What could it cost to have a set of chains for every bus? Easy to store, eternal, non-polluting (unlike salt and grit), absolute guarantee of viability in any weather conditions London might face. Florence buses have chains. They all run when it snows, which is about as often as it snows in London.
Honestly. We must pull ourselves together.
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February
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- Philip Pullman on the Condition of Our United Kingdom
- Dressing Angels: Milan Fashion Week
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- Brown's Cup of Corruption Overflows
- Explain Yourself to Us Brown, Not to the Americans
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Fallen Angels
- David Cameron (for risking the disorderly dissolution of the Euro)
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3 comments:
Funny thing. I've been in Toronto in the depths of winter. Woke up one morning to a foot of snow. Total chaos there as well, tho' they get it every year, for a long time as well.
My 2ps wuff.
Pig loved his first outing in the snow :-)
The chains wouldn't cost much.
But can you even begin to imagine the costs of the special training and certification scheme that would be need for the technicians who would fit them (not the drivers, oh no), the risk assessments that would have to be carried out before the appropriate authorities decided whether to fit them on any particular day, the need for extra parking spaces to provide access to fit them, the storage of the chains, the testing regime that would need to be put in place to ensure they were kept in good condition (with its own skills requirements, tests, certificates, etc etc), the complicated negotiations that would need to be held with the insurance companies, the extra training for the drivers before they'd be allowed to drive with chains on (leading to a pay differential for those so trained, therefore demarcation disputes, etc etc)....
And all those extra officials would need offices, laptops, and - yes - index-linked final salary pensions payable at 60.
No, better not give them ideas, really.
In 1970's and 80's London the old Routemaster deisels chugged along in the snow quite happily.
It's these new swankey electic/computerised buses that are so precious they have to be kept at home in the cold.
A couple of Londoners told me about the bendy-buses performance on ice with the rear end sliding around all over the shop.
Is anyone who has towed a caravan or driven a tractor with a trailer surprised at that ?
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