There are times when I really despair for the Human Race. When I see acts of such stupidity, or people not using the most basic of common sense, and I have to ask myself “Can we survive as the dominant species here on earth” This morning, on my normal commute to the Insane Asylum was one such moment. Let me share with you dear reader.

Part of my route is currently impeded by traffic light controlled road works.  They have been there for a few months now, slowly working their way along.  It was scary for a while as the light was just behind a speed camera, so when you saw the lights turn AMBER and you were tempted to speed up a bit to catch them before they turned RED you would be speeding into a speed trap. Anyway it currently cover’s a large stretch of road, the length of which is down to single lane.

So driving along and I get stuck behind several cars waiting at the red light, while traffic coming from the other direction get to go. After a while the traffic flow stops, and the lights change to GREEN, so we then proceed to continue our trip. Only half way through the traffic controlled area we are forced to stop by the Bin Wagon parked in front of us blocking the road as bin men load up the bins.

behind the bin wagon are all the other cars that had driven through the GREEN light and had got stuck when the wagon stopped. And now you had another long train of vehicles stopped in front of the wagon.  So the single lane of traffic was now blocked by dozens of vehicles trying to dive opposite ways.

Ah.. I know what you are all thinking, and what that guy there is actually saying loudly at the computer screen. Yes YOU. I can see and hear you, Nope, there’s no use looking for the hidden camera, you’ll never find it.  You are thinking. “But its their job to collect the bins, there’s not much they could do about it?”

I would agree in principle with you apart from an extra fact I have not imparted to you yet, and that is the bus stop lay-by that was a hundred yards behind the wagon. If they had any common sense and thought, “the lights will change soon and traffic will start coming from the other direction and we will all get stuck!” then they would have pulled their wagon off the road into the bus stop area, letting the cars behind them past, and then the oncoming traffic past until they had collected the bins, and traffic was again flowing in their direction and they could join it without hassle.

But NO. instead they caused chaos. and dozens of drivers had to play the worlds largest game of Tetris with their vehicles, and the binmen had to drive onto the roadworks. It was chaos and people were stuck for a lot longer than they needed to be, all for the sake of some common sense.

P.S. This is not a dig at bin men & women, they do a fantastic job and do not get the thanks they deserve, its a dig at the stupidity of people in general.