Sorry, you don't get the fiver. There just aren't any traffic lights around here.
"Bad traffic" is stuck behind another, sometimes two cars at the narrows on Front Street as you give way to something coming up.
As A.N.Other driver I hate the bloody things far too bright and create blinding dazzle. Particularly on bumpy roads, lower than them due to the crest of a hill or when they have gone out of adjustment.
Dunno - many different types of lamps. Dimming GLS lamps used to result in the well known brown out phenomena. Older members of my family were incredulous at the idea.
"Who wants their lights on dim?"
As regards street lighting I'm sure I recall it being on a special extra cheap unmetered tariff called, believe it or not, "The Street Lighting Tariff".
It was cheap because there was shedloads of generating capacity which otherwise would go to waste in the middle of the night.
Derek G
Yes, Not all of Teesside, I'm almost on the south western edge. go another few miles south or west and it starts to get darker, but towards Middlesbrough and beyond it's bright! I suspect mostly from industry.
Prior to having them myself I did find some of them dazzling, to the point that some cars got flashed (perhaps those that have fitted dodgy after market bulbs?), I was wondering if I too would get flashed by anyone they annoyed, but not so far ...
I don't know if all cars do it, but mine certainly adjust themselves each time you start the car on with the lights on, you see them swivel down and up before settling on what they regard as level, then they constantly adjust as you drive ...
Obviously it wasn't a "sod everyone else" decision to buy them on the car, they just happened to come with the spec level I chose, I wouldn't have paid the difference to have them on a lower model, but I think if
*everyone* had them there'd be few complaints about them :-)
Steady
I know what you mean.
Until a couple of years ago, there were no traffic lights within several miles of here, and it was possible/normal to get onto the primary road network and travel to any part of the mainland without encountering a light signal until you got there. Then the buggers installed a pelicon crossing about a mile and a half away...
Is it one of those really well designed ones that waits until theres some traffic coming before it goes red? By which time the pedestrian has already crossed and is long gone so you're left sitting there wondering whether anyone will see you if you just drive across it at red.
B2003
A few days ago I was driving home quite late and suddenly somebody dressed all in black walking their black dog stepped out of the black shadows and onto the road in front of me.
JGH
If you work from home you can claim as business expenses the proportion of your home running costs that you use for business puposes. Some years ago I did some calculations and found it was near enough to 1/12 so I simply used a typical monthly bill for my tax return figures.
I was still working at work as well, so I was still occupying road space several days a week. I got a work-issued bus pass which also went on the tax return as payment in kind which sorta cancelled out the home-working allowance ;)
JGH
Both instance where more appropriate dress was required. I have lived in the countryside for most of my life only moving into a town 7 years ago so street lighting is still a novelty to me. Our little town could quite easily turn off half of them. I grew up with the nearest street light 6 miles away in the nearest town and subsequently always dress in light colours when out and about at night.
As an instructor with the ATC it always amused me that youngsters that grew up in the towns were amazed how much they could see at night with torches switched off. Once they had allowed their eyes to adjust to the moonlight that is. On the other hand a townie pal of mine was equally shocked that he simply could not see where to walk on the way back from the local pub to our cottage in Arkengarthdale on a cloud covered night. I had offered him a torch but he poo-pood the idea of needing one!
Mike
After getting deselected two years ago I campaigned to get my replacement elected, only to have him defect to the other party immediately after getting elected. Grrr.
JGH
No, not a tax break for workers - who cares about them ? I meant a tax break for a company (say 1% of corporation tax) that can demonstrate they have a policy to encourage homeworking. That way, the
*shareholders* would pressure the directors to make it happen.In my career, I have sat on 3 separate employee forums that discussed home/flex working. (In 3 companies). Every time we put together a very cogent, and reasoned proposal for why it would work. Each time, they were rejected with the simple "the MD doesn't like it". The closest we got was when it was pointed out that letting an employee homework could be viewed as a 5% pay rise with no cost to the company.
I remember still the shock of meeting an unlit cycle coming up the wrong side of the road when I was on my motorcycle. The road was lit but badly (over 30 years ago). I only saw it when I was about ten yards away.
well if there had been no lights, there would have been no shadow.
And if it was pitch black, he would have had a torch.
Exactly my experience. Despite the fact that I did it extensively within my own company.
Managers don't like it: they see their idealised existence of checking who comes in late, and the easy job of 'having meetings' in which nothing is ever decided, slipping away and being replaced by what management actually is: the division and allocation of work and resources to staff, and the monitoring of their progress in performing that work.
I'd agree that poor managers won't like it for the reasons you give. And any meeting that doesn't have a set agenda, and doesn't end with a list of actions for attendees to have done by next time, is a waste of time. You rapidly discover who the shit meeting Chairmen are.
The first time I got involved with a proposal (for flexitime), one of the early objections was that managers would have to keep an eye on employees to make sure they put in the hours and didn't abuse the system. To which my response was "isn't that their job ?".
Even lights and reflectors can have their problems. Coming up behind what I thought was a distant car at night, I was partially judging the distance from the space between the lights. It turned out to be a much closer bicycle, with a second reflector on a stick.
Chris
I had a similar conversation with a sales and marketing guy who complained that I was developing the wrong product, and should have worked out what was actually wanted..
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