The Collar and the Cab

In an act of pure opportunist self-promotion and in the hope of selling some I am publishing some extracts from my new book The Collar and the Cab on this blog. There are 35 chapters so it will take a couple of months to offer a little from each. 

You can order the book direct from myself or from the publisher by following the link above.

 

7
Stanningley – Road Works

Up to the point when I drove cars for a living, things like
road works or new sets of traffic lights were a bit like in-laws;
necessary up to a point, best avoided but endurable most of
the time in moderate doses. Like most generally law-abiding
citizens I had never seriously thought about what was going
on when sections of road were coned off, temporary traffic
lights were erected and miscellaneous items of machinery were
scattered about the roadway with as much apparent forethought
as driftwood at high tide. Call it naïve if you will, but the
assumption many of us make is that essential maintenance,
repair or renovation work is taking place and is being undertaken
by hard-working contractors with a conscientious concern for
the cumbersomeness to which the hapless motorist is being
subjected. Work is therefore proceeding as quickly as possible
in order to relieve the decent hard-working road user of any
unnecessary delay or inconvenience. The absence of workmen at
any given time may be attributed to shift patterns, unfavourable
conditions due to climactic variables or an unfortunate delay
caused by necessary supplies being unavailable at this particular
time. The road remains coned off, we trustingly assume, because
the workforce are taking a richly deserved tea break, and at any
moment now a veritable army of road builders armed with
tarmac, paint and pneumatic drills will return to continue the work.

The advantage – or disadvantage if you will – of the taxi driver is that he is likely
to pass such a point several times during a shift and observe
what is really going on – or, more to the point, what is not going
on.

It was in my former selfless mood of public-spirited altruism
that I spent the first couple of weeks avoiding the jams or,
when absolutely necessary, sitting in them willingly doing my
bit for world peace by not ruing too much the cost in takings
good work. Given that most commuters will only pass the road
works on their way into and out of the city, before and after a
day’s work, the illusion that back-breaking labour is on display
during office hours is somewhat easier to maintain. For me the
frequent observation of the Stanningley Road / Armley Ridge
Road renovation works was to evaporate that myth like so much
salt water in a child’s bucket, gradually perhaps, but relentlessly nevertheless, as the realisation grew that what one was
encountering was not a strange combination of circumstances
but more of an immutable law of nature.
My debut as a private hire driver had coincided with the
commencement of these road works at a junction that had
seen far too many collisions, some fatal. Quite reasonably, the
Highways Agency had decided enough was enough and a new
set of traffic lights to enable traffic and pedestrians to cross the
main highway in safety was deemed necessary to prevent further
loss of life and limb. 

Stanningley Road is to Leeds something
akin to what the aorta is to the human body. Cut the flow of
traffic and the city will very rapidly cease to function due to the
massive internal haemorrhage of cars and commercial vehicles
that will be compelled to find an alternative route through the
capillaries of Armley and Wortley.

 During the course of an average day shift I must have passed
these road works at least twenty times, and early on I tried to
assess just how much work there was to be done and how long it
was likely to take. A bit of central reservation had to be dug up,
a short stretch of each carriageway resurfaced, road markings
altered, cables laid and traffic lights installed and sequenced. I
am no civil engineer or highway expert, but it was difficult to see
how it could possibly take more than a month, and given a fair
wind maybe the whole project could be completed in a couple
of weeks. So when the crossing point of the road was put out of
use, and blood supply through the artery was reduced by 50%, I
anticipated a speedy return to traffic normality, when the whole
situation would be greatly improved for everyone concerned.
The penny began to drop when, after passing the same spot
for what must have been the 100th time in a week, I recalled
that not on even a single occasion had I seen anyone actually
working there. Roads were blocked off, and lanes were closed,
but workmen were once again conspicuous only by their
absence, and a similar state of affairs had persisted for the whole
of the week. The weather was as benign as it was ever likely to
be in a Yorkshire autumn. I could see the necessary equipment
was available to do the work, much of it chained to lampposts
blocking the pavement, as if some eccentric sculptor had hit
upon the idea of a grotesque mechanical charm bracelet to
exhibit to the commuting public.