Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick Tock.
Can you hear that? We know, right, it is annoying isn’t it! But in fact it’s worse than just annoying. It’s actually really really scary once you know what’s making it.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick Tock.
There it is again! What is it, you may ask. Huh?, we may respond distractedly. You may repeat the question. Sorry, we may say, we can’t really concentrate with that bl**dy noise going on all the time.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick Tock.
Seriously, you may say, in quite an impatient kind of way, if you know what’s making that sound, would you kindly tell me and end this insufferable suspense. Oh, right, we may say, well here’s what we’ve heard.
According to a report in leading industry journal Commercial Fleece, it’s the sound of a van accident ticking time bomb, which, like the clockwork plastic ticking sphere in popular old skool pass-the-parcel-variant family game Pass the Bomb (And NOW… Pass the Bomb Junior) could be going off around Christmastide in a location near you.
Huh?, you may now yourself be saying.
Allow us to explain:
HGVs are big ticket items, and HGV drivers are expensive. HGV drivers have to gain all sorts of qualifications. They cost a packet to employ. You have to pay to insure, maintain, and fuel their vehicles. And each time they flip a caravan on the motorway or squash some idiot cyclist in town, that will somehow end up being your problem!
All in all, a bit of nightmare. Whereas van drivers! Van drivers can be any idiot off the street, no training needed, can supply own vehicle (hell, any old estate will probably do), you can pay them peanuts, get them to pay for running expenses, fuel, insurance etc etc… and, since everyone’s doing all their shopping online now, van drivers are exactly what you need to distribute micro goods deliveries wherever the hell they need to be.
That’s all terribly fascinating, you may be thinking, but where do the explosives come in? Aha, well… glad you asked! The point is that van drivers are complete demons when it comes to in-vehicle hand-held mobile phone use. They’re at it non stop!
According to Department for Transport figures quoted in the aforementioned Commercial Feet, van drivers are almost twice as likely as normal drivers to use HHMPs. Basically, they have to be, to consult their sat nav app of choice, update their employers and would-be delivery recipients on exactly how far behind they are on their wildly optimistic delivery schedules, etc. etc. etc.
So, basically, if you add one part massively-increasing-van-use and one part on-the-HHMP-all-the-time, what you end up with is a ‘ticking accident time bomb’, one that’s primed to go off in a spectacularly big way round about Christmas time, when online purchasing reaches a click-frenzy crescendo of positively orgiastic intensity. Believe us, folks, it’s going to be carnage.
So if you’re thinking about leaving the house, in a motoristic capacity, over the holiday season, maybe think again. Why risk your life out there on the highway with all those vacantly-staring taurine-fuelled HHMP-toting maniacs – when you can just stay home and order everything you need online!
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