*Chicanery
Page 47
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Lorry and bus drivers are sometimes accused of using weight and size to force other traffic to give way, and! must admit that I've encountered my fair share of this practice. But the other evening I saw an amusing example of a more benevolent use of size. A 36ft pantechnicon was waiting to turn out of a side road into a one-way main road in London's rush hour. Behind and alongside the van were queues of cars also waiting to turn out, but nobody was doing the decent thing and giving the bottled-up drivers a chance.
Then there came a momentary break in the stream and the van was out like a shot— pulling right across the main road like some vast chicane. Having effectively blocked the main stream, the grinning driver leaned out of his cab and waved all the side-road cars out; and not until the last one was clear did he pull round and open the "flood gates" again. To the "mainstreamers" it may have seemed boorish, but to the other drivers it was a wonderful piece of road transport image-building, I know; I was one of the beneficiaries.