Flagging In Vancouver

Thought I’d be brave and try my hand at making a video while I was working and since there isn’t away to have sound associated with traffic controlling I added one of my favorite songs to keep you amused.

As usual and let me tell you it’s almost always like this you’ll see it’s raining again, so the video is a little on the wet side. I could of left the windshield wipers on but then I would of had to waste gas to keep my truck running.

I’ll stop talking and let you watch the video.

Now that you’ve watched the video you are probably thinking what an easy job that was, in a perfect world it was.

What you didn’t see was all the people that ran the red lights, the drivers that tried so hard to cut off large trucks that needed to take the right hand turn wider than most vehicles and the fact that the rain came in harder. I was on this job from 8am to 2pm and saw more than I video’d for you. Oh and did I mention it was cold mix that with the rain and what do you get – a miserable day!

I am just trying out this video making and not sure if I’ll use it on a regular basis, but it is fun as a change every once in awhile to see things or someone (like me) moving around. Stay tuned to see what other new and exciting things I might come across to share with you.

With winter being here in Vancouver construction sites are fairly limited and work is slow. I realize it’s been awhile since I’ve spent anytime in here and with the New Year here the time has come to get back to writing about the sites I’m working on.

Things are always a little slow when it snows here on the coast, and I don’t know why it is but it seems that where I live I get hit the hardest when it snows.

It doesn’t look like a ton of snow especially if you live up in the Northern part of British Columbia, but for the interior where I’m from this is quite a bit, add in the frost and you have your work cut out. It took me over twenty minutes to scrap off all the snow and ice that had dumped on my truck overnight. I’m sure hoping that this type of weather is all behind me and things warm up here. I for one do not like working in the cold or that nasty winter rain either, chills you right down to the bone.

I do have one job site to share with you well not so much the job but what happened to me. Funny you just never know what your going to be in for when you show up for work and since I’m always an early bird (I don’t like being late) I can access the situation and try to figure out what the crew will be doing when they show up. This particular morning was like no other and what I mean by that is this is a first for me.

I was outside the truck walking around when I noticed a Peacock (yes you read that right) he was sitting up on the telephone lines right above my truck. Wouldn’t you know it the one day I decided not to take my camera to work, thankfully I have my trusty iPhone. But just so you know I really didn’t expect what was going to happen next.

Since it was still fairly gloomy out I didn’t realize that the flash on my iPhone was going to upset this Peacock, but it did he flew off the line and right straight for my head, in fact to get out of his way I actually had to duck. Once he was across the road I didn’t have anytime to snap another picture this is when he thought it might be more fun just to chase me back into my truck.

Like I said flagging is a dangerous job just never thought that a bird would attack me on the job…

Yes it’s been a few weeks since I’ve written anything about work time for me to get serious and do some major catching up. Now that summer has wrapped up let me be the first to remind you that school has re-opened and you need to slow down when driving through the school zones. It’s just like driving through one of my construction zones, it only takes 60 seconds extra of your time and that could be the difference between life or death.

I bet you’re wondering about my tittle today since I’m usually always complaining about the motorist. Today won’t be about the motorist in fact today will be coming from a motorist’s point of view – mine. Just because I am a lane tech and work in the construction industry doesn’t mean I don’t have an opinion when I have to drive my own personal vehicle through another companies construction site, especially the one I’m about to complain about. Driving through this particular site made me aware on why there are the motorists that do get frustrated, this site was set up all wrong as far as I’m concerned. I know it was frustrating for me after trying for over 40 minutes to get through the intersection and the traffic was backed up like you wouldn’t believe. I did take a few pictures of this job site and first I think I’ll share the map for those of you who live on the lower mainland and know the area.

The blue line is me heading west on Golden Ears and I want to turn south on 176 ave where you see the purple line, from where you see 180 st took over 40 minutes to reach the intersection at 176 st/96ave

For those of you that don’t know that street it’s a two lane road until you get to the intersection where it has two lanes to go straight through and two lanes to turn south (left) onto 176 ave. Now remember I’m not going to mention the company’s name that was working or the name of the company that the flaggers work for, that just wouldn’t be right on my part. In fact I even managed to take a picture of the flagger standing on the meridian doing absolutely nothing except to watch as the traffic got all messed up. They had taken out the one turning lane and even had a taper problem was they only gave about a three car length of warning and there was no signs anywhere to say the lane was ending.

You can see from the picture on the right that it made things extremely hard for the semi trucks to get over into the other lane. At least they were smart enough to have a taper just to bad that there wasn’t any signs warning the motorists that the lane was ending, especially the semi trucks. I shouldn’t say there wasn’t any signs they did have one it was the construction sign, needless to say I was a little agitated so you can imagine how the semi truck drivers felt.

That’s not even the craziest part, after I managed to turn southbound on 176 ave they’re sitting on the shoulder was not one but two lane tech trucks, sure would have been nice had one been sitting on Golden Ears Way with the arrow board. Did I mention there was three flaggers just standing around I saw the other two when we finally turned. Still have no idea why they were even there sure wasn’t to help out with the traffic jam happening. Now remember earlier I said I managed to take a picture of the flagger standing beside us on the meridian I’m going to post it here but will for her own identity blacken out her face. This blog isn’t so much for pointing fingers and unless I have nothing good to say I’ll never mention names. Now if this was a good site and things were the way they should have been then and only then they might have got mentioned but I doubt it, just better in the long run to keep names out of it. Of course that doesn’t apply to the people I work with they know sooner or later they’ll end up here.

Now I wonder what she was doing standing on the meridian who knows maybe they were all on a coffee break, of course that would have been just as crazy as having the lane tech truck sitting on the shoulder doing nothing. Maybe I even got there at the tail end of the job altho I can’t see that since their crew was still in the intersection and one guy was even up in his bucket tinkering with the intersection lights. Not one traffic control person was standing with him to make sure that at the very least a semi truck didn’t get to close to him.

Just so were clear I’m not perfect by any means and there are those days that I too like to cut corners and put up as little signage as I can get away with. But then that would depend on the job site, and the amount of traffic etc. This particular job site did need all the signs lane ending, construction and flagger, they should have started way back at 180 street. Plus there should have been one of the lane tech trucks sitting in the lane that was closed with the arrow board on and the taper should have been behind the lane tech truck, that’s how I would have set up the job and I’m not perfect.

On that note it’s time for me to head off to bed, I’ve spent way to much time on this, tomorrow it’ll be back to normal and be all about me and my crews.

Remember To Slow Down And Pay Attention When Entering A Construction Zone

I haven’t posted anything lately about my job sites and thought because I just spent the last few days with my most favorite crew I would now take the time to fill you in in what and where I’ve been hiding. The past few days where not to overly busy so I was able to get a few pictures of what we were doing. This crew that I work for mostly on Tuesdays and Wednesdays would be my all time pick to work daily with if they had the jobs everyday that called for traffic control.

Things were fairly easy yesterday August 22, as you can see from the pictures, we only had two separate jobs to do and did I mention the weather was perfect. This particular crew that I work with are very respectful of their fellow employees as well as me their traffic controller and let me be the first to tell you that makes a huge difference when it comes to having a job run smoothly.

Working on corners can be a little tricky

But like all my jobs with this crew everything went as planned with no interference from the traffic that travels on this road. Now I’m going to tell you about a company that I flagged for on Sunday night down in the heart of the city. As usual I won’t mention them by name, they don’t deserve the advertising. This company is made up of rude, heartless, old cranky men who have no idea what safety means for themselves or anyone around them.  We were working in a very busy place right beside a skytrain station and to top it all off the BC Lions had just finished a football game. What does that mean exactly, it means pedestrians come by the 100′s, but that’s not where the problem started. It was actually in the intersection of Thurlow and Georgia where the problems started to arise. These cranky old men seem to think their above everyone else and know more than the rest of the people know.

I have been doing my job for 12 years with no accidents, that means I have a clean safety record, I hold a validated ticket for both in traffic control and lane tech technician this one guy that they call Glen is the worst of the bunch, always trying to dictate how things should be done. I am not a person who will take any sort of crap from a guy who thinks he knows more about my job than I do, in fact this guy knows nothing about my job. I don’t stand over their job telling them how they should do it, so what makes him think he can tell me how to do mine.

It’s bad enough that this company made up of cranky old men don’t even have the respect to say hello when you first arrive at their job site, in fact they don’t acknowledge you at all unless their telling you how to set-up the site. It’s one thing to tell me what their doing it’s another to tell me how to set-up. I didn’t waste my time taking pictures like I said earlier this company needs no form of advertising from me, in fact one of my crews that I work with on a regular basis told me that if your not a young, airheaded chippy with no experience then you won’t get the respect you deserve from Glen. That leaves me out I have to much experience, and I’m not an airhead guess that’s why safety matters to me and is my number one priority. Enough of this subject I could go on and on about the lack of respect from this company but it will change nothing and I could careless if I ever work for them again.

Moving along to something a little more rewarding, there are companies out there that do care and if your lucky enough to get onto one of their job sites your day will go a lot more smoother.

Working in the night can be so rewarding if your working with a decent crew that has respect with a safety attitude, and there’s less motorists speeding!

That concludes working these past few weeks with great crews and some not worth talking about, I have been busy writing different articles online on a great community that I belong to and don’t always have the time to create anything good to read. But I did manage to get a few new things out so if your interested in reading some other topics other than my traffic control stories I’ve included a few good links here for easy access. Not all of the topics are based around the construction industry.

60 Seconds Can Save Lives
Why would you want to take 60 seconds and how would this even save lives. You will be amazed at how taking the 60 seconds can and will save lives. I am abo…

Vancouver International Airport
The international airport in Vancouver is actually situated in Richmond BC which is about a twenty minute drive from the Vancouver downtown core…

Construction Birthday Party
Does your child like the big construction equipment dump trucks, backhoes or excavators…Why not have a construction party with all his or her friends…

Please Remember To Slow Down In All Construction Zones!