Photo of the month − December 2007 − Special 4 Version 1.0.0.08

[German version]

Slide show

Berlin is a city with plenty of building and renovation projects. Which means you can often see construction vehicles and all sorts of building materials being transported on the roads. Glancing out of my office window, I caught sight of this vehicle, clearly carrying sanitary ware ready for dumping.

This picture reveals something fundamental about attitudes to transportation: Work at the site is the most important thing. Ferrying materials to and fro is a necessary evil which, to add insult to injury, must be done under time pressure. If a suitable vehicle is available, then it's simply packed full. Although the suitability of the vehicle is simply a question of whether whatever needs to be transported can in some way be gotten on to the vehicle – no matter how. Which means that many of these vehicles give the impression of having been crammed full rather than loaded. Sometimes, the load is simply placed on the vehicle, the washbasins in the photograph being a fine example. Whether or not they can slide around for several meters was of no concern whatsoever to the people who loaded the vehicle or the driver, as this load was headed for the dump anyway. ??

Again, the experienced load-securing columnist turns away in horror and hopes that the new year will bring an improvement.

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