Are Binmen a Law Unto Themselves?

On the whole I am very satisfied with our refuse collection service, but I have a query.  Are binmen a law unto themselves?  They always seem to block the road when quite often they could move the lorry just a metre or two further to allow the traffic to pass.  I appreciate that they do have to walk a long way - in fact they often run - so it would be helpful to them to park as close to the bins they  have to empty. But they do it as a matter of course.  Is it written in their job description that they have to block traffic as much as they can?

This morning at about 6.30 I was driving along the road behind our house when I came across a kamikaze binman.  I stopped to let him cross in front of my car from the truck to the side of the road and then - blow me down - he then rushed in front of my car as I moved forward.  Fortunately I managed to stop in time.  When he reached the lorry I tried to move forward again - and once more he darted in front of me!!  He's completely unscathed and I did manage to get home shortly afterwards.

In defence of our dustmen, it's endemic, this blocking of traffic.  It happens, as far as I can see, throughout the country.  In Peru they have open trucks and they go round ringing a bell for residents to take their rubbish out as they arrive, but I have never noticed them blocking the street.

Another thing:  rubbish collection is no longer at a regular time of day. The council say this is because they now have a lot of relief drivers, who work different patterns, but it doesn't help residents who are lulled into a false sense of security and leave putting their bins out until the morning - and then find that the binmen have been already.

My next-door neighbour reminded me of how we used to hang our bin bags up outside our back doors and the binmen came all the way in and collected them.  The next stage was taking the bin bags of the frame and putting them in the back alley behind the gate; then it was into the road - and now of course we have to wheel the bins into the road or they're not collected.

When I was visiting virtually every street in central Eastleigh before the election, I noticed that people were putting plastic bags in their green bins.If you're not sure what you should put in the green bin, may I suggest you visit  
http://www.eastleigh.gov.uk/waste-recycling-environment/recycling/green-bin-recycling.aspx#What
I'm afraid  the link doesn't seem to work, but you can find it by going onto waste recycling, or maybe even pasting the above into your browser, so I'll leave it there.