White Lines

  

White Lines

Did you know white lines were ‘invented’ by the Romans who would place white painted stones in the middle of carriageways in busy market towns to control traffic? 

Whatever did the Romans do for us, eh? 

It was ‘re-invented’ at the advent of urban congestion in early Victorian times. Believe it or not London, Norwich, York and Bristol were so congested due to lack of lane discipline, there were queues through the busy centres.

The use of white lines has moved on somewhat since then. 

Solid white lines should never be crossed on a motorway, nor hatched areas. 

But wait. The hard shoulder has a solid white line. And service vehicles park on hatched refuges for safety.

Solid white lines should never be crossed on highways either. Well, the central white line shouldn’t, those in the channels and those outlining hatched areas only outline a feature. Oh and hatching on highways can be crossed too.

Confusing? Well you probably work in the industry, so have at least a basic understanding of it. Imagine the average driver.

But do we really need all these white lines? Currently I wonder whether local authorities all got bought a ‘Whitelining machine’ by Santa over the past couple of years. Wherever there’s an empty black space, it gets filled with hatching. Have a look and ask yourself, ‘Is that needed?’ or ‘What are they trying to advise me?’ After all, hatching on most roads are advisory, and do not stand-up in courts as a mandatory direction under regulations.

What is the point of this hatching?

Why is a traffic lane filled with hatching?

Then, imagine all the way back to Victorian times. White lines were put down to allow persons to pass on each other’s right-hand side. So we’ve had 4 or 5 generations to learn about white lining. It’s in our psyche. So do we need all of them? Certainly hatching in the middle of roads is not needed unless it’s advising you of a right turn bay coming up. It should not be used to separate opposing traffic as the hatched area becomes a no-mans-land, and could be used by both vehicles at the same time travelling towards each other. In Poole hatching is not used on approaches to central refuges, and it looks very smart and tidy – and works. In Wiltshire, on low speed straight roads, no central markings are used, and it slows vehicles down.

We know what side of the road to drive on. Even the ‘Johnny Foreigner’ understands it. Having no white lines slows vehicles down, and brings back eye contact and human interaction. Sure you’ll get the odd idiot who may crash, but we shouldn’t always design for those with a lack of driving skills or common sense.

So let’s try and encourage councils to take up white lines, or at least when they resurface, to redesign or at least reconsider whether all the white lines need replacing. 

Let’s follow Wiltshire and Poole’s examples, it looks nicer, and slows vehicles down, and no one wanders onto the wrong side of the road wondering where to drive.

Well there’s probably always one. Line or no line!

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www.findtheengineer.com

Simplicity Must Be The Key

Simplicity Must Be The Key

Summer is finally here! The mood is good, and business is growing in the UK, northern Europe and USA. So all is well, yes ? 

During the heady days of expansion and growth, a number of 'schemes' were implemented that quite frankly now look obviously like money-grabbing exercises. 

Harsh I know, but bear with me. 

Two main ones in our industry are speed cameras and car parking charges. 

'I know', you say, 'here we go again with the pro/cons of these schemes.' Well no actually. 

My point is that during the recession, the speed camera sections had financial cuts which meant they did not heavily enforce their districts, and even cut the amount of film put into the static camera housings. This surely smells of tax raising revenue over safety. If it was purely safety, then these operations would have held constant. On-street  parking charges have been in the news lately, as town centres are deserted, and the main reason is parking is too expensive. The answer cited by authorities for charging was to encourage people to use public transport. But that was never going to work. Why carry all your bags on a bus and train then walk home? Its not practical. So it was obviously a tax raising revenue. Why? Because authorities are scrapping charges to encourage people back into town in their CARS!

Recession is all about sorting the wheat from the chaff & regeneration as I have mentioned in an earlier blog. These two horrible schemes are now showing their true colours. This makes me think what else needs streamlining. Well in recruitment, authorities pay huge amounts for 'electronic' systems to recruit new staff. They are not needed. Just a phone call to an agency, or an ad on a job site, and agencies will call you. These electronic systems take three people to operate, approximately four mark-ups, and ultimately the engineer gets paid pennies, and the authority pays pounds. Simplify it. Get on the phone and ask for an engineer, and see what happens.

In traffic signals, so much emphasis is put on SCOOT/MOVA operations in cities now, that it works out cheaper in the peak hours to just have an engineer sat in front of a CCTV camera screen manually operating the lights. Why? because he's sat in front of the CCTV camera screen watching the program operate the lights anyway. Why pay for the system? > Simplify! If a junction is still congested, well, then there's no more you can do.

Finally, have employers thought about simplifying their own working practices? We at Find The Engineer all work from home (no really, its not a euphemism), we use Skype to video and conference call. We use the telephone and the wonders of the internet to communicate. Its cheaper, reduces ours and clients overheads and keeps traffic off the roads - hey! A congestion busting scheme.

So now its time for economic growth again, surely its time to look at ourselves and ask what we can do to simplify our working life and processes, as we probably have our personal lives...

...Simple

Call us on 0845 021 2-4-6-8

www.findtheengineer.com

Spring Is In The Air

Spring is in the Air

Here we are over a quarter of the way through a new year. Who has kept their new year’s resolutions? Are things looking up? Better or worse than expected?

With the government announcing it will pump billions into the construction arena for the next five years, this will enable a sense of optimism to return to our industry – won’t it? The construction industry is very important to the UK for more reasons than most realise. When the car industry collapsed a couple of years ago, it didn’t take long for the ‘anti-car’ government and councils’ to realise that it was an essential spine of British industry. 

It affected 1 in 8 jobs in the UK, so the government had to introduce the car scrappage scheme to help the industry sell vehicles, which in turn aided the suppliers, caterers, health services, insurance companies, banks etc etc. In fact it has now been realised that the car industry is bigger now than it ever has been. 

The UK is the second largest manufacturer of cars in Europe.

What has this got to do with the construction industry? Well, that is even bigger and affects 1 in 5 people in the UK. When house-builders build, councils can loan from banks and get income from the builders, which means people move into the new houses, and more jobs are created, new roads, facilities and infrastructure, and employers move into the area, and then the circle of influence grows and grows.

The government also announced that Britain’s economy will ONLY grow by 0.6%. That is good; look at Spain, Italy, Greece. 0.6% is growth. The economy is growing. Turn that 0.6 into pound notes and it’s an increase every month of £16bn turnover. How great is that for a small island in the middle of a world cash crisis? 

OK so we’re not the States or Germany, but then we’re not Japan or China who are in negative growth (to use an Americanism). We are the world financial capital, and it’s the financial powerhouses that are in trouble, so we’ve done well as a country so far.

Why is this relevant to this column? Well, there is still a major skills shortage in the UK, we have vacancies that we cannot fill. Our sister company We Are Recruitment is now recruiting teachers from Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Ireland to fill much needed roles in schools in the UK. In those countries, teachers have taken pay cuts and reduced working conditions. The UK has not – and it has an increase in job roles.

However, the reason for the skills shortage in UK engineering is because the salaries and conditions offered for skilled engineers is below what other countries offer. Councils have signed up to supply companies which stifle mark-ups for agencies, apparently to get the best deals. However, many agencies are shunning these councils and their supply companies as the profit line is negative. 

These arrangements are also putting engineers off working for councils. It is also affecting private companies too. Very soon the UK will have to look at this, as generations are now shunning our industry, and this is bad for 1 in 5 people!

 Call us on 0845 021 2-4-6-8

www.findtheengineer.com

Institutional Failure

Institutional Failure

In the last blog I mentioned how there are more technical vacancies than engineers to fill them in the UK. 

So why is this? 

The first reason a lot of people give me is that not enough people are coming through the colleges and universities with engineering qualifications, and this is correct. 

However more people are leaving the engineering field at the beginning of their career and also leaving early towards the end of their career rather than not going for a career in engineering in the first place. As an industry the whole engineering sector including colleges, employers, developers, governments, local councils, recruitment companies and institutions need to focus on the real reasons why there is a shortage. 

There is not just one answer. 

Many women I’ve known in the engineering sector have left as they felt it was chauvinistic. Having witnessed this I can’t deny engineering has a male dominated ‘old boys’ feel in some cases. Women are also not promoted or paid as well as men. 

Unlike I.T, leisure or retail industries, engineering is not seen as ‘hip’ enough for teenagers to consider it as a career. 

I didn’t, I was never cool at school, but really wanted to look for something cool for a career, I just fell into engineering by being naturally good at numbers, designing and problem solving. Something I and other business owners have to do every day. 

Engineering Institutions traditionally represent the engineering employer and employee. There role was, and still is to lobby government, academies and engineering sectors in improving working practices, standards and  qualifications. However, today that is not enough. Institutions need to work closely with colleges, universities and employers in encouraging people into the industry, and work even harder to keep them there. 

Another role institutions need to do is liaise more with recruitment companies to promote the commercial sides of the sectors. Engineers need to know about commercial practices. Recruitment companies need to do a lot more in working with colleges and universities to encourage graduates to take roles in engineering. 

Even more than that, institutions have to be going into schools at an early stage and make pupils excited about engineering. To make people excited about engineering institutions, government, recruitment companies and academies need to stop thinking of engineering as just road building, metal shaping, telephone fixing and boring (in both senses). 

Engineering involves rockets, inventions, technologies, nature, practical science and much more. Institutions must modernise fast, change their working practices, keep up with the technology and discoveries of tomorrow, then start preaching to convert. 

My next blog will discuss the exciting engineering projects being undertaken in the UK this year.

Call us on 0845 021 2-4-68

www.findtheengineer.com

It's All Doom & Gloom

It’s All Doom And Gloom

Recession? Recession? We’re apparently in the second part of a double dip recession and the doom mongers are shouting again!

This is not just a recession, but the worst ever apparently. You could say not just a recession but an M&S recession. With M&S’s projected profits down by 1%, Clinton Cards toppling over and Greece all over the floor. Greece is no longer the word! 

Public sector staff have been on strike annoyed with having a pay freeze whilst the private sector quietly suffers pay reductions. Cuts, cuts and more cuts in everything, and banks are not lending, with mortgages almost impossible to get.

Let’s look at the recession in another way. A recession is a natural occurrence of free trade. Things that go up, must come down. So, there are no cuts, there are savings being made due to overspending. Mortgages are difficult to get as banks are stopping people spending what they can’t afford. 

A recession is a way of clearing dead wood and spring cleaning the financial dirt away. So from another view, M&S may have set their targets too high in the first instance. 

Do we really expect Clinton Cards to never close shops when the online ‘design-a-card’ industry is flourishing? Will no one ever go to Greece again on holiday and spend money there? In reality, public spending is up compared to 3 years ago, salaries are rising now by 1% and there are more vacancies than unemployed in the UK.

Wow! That last statement seems strange. However, as a recruitment company specialising in engineering jobs, we have more vacancies than we can shake a stick at. Good hourly rates, great salaries, great benefits and the jobs are real career progressors. 

The problem is all the vacancies are for qualified and skilled specialisms. And that is where the gap is. There are not enough qualified engineers and technicians out there to fill the gaps. Many councils are filling the gaps as they have to get projects completed. 

However they are often filling them with under qualified personnel. They have no choice. Private organisations cannot do this as they need to achieve profits so they cannot spend large sums on training, so they suffer with the shortage.

The answer is that if councils and private companies offered better rates and salaries then the vacancies would be filled. Right?

But we are in a recession, a time for clearing out the chaff. Put up salaries to fill that gap and prices go up, leading to excessive spending. In the short term this would benefit the economy, but maybe a spring clean would be round the corner sooner rather than later.

                                               Call us today on 0845 021 2-4-6-8

www.findtheengineer.com