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Complaint Thursdays


LabattBlue

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5 hours ago, ubkev said:

Hello 2:00 am traveler driving 27 mph. Listen, I know you have 3 DUI's, but could you please get the ***** out of my way!? I've got places to be!

 

And also, can I get some mother ***** snow! Gosh darn it all! 

At least you didn’t have a dumb millennial ***** face call 911 on you....for real...just happened.

I’m driving on 490 coming back from a doctors appointment and start seeing signs for road construction, “merge left” says the sign. About a mile later the actual merge is here and traffic has loooong ago all merged into the only lane and some douche bag runs up on my right matching my crawl. He has his window down and wants to say something so I oblige. “Let me in ahead of you dude”. I shake my head no and tell him that signs have been up for miles, it’s not safe to do that now.(my 27 years of construction and the dozen years of being a safety instructor tell me that). This little jackwad gets all bent and calls me an ahole along with some other inappropriate stuff and speeds up and jams his car in a couple cars up. I’m pissed now. The comments weren’t so inflammatory as the reckless maneuvering. I’ve personally seen too many bad things happen in work zone so I follow the guy off the next exit into the parking lot. I’m going to give him a free round of awareness training. Next thing I know the cop we just passed going the other way lights up behind me in the parking lot. That little snowflake dbag cupcake called 911!!!  HE started the entire thing and ran crying to mommy!!!!

The cop was very sympathetic to my irritation. He brought the kid back his drivers license first and scolds him for his behavior. He then comes to me to give me mine and basically said the kid was scared I was going to kick his ass. I told the cop that maybe the kid should spend more time focusing on his responsibilities as a motorist and less time ***** with the wrong guy. He agreed with me. I hope the snowflake learned the lesson his parents should have taught him at a young age. Keep your ***** mouth shut. If not for the decency of doing so then at least for the preservation of your hide. 
 

Now

I

feel

better.

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@Ogre

Most cars merging over early like that actually slows down traffic significantly.  The full road winds up not being used and multiple choke points are created.  The most efficient is to use both lanes and then have people alternately merge at the point of the lane shift.  The problem is that it's tough to get more people to follow this practice, it's so ingrained in us to merge over early.  Google "zipper merge", traffic jams will be eased significantly if more people learn this.

I get the feeling the cop put on a show for you because this kid did nothing wrong... well, other than the 911 call of course.

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2 minutes ago, shrader said:

@Ogre

Most cars merging over early like that actually slows down traffic significantly.  The full road winds up not being used and multiple choke points are created.  The most efficient is to use both lanes and then have people alternately merge at the point of the lane shift.  The problem is that it's tough to get more people to follow this practice, it's so ingrained in us to merge over early.  Google "zipper merge", traffic jams will be eased significantly if more people learn this.

I get the feeling the cop put on a show for you because this kid did nothing wrong... well, other than the 911 call of course.

You’ll forgive me(I hope) for saying that I don’t give a rats ass how much it slows down traffic. The safety of the folks that are working in that work zone is worth an infinite amount more than the inconvenience to the motorist. The signs and where they are placed are dictated in a blueprint from NYSDOT. They are meant to slow traffic and eliminate people coming into the work zone at high speeds. I don’t work exclusively on highway work but every time I have there has been something happen. I have come inches away from being hit in areas cars aren’t  even supposed to be! 
 

As for the show? Maybe. He basically gave the kid the speech I was going to deliver. The cop and I did have an extended conversation about the perils of work zones. He gets it. I’m guessing if he didn’t agree with me then I would have been arrested and charged with a crime.

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Zipper merging doesn't actually work because it is a fundamentally flawed theory. It requires the traffic speed after the merge to be faster than the speed before the merge in order to handle the increased volume moving through a narrower path. Ideally you'd incrementally step the pre-merge speed down to 35-40 and then increase the limit of the merged single lane to something like 55, this way traffic is hitting the merge and accelerating instead of slowing down.

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3 minutes ago, Ogre said:

You’ll forgive me(I hope) for saying that I don’t give a rats ass how much it slows down traffic. The safety of the folks that are working in that work zone is worth an infinite amount more than the inconvenience to the motorist. The signs and where they are placed are dictated in a blueprint from NYSDOT. They are meant to slow traffic and eliminate people coming into the work zone at high speeds. I don’t work exclusively on highway work but every time I have there has been something happen. I have come inches away from being hit in areas cars aren’t  even supposed to be! 
 

As for the show? Maybe. He basically gave the kid the speech I was going to deliver. The cop and I did have an extended conversation about the perils of work zones. He gets it. I’m guessing if he didn’t agree with me then I would have been arrested and charged with a crime.

It's one single car approaching the front of the line like that which leads to the increased speed.  If more people are using that lane it would naturally cause that slow down that you're calling for.  And if you want to prevent people from approaching the work zone with speed, build in a bigger buffer between the lane closure and the actual start of the work zone.

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Was on a plane from Detroit to Buffalo last night. 

When we landed, we sat on the tarmac for longer than the time spent in the air. The pilot's broadcast back to us to tell us what was going on was so quiet that I didn't have any idea what the issue was. It was 11:30 pm when we landed, I can't imagine the airport was so busy that things were clogged up. People have to work in the morning yo have your gates ready before the damn plane lands

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1 minute ago, shrader said:

It's one single car approaching the front of the line like that which leads to the increased speed.  If more people are using that lane it would naturally cause that slow down that you're calling for.  And if you want to prevent people from approaching the work zone with speed, build in a bigger buffer between the lane closure and the actual start of the work zone.

My problem with people running up on the merge are with the cars following. Inattentive drivers that don’t see the signs are blindly following the “runner” and are not ready to slow down let alone stop. They end up inches away from hitting me. True story. I completely agree that we need bigger buffer zones. I wish the budget allowed for jersey barriers for every lane closure. Even with those protections though, bad things happen because in reality very few people are thinking about the physics of what’s going on as they are hurtling down the highway.  Cellphone, cheeseburger, applying make up. I saw someone reading a book behind the wheel. Or earbuds as in the dbag’s case. 
 

Anyways. Driving is unbelievably dangerous and I am very cautious every single time I do it. I am downright terrified every time I go to work in a work zone. PTSD or something.

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14 minutes ago, Ogre said:

My problem with people running up on the merge are with the cars following. Inattentive drivers that don’t see the signs are blindly following the “runner” and are not ready to slow down let alone stop. They end up inches away from hitting me. True story. I completely agree that we need bigger buffer zones. I wish the budget allowed for jersey barriers for every lane closure. Even with those protections though, bad things happen because in reality very few people are thinking about the physics of what’s going on as they are hurtling down the highway.  Cellphone, cheeseburger, applying make up. I saw someone reading a book behind the wheel. Or earbuds as in the dbag’s case. 
 

Anyways. Driving is unbelievably dangerous and I am very cautious every single time I do it. I am downright terrified every time I go to work in a work zone. PTSD or something.

Does NY require a police "escort" for the work zones?  I know some people like to complain about the cost of something like that, but I've always viewed that as the most effective way to protect the guys out there.  The flashing lights tend to catch the attention of most drivers.  The ones who miss that are probably going to miss just about anything.

The earbud thing, now that's one that drives me crazy.  I was always under the impression that wearing headphones while driving was illegal, but maybe that's not the case.  The ones I see all the time are people wearing those obnoxiously large headphones while driving.  Now if by some chance they're just wearing them and not actually listening to anything, there still has to be at least some level of noise cancellation from that.  So now you don't hear honks, sirens, or something else like a train whistle.  How stupid can you be?

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We had to buy a new car within the last two months and ever since, I've been flooded with extended warranty robocalls and junk mail.  Apparently the wife is getting them too.  It's easy enough to ignore the robocalls, but for whatever reason the damn things all leave voicemails.  I'm the type who wants to clear out any notifications on my phone, so the voicemail requires one extra step to rid the phone of all of those little red circles.

I think verizon had actually been taking steps to eliminate the spam calls.  I was down to almost none of them up until the new car.

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5 hours ago, Ogre said:

At least you didn’t have a dumb millennial ***** face call 911 on you....for real...just happened.

I’m driving on 490 coming back from a doctors appointment and start seeing signs for road construction, “merge left” says the sign. About a mile later the actual merge is here and traffic has loooong ago all merged into the only lane and some douche bag runs up on my right matching my crawl. He has his window down and wants to say something so I oblige. “Let me in ahead of you dude”. I shake my head no and tell him that signs have been up for miles, it’s not safe to do that now.(my 27 years of construction and the dozen years of being a safety instructor tell me that). This little jackwad gets all bent and calls me an ahole along with some other inappropriate stuff and speeds up and jams his car in a couple cars up. I’m pissed now. The comments weren’t so inflammatory as the reckless maneuvering. I’ve personally seen too many bad things happen in work zone so I follow the guy off the next exit into the parking lot. I’m going to give him a free round of awareness training. Next thing I know the cop we just passed going the other way lights up behind me in the parking lot. That little snowflake dbag cupcake called 911!!!  HE started the entire thing and ran crying to mommy!!!!

The cop was very sympathetic to my irritation. He brought the kid back his drivers license first and scolds him for his behavior. He then comes to me to give me mine and basically said the kid was scared I was going to kick his ass. I told the cop that maybe the kid should spend more time focusing on his responsibilities as a motorist and less time ***** with the wrong guy. He agreed with me. I hope the snowflake learned the lesson his parents should have taught him at a young age. Keep your ***** mouth shut. If not for the decency of doing so then at least for the preservation of your hide. 
 

Now

I

feel

better.

Not fer nothin’, but if I see some crazed ironworker with hands like sledgehammers following me into a parking, I’m calling the cops, too.

And the zipper merge really is the fastest (and safest) way to get that many cars through.

Snowflake, out.

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49 minutes ago, Let's Go B-Lo said:

Yeah, I'd like to give the kid grief for calling the cops when he started it but as you said, you don't know who you are talking to. He obviously realized the situation had gotten out of his control and he doesn't know if you're a psychopath or not so while he was a douche to begin with it was probably better for both of you that he did that.  It prevented the possibility of a confrontation that neither of you would know the outcome of and has many many possibilities of ending up really really bad.  While he was an ass, following people like that is no good either, it's not serious enough to get shot over.

Side note, a young driver got shot in our area a year or two ago over a merging dispute.  Girl didn't let the guy in at a tough merge point, guy pulled out a gun and shot her right there at the merge point.  Fortunately they caught him.

This could have been avoided with proper parenting. If you don’t know who you are talking to then keep your dialogue civil. If I would have ever said anything like this kid said to me my mother would have slapped my mouth....as a grown man she would have done that too! Another example of a growing sense of entitlement in younger people. Not all of you. I teach and interact with younger adults all the time and a lot of them leave me hopeful. Then you have what we had today. “I’m special. Let me through.” He was denied and acted like an ass. I wasn’t letting it go. That same dude would continue the behavior over and over. Now he has an experience that didn’t go well for him to base his judgements on going forward in these situations. I was glad to gift him with this lesson. 

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2 hours ago, Ogre said:

This could have been avoided with proper parenting. If you don’t know who you are talking to then keep your dialogue civil. If I would have ever said anything like this kid said to me my mother would have slapped my mouth....as a grown man she would have done that too! Another example of a growing sense of entitlement in younger people. Not all of you. I teach and interact with younger adults all the time and a lot of them leave me hopeful. Then you have what we had today. “I’m special. Let me through.” He was denied and acted like an ass. I wasn’t letting it go. That same dude would continue the behavior over and over. Now he has an experience that didn’t go well for him to base his judgements on going forward in these situations. I was glad to gift him with this lesson. 

 

Yeah, you sound just as entitled.

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18 minutes ago, JujuFish said:

 

Yeah, you sound just as entitled.

Nah. I’ve always had the expectation that I was going to have to work my balls off for everything. Don’t get me wrong here. I’m a lot of things that aren’t good but entitled certainly isn’t on that list.

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21 minutes ago, Ogre said:

Nah. I’ve always had the expectation that I was going to have to work my balls off for everything. Don’t get me wrong here. I’m a lot of things that aren’t good but entitled certainly isn’t on that list.

You had a chance to resolve the situation like a mature adult and instead you acted like a petulant 2-year-old.  Sorry, but that's entitled.

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3 minutes ago, JujuFish said:

You had a chance to resolve the situation like a mature adult and instead you acted like a petulant 2-year-old.  Sorry, but that's entitled.

Sure why not? We’ll add that to the list of things that make me an Ogre. While we’re at it we’ll let people act like jackasses around work zones until they kill someone else. 
 I quit caring what people would think about me speaking up the first time I watched someone die on the job. It wasn’t a very big leap to decide that I don’t care what people think of me at all the second time. I’m sorry if that rubs people the wrong way(that’s as much on them as it is on me when you think about it)but I’ll never stop speaking my mind. Seems like every time I do someone gets hurt or dies. I appreciate your concern for this matter though.

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1 minute ago, Ogre said:

Sure why not? We’ll add that to the list of things that make me an Ogre. While we’re at it we’ll let people act like jackasses around work zones until they kill someone else. 
 I quit caring what people would think about me speaking up the first time I watched someone die on the job. It wasn’t a very big leap to decide that I don’t care what people think of me at all the second time. I’m sorry if that rubs people the wrong way(that’s as much on them as it is on me when you think about it)but I’ll never stop speaking my mind. Seems like every time I do someone gets hurt or dies. I appreciate your concern for this matter though.

 

If you don't care about what people think of you, then why do you think we care what you think of other people?

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7 minutes ago, JujuFish said:

 

If you don't care about what people think of you, then why do you think we care what you think of other people?

Your Jedi mind trick won’t work on me. I actually assume that most people don’t care. That’s been a general theme in life. It’s nice therapy to get it out though. 

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About six years into my career a guy was run over by an excavator on the job. I didn’t witness his death with my eyes but I heard the noise he made as it consumed him. Sometimes when I’m alone and quiet I hear that noise. Clear as day. I know it’s not really there but that’s the real kicker about these types of things. They rewire your brain. Your priorities change. Like I said, I’m a lot of bad things but i am what I am and fill a purpose somehow. 

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Another time my good friend and I were working in between the tanks at the Genesee brewery using our legs on one tank and backs on the other to hold ourselves up there 80’ feet up. They had a thin ramshackle netting wired together under is to catch tools but were not meant to hold us so we were told “Don’t fall in there!”  I lift my weld hood and look over and Ryan is gone!!  I look down and he’s spread out like a man on thin ice. I scream “get your ass back up here!” in a panic and he snapped to and scrambled over to a column and climbed back up but GD was that a close one. Unfortunately Ryan committed suicide years later.

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And then there was the time that Keith lost his footing whole deck sawing on the edge of a mezzanine. He went over head first from 15’. His head split right open like Humpty Dumpty. We thought he was dead because there was sooooooo much blood. This is a happy story though, sort of. He’s alive but he’s a shadow of the man he once was.

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I leave off at the story of the disaster that lead me to start posting in the first place, as therapy. Yep. My first ever post was in this thread soon after the Manotowoc collapsed with a 66,000 lb precast double tee on the hook. It missed crushing Monte to death by two feet. He was covered in concrete dust from this thing exploding so close to him as it hit the ground. They had been flying those things over all of our heads for weeks. I was the steward on the job and spoke out every day on deaf ears for weeks until the collapse. Everything seems so normal and safe but there is something ready to kill you dead at any second. 

Edited by Ogre
Hot tub fog errors
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2 minutes ago, Ogre said:

I leave off at the story of the disaster that lead me to start posting in the first place, as therapy. Yep. My first ever post was in this thread soon after the Manotowoc collapsed with a 66,000 lb precast double tee on the hook. It missed crushing Monte to death by two feet. He was covered in concrete dust from this thing exploding so close to him as it hit the ground. They had been flying those things over all of our heads for weeks. I was the steward on the job and spoke out every day on deaf ears for weeks until the collapse. Everything seems so normal and safe but there is something ready to kill you dead at any second. 

Is today the anniversary of something bad that happened for you? Cuz even for this thread, you seem to be down some spiral you should probably be trying to avoid.

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