TfL and the pyres of fire

I tried not posting, but just couldn’t help myself.


First off, thoughts to all of those caught under the triple hit in Japan.  I seriously doubt many other country’s citizens would have behaved so, civilised, when faced with such calamities.

Second, getting ready to eat my hat, as those wringing nations might actually do something before the last squeaking cry of freedom is extinguished in libya.  Just leaves china, saudi arabia, zimbabwe, ivory coast, north korea, or just any country where peoples have demonstrated the exact same cry as those in libya, but whom are without any strategic value whatsoever, and the international community simply defends them  because it’s the right thing to do…

Oh yes, back to tfl.

I have arrived at the sunny conclusion that tfl cares not one jot, not a single dried fig, for the residents haplessly caught in the vicinity of imposed bus stands (and not, in case some people get confused, bus stops) otherwise residents would not be up in arms over those drivers who intransigently continue to sit idling at the stand with their vehicles engines ticking over, and belching bilious clouds of pollution in all directions -as though fossil fuels would last until the end of time!

As my attempts at burning bridges, and detonating the struts and supports has been 98% successful, I spend some of that newly released time looking up stuff from all over the globe trying to see a whole.  In this case, I have taken to looking at air quality measurement snapshots every couple of hours for the area south of the river, with findings pointing to the fact that when the wind direction’s from the n, nne, or nnw, the measurement at the station is higher when compared to its nearest neighbouring stations (actually to most of them), whilst the air in the 0-50m zone smells as though you’ve attached a hose to the exhaust of your car, and left the engine on with the window half open.  Sadly our windows are closed; but with hundreds of bus terminations at the stand and most with their their engines left running for up to 20 minutes, we’re forced to breathe in more toxic vapour than a smoker on  40+ cigarettes a day.

Don’t forget, it was only 4,300 people who died in london last year from air pollution, yet look at the fuss government makes about potential terrorists under the bed when their own actions kill far more of their own citizens!  So who’s going to mind if a few more pesky troublesomes are added to the pyre; obviously, so far, no-one.  Although i’d imagine if 4,300 young londoners were shooting and stabbing each other in a frenzy of blood letting, the papers would be wetting themselves in a virtuous circle of vexatious apoplexy, and a national emergency called.

Court action would appear to be the only option, as polite diplomacy’s turned out to be a dead-duck.  Everyone (in authority) tells us it shouldn’t be happening, the drivers know it shouldn’t be happening -when they know they’re been monitored they practically glide into the stand, switch off their engines the minute their vehicle comes to a stop, and glide out of the stand when it’s time to start their route.  Once monitoring has ceased engines are again at full throttle (amazing how word gets around); but the report back to hq says how wonderfully quiet everything is.

If tfl were a neighbour they’d be done for poisoning with careless intent and the proud owner of an arm-full of tattooed asbos’ they’d no doubt be proudly showing off at every opportunity.

So tfl’s new motto?  We would care, if we could give a…