The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.

[rafletcher]

Don't the machines take contactless payment? Or allow you tp pay by app like Ring-o?

[ian]

Dearest bin people, if you're going to drop bin crap all over the street, pick it fucking up so I don't have to report it every other Wednesday, ta.

[Legs]

Don't the machines take contactless payment? Or allow you tp pay by app like Ring-o?

You're missing a crucial word in my original post, which is 'Uttoxeter'.  We haven't quite left the twentieth century here.

[Pickled Onion]

There are some new-builds in the street round the corner. New as in ten years, but the owner didn't bother to put them in the PAF or erect a street sign. Someone has moved in there, and as their address doesn't appear in the drop-down box, they've been selecting my address as the closest match.

For fuck's sake, how do you think that's going to work? I've had FOUR FUCKING DELIVERY PEOPLE A DAY for the last week, A Several of whom I found wandering around my garden looking confused. Yes, this is the address on the package, but I am not them, they live in that other road without a name on it. This has included a Tesco food delivery guy who said "it's lucky you're in, otherwise all this food would have just gone in the skip". I've also had letters from the bank "come in to the branch with evidence of your address". Let's see how well that works.

Then, to add insult to injury, the one parcel I *did* order (bike parts from SJS), sent by parcelforce 24, the guy claimed not to be able to find my address. THREE TIMES IN A ROW, including after I'd given a full description and a phone number.

On second thoughts, maybe this is a rant not a grumble.

[Mrs Pingu]

That sounds really quite annoying. How do they think their parcels are going to get to their address?

[rafletcher]

Just hang on to those deliveries you can, and turn others ( like Tesco) away with a shrug.

[Mr Larrington]

Up the road a few doors from Fort Larrington is a somewhat decrepit house.  We think the owner died and his/her heirs have Plans for it.  Well, someone has Plans, viz. the council, who have a planning application for the demolition of said house and its replacement with a block of four flats.  Since Fort Larrington Road goes from “narrow” to “very narrow” at that end I foresee hours months of fun with reversing heavy vehicles knocking over garden walls, rufty-tufty hairy-arsed builders making an infernal racket and general mayhem.  Is it wrong of me to wish a pox upon the would-be developers and their planning application?

[Mrs Pingu]

No, no it is not.

[ian]

And when they've finished, the new flats will be filled with pavement-parking knobs because 'there's not enough parking.' Which will be the council's fault.

[Canardly]

Not the Council any more, planning restrictions have been elminated thanks to Boris and his cohorts. You can now concrete over Ascot and Sunningdale with new  housing  having deemed planning consent.

[Mr Larrington]

And when they've finished, the new flats will be filled with pavement-parking knobs because 'there's not enough parking.' Which will be the council's fault.

There ent a pavement at all up that end, so they’ll have to park on the grass verges further down the road.  And then complain to the council about being “forced” to walk a hundred yards to their abodes.  Hopefully the inhabitants of the other six or seven houses up the narrow bit will pour contempt, scorn and petril on planning application.

[MattH]

My company has a driver "permit" thing in place, where an outsourced company checks every year that you are still OK to drive company vehicles. So you have to fill in forms about when you last had an eyetest, accidents, convictions, training undertaken etc.
They also have a section where you do a multiple choice theory test like thing, a section on driving attitudes, and a video game where you are shown 10 video clips then asked a question.
Every time the question pools have annoying, or downright wrong, questions. You are put straight into the questions, so you aren't answering based upon information they've given you in a training session. - this is pre-existing knowledge.
My favourite this year was

"How many deaths on the road involve a driver who is over the legal limit for alcohol?" . - that's a reasonable question. Answers are:-

• 1 in 6
• 2 in 10
• 5 in 10
• 3 in 20

OK, so apart from the confusing change in ranges making this a bit of a maths test, the answers are roughly 17%, 20%, 50% or 15%. The correct one, according to them, was 17%. First irritation - to a company car driver, who cares to within a couple of %? And who, other than a road traffic statistics geek, would know that? Plus, according to the latest government stats (published early this year for 2018) the figure was 26% in 1979, fallen to 16% in 1988, and since 2010 has been around 13%. So none were correct.
Way to go to get people bought into this being valuable and worthwhile when it is impossible to get right other than guessing.

On the driving attitudes, you are asked to answer on a five point range questions like "Do you ever change your driving style because you are running late" from Never to Always.
One question this time was "I do not like the feeling of being lost" ranged from Disagree to Agree.  How on earth do you answer that? It's a "have you stopped beating your wife?" question. If I agree, then it says that I should be planning more and chilling out. But for disagreeing, who genuinely enjoys being lost unless you are doing a follow-your-nose leisure trip?

Aaargh. At least it's only once a year.

[andytheflyer]

Nothing to do with driver training.  It's only, and all, about 'Management' being able to tick a box so that if someone asks, they can say that they train their drivers.  Me?  Cynical?  Nah......  I used to work for a multinational and we had to do it too, or something similar.

[MattH]

I absolutely get that - they can look to be caring and doing the right stuff, and ticking off one of the "duty of care" things.

But does it have to be quite so shit? It could be really great, making people think about their driving once a year.

[Mr Larrington]

No dafter than having “How many members does the Welsh Assembly have” as one of the Things Ones Needs To Know in order to become a BRITON.  While excluding anything about the Laws of Cricket.

[Kim]

That's worse than my second driving theory test (the first one expired - I'm not sure it was actually possible to fail the early ones), which - presumably due to the vagaries of random number generators - was mostly about the various species of pedestrian crossings.  Which is obviously critical road user knowledge.

[Mr Larrington]

I will freely confess that as far as I’m concerned there are two types of pedestrian crossings, viz. those with traffic lights and those without.  Of course they didn’t have these arj-fangled theory tests when I was learning to drive.

[Kim]

I will freely confess that as far as I’m concerned there are two types of pedestrian crossings, viz. those with traffic lights and those without.  Of course they didn’t have these arj-fangled theory tests when I was learning to drive.

Quite.  As a driver all you actually need to know is to stop at traffic lights.  The specifics of Pelians, Puffins, Pegasi and so on are largely irrelevant.

Still, it required a little more thought than ticking "D) Slow down and proceed with caution" to everything.

[matthew]

Not the Council any more, planning restrictions have been elminated thanks to Boris and his cohorts. You can now concrete over Ascot and Sunningdale with new  housing  having deemed planning consent.

I'll check that but your choice of my home village means I know large parts of that are Greenbelt so I believe still protected.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I thought what had happened was not the removal of all planning restrictions but the expansion of permitted development, meaning various sorts of building works can now happen outside the planning process.

[hellymedic]

I will freely confess that as far as I’m concerned there are two types of pedestrian crossings, viz. those with traffic lights and those without.  Of course they didn’t have these arj-fangled theory tests when I was learning to drive.

Quite.  As a driver all you actually need to know is to stop at traffic lights.  The specifics of Pelians, Puffins, Pegasi and so on are largely irrelevant.

Still, it required a little more thought than ticking "D) Slow down and proceed with caution" to everything.

To be fair, Tiger and Toucan crossings could feature cyclists who don't slow down 'coming from nowhere'....

Zebras and Pelicans are pedestrian only, in theory.

[Kim]

I will freely confess that as far as I’m concerned there are two types of pedestrian crossings, viz. those with traffic lights and those without.  Of course they didn’t have these arj-fangled theory tests when I was learning to drive.

Quite.  As a driver all you actually need to know is to stop at traffic lights.  The specifics of Pelians, Puffins, Pegasi and so on are largely irrelevant.

Still, it required a little more thought than ticking "D) Slow down and proceed with caution" to everything.

To be fair, Tiger and Toucan crossings could feature cyclists who don't slow down 'coming from nowhere'....

Zebras and Pelicans are pedestrian only, in theory.

Yeahbut it doesn't matter for a Toucan, because you've stopped for the traffic light.

Zebras and Tigers require motorists to pay attention.  Which is presumably why they're unfashionable.


ETA: I literally just realised while writing that that the reason they're called tiger crossings is because they've got stripes 

[Mr Larrington]

I have never heard of a Tiger Crossing, except in parts of Indiah.

[Kim]

I have never heard of a Tiger Crossing, except in parts of Indiah.

It's one of those pieces of pinko lefty cycle infrastructure that they have nowadays.  Nothing good can come of it.  [Especially if they punctuate it with sudden-DETH tramline-o-matic tactile paving while expecting cyclists to turn 90 degrees in approximately one bike length to enter and leave the crossing - Ed.]

[arabella]

I absolutely get that - they can look to be caring and doing the right stuff, and ticking off one of the "duty of care" things.

But does it have to be quite so shit? It could be really great, making people think about their driving once a year.

Indeed.  We have them at my workplace, though I don't recall when I last had to do one.
But ... last time around I got one of the questions wrong.  But there was no explanation why.  I can only assume there was some underlying assumption that I didn't make (iirc it was to do with a car braking sharply because there was already a bike overtaking the upcoming parked car on the same side of the road as they both were, and the Q was what the cyclist could have done different so the car didn't brake sharply)