Bus Shelters & Phone Boxes

Bus shelters and phone boxes. Lots of them all over, provided at a cost to the supplier, all there for the public good. In Nottingham both BT and the local bus company seem to have joined forces to try out a new material on several of these constructions - Pilkington EE-ZEE Collapse Glass. I assume this is the case, as there are several of them that I pass each day that regularly have the glass missing from them.

It looks very pretty on the floor, like a shower of large ice chippings, or some sort of mini-glacier, but it somewhat less effective when arranged like this rather than in the traditional manner of one big piece per side.

I rang and asked why the interest in making this sort of glass, and apparently it's not designed like that - people just keep breaking it!!

I don't know what it is about the glass that makes it so attractive to mindless vandals, but it works a treat. There are three particular places - one on my street, and two on my way to work - that are smashed at least once a week.

It's An Outrage!!

I suggest that in order to stop this problem, one of the two following solutions are applied;

1. instead of making the glass safe, and engineering it to crumble into tiny, blunt little bits, try making it so that it shatters into large, jagged points with razor sharp edges; the kind that cause deep gashing wounds that bleed profusely. Perhaps also some very small pointy shards, the type likely to fly into eyes and other exposed soft tissues and would be almost impossible to pick out. As long as there are signs on the glass that say "WARNING: Likely to sever femoral artery if smashed", I don't see what the problem is. Surely only a fool would then try and put his foot through one?

2. take them away for good. If these morons can't keep their malicious little hands to themselves, let them stand out in the rain when waiting for a bus, or use their own phone line if they want to buy some drugs. Perhaps then they'll also learn what inside toilets are for. And if they need a telephone in a life or death emergency (for instance, bleeding to death from a severed femoral artery...) but can't find one because it's been taken away - well, who's going to miss one more fool...?