Indignant rant about a magazine’s apparent inability to describe a machine properly.
About 25 years ago, I was told by a senior officer from within the Kent police force that one of the biggest challenges facing them when trying to recover stolen equipment was the fact that they couldn’t identify machine types. The term JCB can cover a multitude of equipment types, very few of them actually rolling off a Uttoxeter production line; and a digger can be anything from a half tonne machine you can tow behind you family car to a mining shovel that could accommodate said car in its bucket.
This is not the kind of thing the police have to deal with every day so, even a quarter of a century on, I am still happy to make allowances on this basis. But what excuse can there possibly be when one of the UK’s leading construction magazines perpetuates this ignorance?
In this article, which ironically is on the subject of plant theft, we have references to:
- A Volvo dumper truck (surely an articulated dumptruck)
- A JCB 3CX excavator (er, that’s a backhoe loader)
- And a JCB digger (that could be just about anything)
There would be outcry if, instead of using the proper name and nomenclature, Jeremy Clarkson described Ferrari’s latest offering a “a red car”. And how would you get on if you popped into your local mobile phone shop and asked for “a Nokia”.
Surely we should expect a little more accuracy and attention detail from a supposed industry magazine.
