wolfie Posted January 5, 2011 Report Share Posted January 5, 2011 In blizzard conditions, the M8, M80 and M74 in Scotland were gridlocked with accidents and stranded vehicles leaving motorists taking hours to travel just a short distance. Some were left with the prospect of spending the night on the motorway. Police warned that the M8 was a 'no-go area' after two lorries jack-knifed on the main route between Glasgow and Edinburgh,Dec 10th 2010 Snow has blocked two lanes of the M5 motorway in Somerset. The M5 between Bridgwater and Taunton was reduced to one lane by heavy snow sweeping across Somerset. 20th Dec 2010 Drivers have been stuck on motorways overnight and ambulances have become stranded after heavy snow across Lancashire. Hundreds of drivers have spent most of the night stuck on motorways after a series of accidents caused by snow which fell throughout the night.18th Dec 2010 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lt Kije Posted January 5, 2011 Report Share Posted January 5, 2011 Fair point Wolfie, But when the M5 was blocked I was on the M1, heading to Sizewell, and I did not go to Scotland. It would be a massive cost for a company to have a calibration engineer hanging about with nothing to calibrate or repair. If we can not get to the equipment the equipment comes to us, So we have to pay for the fuel or they do. Just a quick point I used to do work at BICC in Warrington when it was open, My company used to be on site 2 days a year, How much to employ some one to do that Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
observer Posted January 5, 2011 Report Share Posted January 5, 2011 All we're getting is two folk quoting THEIR specialised skills set and need for them to travel to work - well OK, if the majority of folk who don't fall into that category worked locally, then your "essential" journeys would be made easier and less congested. btw it wasn't just "the roads" that were out of use (thanx Wolfie!); but rail & air too; so I guess they'd have problems flying in those prawns from Madagasgar! Then we've got all those folk we depend on in an Emergency, who have to travel from home to team up with their equipment; so if they get stuck, they can't help the rest of us get unstuck. So, if common sense can't change our work-life habits, perhaps escalating fuel costs will! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdrianR Posted January 5, 2011 Report Share Posted January 5, 2011 I live in Warrington and work in Manchester because the work i do is only available in large cities. My wife works for a local firm. Where do we live in that case? As for the traisn, during the snow i had little problems with them. Lets face it, its just another tax which recovers well more than the whole transport budget. If we stopped driving as much, they'd just have to get it from soemwhere else, a point lost on the green brigade. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolfie Posted January 5, 2011 Report Share Posted January 5, 2011 Fair point Wolfie, But when the M5 was blocked I was on the M1, heading to Sizewell, and I did not go to Scotland. It would be a massive cost for a company to have a calibration engineer hanging about with nothing to calibrate or repair.: I don't work for a company, I work for myself, and alot of my work involves testing and calibrating autoclaves mainly in the North of the country. During the bad weather I just booked into a local hotel and worked from there, raising my fees to account for the added expenditure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inky pete Posted January 5, 2011 Report Share Posted January 5, 2011 So that's now 4 of us (or in other words, 100% of respondents!) who find that they have to travel to where the work is in order to utilise their skill-sets. Skill-sets in general have had to become FAR more specialised over the past couple of decades as technology has become almost infinitely more complex. It's no longer possible to take just about any machine to "a decent mechanic" or any electrical appliance to "a decent electrician" - without the correct training, diagnostic equipment and software tools they would stand no more chance of fixing it than I would of giving birth to triplets! At the same time, technology has also become MUCH more reliable, which in turn enables ever more complexity whilst ensuring that breakdowns are relatively rare. The unaviodable consequence of this is that those of us who fix stuff are covering far more machines per man than has ever previously been the case. When we're talking about large, fixed installation machines, that means travelling. Similar arguements of increased complexity requiring more speciallist skill-sets can also be made in most job roles in most industries. Anything beyond the most basic of clerical or production line roles WILL require specific knowledge and experience of the individual sector of the particular industry. And that means people travelling to take advantage of opportunities in their industry. If we don't want to return to a pre-industrial society, then our infrastructures need to be fit for purpose to support our economy - not limit it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazj Posted January 5, 2011 Report Share Posted January 5, 2011 Well Inky, I'll raise the respondants a bit more.... my company employs people in vans to travel to my customer sites from Aberdeen to Exeter..... We use a lot of fuel and the price rises take away some of my profits.... unfortunately this is preferable to getting my customers to find someone closer to where they are as that would put a few people onto the local dole queue.....or is that a more preferable option to you Obs? We have worked hard to get and keep these customers and I am damned if I am going to give them away Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dizzy Posted January 5, 2011 Author Report Share Posted January 5, 2011 Can I be a respondant too.... I don't have to travel far at all for my skill-sets to be utilised neither does my other half although he does have to go slightly further afield than me ie Birchwood Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter T Posted January 5, 2011 Report Share Posted January 5, 2011 skill-sets D What does that mean when it is at home? Smiled when I read about some lad getting rewarded on the Front page. They used to be called mechanics. and now they have fancy names. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dizzy Posted January 5, 2011 Author Report Share Posted January 5, 2011 skill-sets D What does that mean when it is at home? Smiled when I read about some lad getting rewarded on the Front page. They used to be called mechanics. and now they have fancy names. Skill-sets..... sets of skills... something that you are clearly lacking Peter Inky first used the term, not me, I was just using the same term so as to be consistent. As for mechanics / vehicle technicians ..... All jobs have fancy names now and it doesn't really matter what they are called as long as they do the job well Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazj Posted January 5, 2011 Report Share Posted January 5, 2011 I have just found my dads old "Motorists Diary" which we used to fill in religiously when we went away with the car and caravan with regards to fuel costs and consumption...... Bear in mind the quantities are gallons and not that nancy Euro litre nonsense! On this one you can see where my interests in Corsairs comes from although my dads had done 81,000 miles more than mine has now and this was way back in the mid to late 1970's! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
observer Posted January 6, 2011 Report Share Posted January 6, 2011 Don't think those responding are any indication of the overall position - how many teachers, coppers, NHS staff, Council employees etc etc commute into this Town? How many private contractors pass each other on our M/ways to work in each others Towns? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazj Posted January 6, 2011 Report Share Posted January 6, 2011 ..........and by your last few words, you have no understanding of business. What would you propose? That I give up say ?30,000 worth of work in Bristol to a local company and they can give me ?3,000 of work in Warrington? How far would I be allowed to travel outside Warrington in your utopia? 2 miles 5 miles? what if there are no companies offering my services in say Chester? Who gets to bid for that work?? Would I have to sack staff who don't live in Warrington and take on locals who may have no experience? What about the Phillipino staff at the hospital? do they count or because some live in Warrington are they classed as locals? Come on Obs.... try a bit of 21st century thinking and not your 8th century stuff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inky pete Posted January 6, 2011 Report Share Posted January 6, 2011 Don't think those responding are any indication of the overall position - how many teachers, coppers, NHS staff, Council employees etc etc commute into this Town? How many private contractors pass each other on our M/ways to work in each others Towns? So, if someone - say - is a secondary school maths teacher - are you saying that they should only ever be able to work in one of a handful of local secondary schools? Even if they want, and are good enough for, a head of department job which becomes available in a nearby area? If someone is a police constable, should they have to wait for their own local sergeant to retire before seeking advancement? Are all of our nurses to be limited to the career opportunities available at just one smallish hospital? Many council employees are going to have to get on their bikes and seek work elsewhere in the coming year or so. Should they refrain from doing so and just sit at home living on their redundancy money - just because WBC doesn't have a job for them? I'm not sure precisely what you mean by "private contractors", but if you mean domestic and industrial tradespeople and service personnel - many of them are travelling to work each day to work for customers who have chosen them over their more local competitors, on contracts they have won because they are better for the customer in some way. You seem to assume that if the "breadwinner" changes his or her work location for any reason then the whole family should up stick and move to that locality, completely ignoring the fact that the concept of a single breadwinner working at one location for any substantial portion of their working life is as outdated as most of the rest of your outlook. Why do you to want to shackle employees to one, or at least a very limited number of, possible employers for their entire working lives? Life may have been simpler when we were all feudal serfs - but it sure as hell didn't provide much social mobility! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
observer Posted January 6, 2011 Report Share Posted January 6, 2011 Social mobility exists, and (depending on the distance) a career move will include a residential move. But the issue isn't one of "social mobility" but physical mobility and the less arrogant among us, are now beginning to learn that it's not as sustainable as we thought it was. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inky pete Posted January 6, 2011 Report Share Posted January 6, 2011 When it takes longer to drive, cycle or travel by any available means of public transport into our local town centre for 9am on a weekday morning than it takes to drive 25 or 30 miles to a customer site in another town entirely, that would tend to indicate that the problem is not one of physical mobility around the region as a whole - more one of mental incapacity amongst those charged with keeping this small part of it moving. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Egbert Posted January 6, 2011 Report Share Posted January 6, 2011 It is obvious there will always be a certain section of the community who have to travel a long distance to work - particularly those who are sent by their employers to remote sites to use their particular skills. We seem to have a large proportion of these individuals on this forum, which begs the question: How do you have so much time for posting? But most people live near their work and, quite frankly, if they don't, they are mugs. They were mugs even before fuel prices rose so high. Just what is the point of wasting hours of your life travelling to work if you don't have to? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lt Kije Posted January 6, 2011 Report Share Posted January 6, 2011 Obs before you retired where did you work, Did you practice yourself what you preach Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evil Sid Posted January 6, 2011 Report Share Posted January 6, 2011 i work 15 hours a week as a passenger assistant in my brothers business. i walk to the end of the street and get picked up by the driver we then travel to several locations in warrington to pick up one "walk on" passenger and two wheelchair bound passengers. we then transport them to a school in winsford before heading back to warrington. later on in the day we pick them up from school and transport them home. cost to me ?0.00. cost to brother approx ?20.00 per day fuel plus my wages and the drivers wages. he has to put in a tender for the contract and his prices were based on fuel prices twelve months back. so he is now running the route with very little profit due to the rise in fuel price. makes me wonder how much taxi fares have risen to account for the fuel price increase? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
observer Posted January 6, 2011 Report Share Posted January 6, 2011 Kije, I'm not "preaching" to anyone; IF someone is desperate for promotion or even a job, and is prepared to add more than an hour's travelling time to their daily slog, or pay ?1,000s a year in fuel or rail fares, that's their buisiness. It's just something I find alien in the context of the work-life balance equation, and illogical and inefficient in the broader socio-economic context. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lt Kije Posted January 6, 2011 Report Share Posted January 6, 2011 So where did you work Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
observer Posted January 6, 2011 Report Share Posted January 6, 2011 What's that got to do with you - nosey?! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lt Kije Posted January 6, 2011 Report Share Posted January 6, 2011 Did you go by car, Or did you walk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
observer Posted January 6, 2011 Report Share Posted January 6, 2011 .. or by bike - depending on the weather and what time was available! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lt Kije Posted January 6, 2011 Report Share Posted January 6, 2011 So you did not practice yourself what you now preach on here Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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