Attack of the Cone(heads)

[vifferman]

Fookin’ coneheads! Yeah, you know the ones I mean: those guys who make the roads “safe” for us by placing bazillions of day-glo orange cones all over the place. I can (dimly) remember when there were no cones anywhere, apart from the right-way up ones that had mouth-watering icecream confections melting in them.
Yesterday it all became just too much.
I’m driving along, tired from 150 minutes of contending with morons on the Public Thoroughfare, starting to nearly relax as I’m nearly home, and what have we here? A couple of hundred metres of cones, marking…. Nothing.
FarkinNothing!


Yup, they’re lined up in the gutter, warning hapless motorists that THERE IS A CURB ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD!!

Strange thing is, the curb’s been there since just before Noah got his first ark-building kitset as a boy, and I’m pretty sure there haven’t been any instances reported of it leaping out and attacking cars. In these days of OSH domination, nambypambyism and ‘SAFETY’, it should have at least been properly signposted:
WARNING!! Extreme Care! We’ve already fucked up the road with roadworks and shit, and now we’ve made it 50cm narrower than it should be by putting cones in the fucking way!! Cone alert! CONE ALERT!! Go to DEFCONe 4!!

I have this theory that most roadworks around the country exist solely to support the coneheads and the factories that are busily turning valuable fossil fuels into useless orange cones. I suspect there are even gangs of NinjaRoadwarriors that prowl around at night, vandalising the roads so that the coneheads can leap out and stick 47,369 cones around each pothole. But most of the time, the cones are there merely to warn you that there are cones there!

And now it seems that if you do anything, anytime, anywhere within a conesthrow of a road, you have to ConeTheFookinThing. Take, for example, the humble Fire Engine (or ‘Fire Appliance’, as it is apparently called now, although I fookt if I know how you’d fit one in your lounge or kitchen). It used to be, that if one was parked by the side of the road, while the firepersons extinguished a conflagration, it was painfully obvious that it was there. I mean, the thing’s bright red, for a start (a bit of a giveaway that), and has flashing lights all over it. It’s a tad bigger’n a breadbox, so it’s not the sort of thing you can easily miss. But apparently, that’s not good enough for the aforementioned namby-pambyists and SafetyNazis; now it has to be ProperlyConedOff, with a sign placed up the road, (surrounded by more cones, of course, to warn that there’s a sign, and more cones, to warn that there are cones about, and cones to warn of those cones, etc, etc, ad nauseum). So it’s a wonder fire appliances have enough room for Tools of Mass Fire Extinguishing and Deconflagration, burdened down as they are by ten tonnes of orange (OSH Approved, natch) plastic. It’s also a wonder that the firethings have time or energy to put out any actual fires. “I’m sorry Sir – we were unable to save your house or any of your belongings. But we managed to safely cone off the area without any injury. Here – have a cone – it might come in useful.”

So take action, Plebs!

Do summat before UnZud is nothing more'n a ForestOfConez.
Take arms against a sea of cones, and by opposing, end them!

Kill a cone today! (Or, better still - kill a coner tomorrow!)

[Steam]

When I worked the roads we had to put out heaps of cones because (apart from being required by OSH) fucknuckles in cars (and bikes) kept smashing into our ditches and machines because they drove through the gaps between cones.
And I had a couple of close calls when cars zoomed too fast through road works, so I learned tricks like putting the cones really far out on the road and making the lanes narrow and crooked, so the moron drivers had to slow down.

Never underestimate the stupidity of drivers. Can't have enough cones.

[vifferman]

But what about when there are no roadworks? Just cones?
Or there are roadworks, but they're not currently going on, because it's the weekend and "we don't do weekends"?

[Steam]

The cones with no roadworks, that's done mostly to stop people parking, so roadworks can start in the next few days sometime.

The cones with roadworks but no workers cos it's the weekend?
Osh OSH osh.
And who's going to pay if some old lady drives her car into a hole and it is found to be because of inadequite coneage? The contractor. (well, his insurance, but ya know.)

Blame the Labour government. Oh wait, everyone blames Helen for everything anyway.
Good old Bill English will fix everything.
Oh, Don Brash took over?
Oh, he's gone too?
Well, I am sure whoever happens to be leading the National Party when they get in soon will make it all better.

[Ocean1]

Mate had a blazing row, (does a good row does our Chris) with the local council OSHifer. Apparently his cones did not comply with the requirements laid out for such in the appropriate rules. They were the wrong shade of orange and didn't have the genuine approved reflective tape atop. He was required to decamp from his cone-encircled trench within a private driveway and fuck off forthwith. This he did, never again to darken the doors of the client in question. The client, (you can guess can't you...) was the Mayor.

Another mate is the only local qualified tech for a particular range of site safety equipment. He’s so sick of the compliance issues he now refuses to go on any site controlled by one particular local authority. They have to bring the gear to his shop for calibration.

Suggestion: every time you find unattended cones stop and do a quick check, there's bound to be some infringement of the rules going on there somewhere. Familiarise yourself with the finer points of conedom and the more esoteric requirements for such. Have a pro-forma complaint ready to shoot off to the relevant authority when you get home. I can easily see a couple of dozen perfectly valid complaints a week, technically requiring a site inspection and subsequent report each. In short, bury the bastards in their own bullshit.

[Magua]

Sometimes cones just don't cut it. Working on a new offramp for a new motorway, we had a string of cones blocking off the road we were working on, bar a small gap for our trucks. Next to an existing road, the road we were working on was lower, gravel, not painted etc and had graders, water trucks and men in high vis jackets all over it.

Yet whilst performing some tests on the road, I was a little suprised to see an obviously confused little old lady in a small toyota driving up the road as equally confused labourers and foremen looked on.

[vifferman]

The cones with no roadworks, that's done mostly to stop people parking, so roadworks can start in the next few days sometime.

The cones with roadworks but no workers cos it's the weekend?
Osh OSH osh.
And who's going to pay if some old lady drives her car into a hole and it is found to be because of inadequite coneage? The contractor. (well, his insurance, but ya know.)

OK - TheConesThatBrokeTheVifferman'sPatience were installed for no other apparent purpose than "I am, therefore I cone". To wit (to woo) that they were littering the gutter. The aforementioned gutter was not one that could be parked on, nor would anyone want to.

It wasn't the only example of ConingInsanity that I experienced yesterday - just the nearest to home, and one which actually made that piece of road MORE hazardous to negotiate, as it forced traffic on an already narrowed corner towards the oncoming traffic, which was itself also forced towards the inside of the corner. I suspect the whole idea is, "Look! See? SEE?!? This corner is dangerous! It needs more cones!!"

I also went through several lots of roadworks which were actually CONEworks: nothing going on, and no hazards apart from the cones themselves.

I suspect that this is one of those self-perpetuating problems, where the cones give the motorists a false sense of security ("The cones protect me from the roadworks, roadworkers and their machines") and the roadworkers (often a misnomer) a false sense of security ("The cones are protecting me from the crazy motorisks") and the nett result is that everything is LESS safe, partly because of the cone hazard itself.

"Death to cones! " I say.
Bring back danger!!

Ah yes - I remember the GodOldBadOld days, when there was danger aplenty, but very few hazards, deaths or injuries, and everyone was safer because they took more care.
Mollycoddling+CossettingInCottonwool = CottonwoollyheadedInanity.

[vifferman]

Sometimes cones just don't cut it.

Eggs Zachary.
Do away with them I say, and install a platoon of straw-chewing hillbillies, ensconced in rocking chairs and cradling pump-action 12-gauges, saying, "Git off-a muh land!" and shooting any miscreants.
And send a couple round to my house (it's currently InorganicCollectionWeek). Phark I hate those inorganic vultures...
Almost as much as I hate cones..

[mstriumph]

funniest thing i've read in ages --- bling awarded

[vifferman]

funniest thing i've read in ages --- bling awarded

It could get really scary soon.
I'm expecting some wacko to jump out of the KB woodwork any moment and say, "Stop picking on the cones! It's not their fault, and cones are people too, y'know".

[yungatart]

Of course, in our neck of the woods, said cones are used to warn of the hazard of the drum kit in someone's upstairs lounge.
Good thing too, one could bark one's shins quite badly on those bloody things, right dangerous they are.

[vifferman]

One could bark one's shins quite badly on those bloody things, right dangerous they are.

I was just thinking about that.
Years ago (in those halcyon pre-cone days), I used to work with a guy who was nearly blind (even when he wasn't pissed), and he had a habit of falling into holes thoughtlessly left lying around by council workers and pre-cone coneheads. I was just thinking about how much more dangerous things would've been if these holes had been coned off: not only would he have bumped into them, likely leading him to believe he was being attacked by some strange new species of ankle-biter that he would have exhausted himself trying to beat off with his white stick, but when he inevitably toppled over them, he would have run the risk of adding ConedBottom or ConeInTheLeftEar to his usual list of injuries (black eye, broken arm, cuts'n'contusions). Of course, properly pre-coned, the coned hole would've been quite safe, as he would've been coned to death before he got anywhere near the hole.

[Goblin]

Conehead...she ain't really dumb
She's just a
Conehead...'tater chip crumbs
All over her face
Is there any more beer
Stashed away at her place? She's just a
Conhead...she can't help herself
"She's a Conehead girl..."
Pitch her a ring
That is the thing
That's getting her hot-uh
A hoop or a ring
Goin' over the top of her Conehead

"She is from a small town in France
'N she's a Conehead kind of a girl, kind
of guy"
That's what she gives me is-uh Oooh!
Conehead
When she's on her knees
The point is so high
I keep sayin' please
Keep it out of my eye, she's a
Conehead
(She's a Conehead kind of a girl, kind of
guy, kind of a girl-thing...)

Saturday Night
You're home alone
The TV lights up
As her dad comes home
He's been workin' all day
At the drivin' school
In a stupid-lookin' hat
That he uses to fool
The people of Earth
Who might get back
If they knew he was really
From Remulak, where the
Conehead...people are from, where the
Conehead...people go to, when the
Conehead...people are done with their
Conehead...things that are fun
Connie the cone
Is dressed real neat
Like a teen-age girl
From down the street

But Mom 'n Dad
They don't approve
Carbohydrates
Is all they groove
Connie's eye
Has a tiny tear
But they rinse it away
With a case of beer

A bag of chips
'N fiberglass
Her diet's a riot
I can't keep quiet
I'd love to try it
But I think I'll pass
To eat that kind of stuff they pack
You'd hafta be from *Remulak*, where the
Conehead...people are from, where the
Conehead...people go to, when the
Conehead...people are done with the
Conehead...things that are fun, where the
Conehead...people are from, where the
Conehead...people go to, when the
Conehead...people are done, with the
Conehead...things that are fun


Frank Zappa has a song for every occasion

[Ocean1]

Ah yes - I remember the GodOldBadOld days, when there was danger aplenty, but very few hazards, deaths or injuries, and everyone was safer because they took more care.
Mollycoddling+CossettingInCottonwool = CottonwoollyheadedInanity.

Then we made playgrounds safe, not a stubbed toe or barked shin in sight. Closed all the swimming pools, stopped all the dangerous sports, culled all those nasty male PE teachers from the ranks.

So now when we get our licence at 12 and hit the road in our fashionably ill-handling shiny new 600 HP blown WRX, (courtesy of Helen’s student loan largess) we just KNOW we're invincible, ain't no godamn pothole/lamp-post/front-end-loader gona hurt US...

BRING BACK EVOLUTION. It’s safer.

Fuck, that feels better… Thank's dude.

[swbarnett]

I lived in Switzerland for two years and never saw one traffic cone. Road works on a narrow road did not close the road to pedestrians. We were allowed to walk within swing range of the diggers and the workers never wore hard hats. The philosophy was one of personal responsibility. The sites were clean (no rubbish piles or things left lying around to trip over) and the public used their brain and looked out for themselves.