 on
I was working nights on a dual carriageway in Essex years ago. The road had been reduced to one lane.
Some lads in a Corsa managed to squeeze threw a gap in the cones and came speeding up towards us. We all his behind the jetting lorry until they slipped through another gap.
Working on a small country lane in Suffolk, had quite an irate chap tell me that if we hadn’t finished work by the time he had returned he would run us over.
SerArrogant on
As somebody with a job which has occasionally involved working under traffic management, I’m not surprised by this. I’ve seen people trespassing across people’s property to avoid following diversions, seen people blatantly drive through closed roads because there was sufficient gap (or they’ve been and moved the cones) and had comments made simply for wearing orange high viz clothing.
The disdain for people who keep the taps flowing, electricity in people’s homes and the roads safe is unreal. I’ve certainly had my views changed in recent years and would absolutely stand by workers standing down when they get abuse or put in dangerous situations. I know we would down tools and fuck off if somebody was going off on us.
cozywit on
No one should be subject to abuse.
That includes motorists forced to drive 50mph for 20 miles when the road workers built a fucking defective motorway and are taking their fucking time fixing it one 50m patch at a time.
The entire road works system needs to be thrown the fuck out and built from the ground up by people paid by the mile, not the fucking year.
Wonderful_Dingo3391 on
I’ve had a road worker attack my vehicle for following the rules of the road by going ahead at a Green light and not reversing into the car directly behind me as the moron wanted me to. There are idiots everywhere.
ox- on
Where I live they have dug up the same small roads for **20 Years**.
Is it fixed? No. It still floods with a small amount of rain.
You take an alternate route and guess what… that’s dug up too.
Its a scam guys. Taxpayers are getting defrauded on a grand scale.
StuartHunt on
I’ve had to deal with hundreds of these over 30 years in the utilities industry. We had a guy threatening us with a piece of 2×4 he ended up getting arrested because the police caught him coming at us with the wood in his hand.
Another time we called the police because of a guy brandishing a machete in his doorway at us, they were reluctant to come out because they said the guy is a nutter who they always have problems with, I told the copper on the phone that either the police deal with him or he’s liable to require an undertaker if he comes at me with the machete, a 6′ steel wrecking bar would be rather uncomfortable being impaled on.
We had several hundred properties without a water supply, and urgently needed to repair the water main.
I’ve also had an angry woman demanding that I remove my van trailer mini digger and large excavation in the road, so she can get past to go to work.
I politely told her that wasn’t about to happen and that she’d have to follow the diversionary route like everyone else had.
She jumped back in her car reversed at speed into a brick pillar at the end of her driveway and then got out screaming abuse about it being our fault for telling her to reverse out of there.
This created a massive enquiry at work as to whether I’d told her to reverse and turn around or not, because apparently if I’d directed her to reverse her car it would have made me and therefore the company potentially liable for her shit driving abilities.
She phoned our office to complain and call us a bunch of CUrraNTS only to be speaking to the young lad working with me’s mum, who was our office manager at the time.
13 Comments
They’d have to actually be at work to be attacked.
I can’t remember the last time I drove past the ongoing roadworks at the motorway where I’ve seen a single soul.
Been going on for 3 years now for a 20 mile stretch with the speed limit stuck at 50mph to ‘protect workers lives’.
I went on a 1 week holiday to Switzerland and they managed to resurface an entire 15 miles road in the span of my holiday. And that was up a mountain.
What the heck is the world coming to? Road workers being threatened now? The world has gone mad. When there’s nobody to repair the roads, you know who to blame. Idiots.
>*Ms Ryan, 24, who was once threatened with a gun, says being on the receiving end of abuse has become par for the course.*
>*“I really enjoy my job, but I know people who have left the industry because why should they come to work just to get screamed at?” she asked.*
>*“Abuse is just like a normal thing for us and you even get drivers throwing bottles of urine out the window at you.*
>*“But it ranges from a swear word to someone actually trying to get to you – and, God forbid, but someone could actually run you down.*
>*“I’ve had to lock myself in my van because people have slammed their hands on the bonnet and tried to get in – people get angry really quickly and it is worrying.”*
It happens – not our borough but elsewhere I’ve heard of stories of people booby trapping the doors on lamp columns (like razer blades and other delightful stuff on the inside of the door). The country genuinely has gone mental in a lot of respects.
I dont understand why you would attack the people trying to fix things? In the USA the emergency services are seen as heros and everyone criminal or not lets them do their job but here in the UK they set places on fire then throw bricks at the firemen, its shameful. This is a new low.
Ok. The road workers themselves indeed do not deserve the ire of people complaining that there’s noone there, or the cones are up with no one working. That is true, they don’t schedule where they work each day.
So those of us annoyed by ‘they’re never there’ are angry with the processes that leads to being delayed for no apparent reason. No, that doesn’t mean urine should be thrown at anyone.
Better?
As far as l can tell it’s the system whereby work is subcontracted that is at fault. The cones guys put the cones out separately from the digger guys delivering the diggers separate from the actual workers being scheduled on site.
And nowhere in there is the motorists time considered. It seems.
Can’t help but link this to the histeria over the “war on motorists” in recent years – the radicalisation of car drivers is just another facet of the ongoing culture war.
I was working nights on a dual carriageway in Essex years ago. The road had been reduced to one lane.
Some lads in a Corsa managed to squeeze threw a gap in the cones and came speeding up towards us. We all his behind the jetting lorry until they slipped through another gap.
Working on a small country lane in Suffolk, had quite an irate chap tell me that if we hadn’t finished work by the time he had returned he would run us over.
As somebody with a job which has occasionally involved working under traffic management, I’m not surprised by this. I’ve seen people trespassing across people’s property to avoid following diversions, seen people blatantly drive through closed roads because there was sufficient gap (or they’ve been and moved the cones) and had comments made simply for wearing orange high viz clothing.
The disdain for people who keep the taps flowing, electricity in people’s homes and the roads safe is unreal. I’ve certainly had my views changed in recent years and would absolutely stand by workers standing down when they get abuse or put in dangerous situations. I know we would down tools and fuck off if somebody was going off on us.
No one should be subject to abuse.
That includes motorists forced to drive 50mph for 20 miles when the road workers built a fucking defective motorway and are taking their fucking time fixing it one 50m patch at a time.
The entire road works system needs to be thrown the fuck out and built from the ground up by people paid by the mile, not the fucking year.
I’ve had a road worker attack my vehicle for following the rules of the road by going ahead at a Green light and not reversing into the car directly behind me as the moron wanted me to. There are idiots everywhere.
Where I live they have dug up the same small roads for **20 Years**.
Is it fixed? No. It still floods with a small amount of rain.
You take an alternate route and guess what… that’s dug up too.
Its a scam guys. Taxpayers are getting defrauded on a grand scale.
I’ve had to deal with hundreds of these over 30 years in the utilities industry. We had a guy threatening us with a piece of 2×4 he ended up getting arrested because the police caught him coming at us with the wood in his hand.
Another time we called the police because of a guy brandishing a machete in his doorway at us, they were reluctant to come out because they said the guy is a nutter who they always have problems with, I told the copper on the phone that either the police deal with him or he’s liable to require an undertaker if he comes at me with the machete, a 6′ steel wrecking bar would be rather uncomfortable being impaled on.
We had several hundred properties without a water supply, and urgently needed to repair the water main.
I’ve also had an angry woman demanding that I remove my van trailer mini digger and large excavation in the road, so she can get past to go to work.
I politely told her that wasn’t about to happen and that she’d have to follow the diversionary route like everyone else had.
She jumped back in her car reversed at speed into a brick pillar at the end of her driveway and then got out screaming abuse about it being our fault for telling her to reverse out of there.
This created a massive enquiry at work as to whether I’d told her to reverse and turn around or not, because apparently if I’d directed her to reverse her car it would have made me and therefore the company potentially liable for her shit driving abilities.
She phoned our office to complain and call us a bunch of CUrraNTS only to be speaking to the young lad working with me’s mum, who was our office manager at the time.