Apparently 13 people were killed at Britain’s level crossings last year and Railtrack want something done. They want questions about level crossings to be made compulsory on the driving theory test.
This is a complete nonentity of a story so why bother commenting on it? I mean Joe Biden is in Israel so expect Armageddon to kick-off in the next 48 hours. Well it’s typical of a certain mindset. People who off themselves on level crossings aren’t dying because they are ignorant. They die because they wilfully flout the laws. And I don’t just mean the laws of the country but the laws of physics. Many motoring topics are not exactly totally intuitive but the fact that in any given collision the train will beat the car ought to be to anyone smart enough to pass a driving test. To be fair they ought to be obvious to anyone smart enough to have the training wheels taken off their bicycle. But it isn’t the mindset of crass stupidity or pointless risk-taking I’m on about but Network Rail’s mindset.
This is a classic example of “something must be done-ism” and also of “but if it saves just one life-ism…” Now I don’t know if Network Rail seriously think this is a solution to the problem. If so they are misguided as the head of road safety at the AA pointed out (this was on BBC News this morning) or if they are doing a sort of Pontius Pilate act. We see this all the time. This isn’t just nanny-statism but pointless nanny-statism. This is Rapiscan, this is hospitals banning smoking in their grounds. It’s all a complete waste of time. In this case it’s the government waging war on daftsodism. On the basis that the Darwin Awards still keep trogging along*. It’s like the government adverts recently on seat-belt wearing. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t get in a car and automatically put their belt on almost reflexively. Undoubtedly there are daft sods out there who don’t wear seat belts or who joust with trains on level crossings but that’s not because they haven’t been told. It’s because they are daft sods. Right now as I type in a maternity ward somewhere a daft sod is being born. T’was ever thus. In the context of safety on the rails… Well I seem to recall that at the Rainhill trials a particularly daft sod (who also happened to be an MP) copped an unfortunate one when he got hit by Stephenson’s Rocket. Now it could be argued that railways were new then but should it not be obvious that several tons of metal moving at a reasonable lick is dangerous and should be avoided? I mean do you need to be told that playing kiss-chase with tigers is stupid. Well, perhaps some people do.
This is a profound example of the government fighting a war it can never win. I mean what driver education could have prevented this accident? A modicum of common sense could have prevented it but then we all know that is something less common than we’d like it to be. Well, we all know that but the government clearly doesn’t.
Until the daft sod gene is eliminated from the shallow end of the gene pool the government is tilting at windmills. I’m not holding my breath.
*Perhaps my favourite was some American who having run out of beer made his own by mixing petrol with milk. This vile beverage resulted in almost immediate vomiting which he did into the fireplace with the fire still burning…
Yes, Something must be doneism!
This is what Govts think they are for. Someone identifies a supposed problem, usually one of the Govt funded pressure groups, and the Govt immediately rushes to legislate.
Then a smug Minister can get on his hind legs and boast that they have passed a Law! Problem solved yes? Um almost always, no.
Take the ban on handguns. Some nutter who should never have been granted a licence in the first place, runs amok. Instead of giving whatever Constabulary who granted the licence a bloody good kicking, the solution is to ban all handguns .
Problem solved? I should bleedin coco! Gun crime has rocketed. The only people on the street with guns are the Police and the Criminals, who would never have got a licence in the first place.
There is another hysteria story about at the moment, Dangerous dogs again!
It has been noticed that people with little hair, large necks and multiple tattoos, tend to have fighting dogs like pit bulls, that are savaging the nation.
Now the last time this one came up, te solution was to ban a certain breed of pit bull. Some sense there I suppose, except that nobody, not even a bunch of experts from Crufts could tell the bad ones from ordinary bull terriers. This all took a lot of court time and kennel fees and the dogs were usually returned to their owners.
The solution this time? To chip and insure your dog!!
Um now I own a bonkers springer spaniel, as regular readers will know. Guess what? My dog is already chipped, and is currently carrying more insurance than I am, does the Govt really believe that the Chopper O’Tooles of this world, during their brief sojourns from custody are going to be down the vets, dutifully chipping Gnasher and forking out the hard earned dole money on insurance?
Well apparantly so!
Utterly fuckin crackers, but it all makes work for some prod nosed Govt twat doesn’t it? And a whole lot more expense for the little old lady pensioner who is having a struggle to keep the heating on even, and who’s only friend and comfort in the world is their dearest pet dog.
We live in insane times folks, and it is getting worse.
I caught an old episode of Fifth Gear this morining in which they showed some footage of Winterthur Insurance crash-testing a quadbike into the back of an Astra estate at 30mph, because the things can now be made road-legal. The dummy wasn’t wearing a helmet because they’re not a legal requirement apparently. It wasn’t pretty.
But the kicker came when the lovely, lovely Vicki Butler-Henderson said, “If you don’t think they should be, maybe you should think again”. No, dear: if someone’s thick enough to hare about on a quadbike at 30mph in traffic without a helmet, they deserve all they get. Did it cause any greater injury to the occupants of the car, or bystanders? No. Only the twat on the bike.
How many times does it have to be said? The law doesn’t exist to protect us from ourselves.
I am doing some IT consultancy for NR at the moment, what a useless bunch of twats they are. Monday to Thursday the office doesn’t seem to be more then 50% full outside of 11 to 3 and on Friday;s it is virtually deserted.
They are paying me £500 a day for about 3 hours work because they don’t seem to be able to respond to emails and telephone calls requesting existing documents within 72 hours.
The only other time I have had the misfortune of working with people who should not be employed in the first place was with Lloyds TSB. Banks and Government, employing the most useless cunts society can spawn.
“…some American who having run out of beer made his own by mixing petrol with milk.”
And they say men are no use in the kitchen…
True, very true.
I had an argument about crash helmets for motor-cyclists with a family member when the law enforcing them came in.
He insisted that they were dangerous, and he would never wear one.
He knew this man see, who wore a helmet, and when he came off the bike at 70 mph, his head hit the road and the chinstrap snapped his head off. It was found 100 yards away, in the helmet.
Well, of course, he would have been fine without it . . . .
Tragically, my relative’s grandson died in a road accident, but it didn’t involve a motor-bike.
Between Beverley and the Humber Bridge is a stretch of relatively new road locally known as the Skidby Bypass. This is a two lane, single carraigeway road, but it is wide enough for three cars. Now we all know the frustration of being behind drivers who think that the appropriate speed for a straight sixty zone road is forty five, but we still try to have the patience to wait for a gap in the oncoming traffic before executing an overtake.
Of course the problem here is that if you are an arrogant inconsiderate bell end, this three cars wide road means that you can just charge up the middle of the road hoping that other drivers will move over and get out of your way.
Eventually of course, the inevitable happened, two arrogant inconsiderate bell ends were heading in opposite directions leading to a fatal head on crash. And of course the authority’s ensured that this will never happen again by posting a fifty miles per hour speed limit.
*Perhaps my favourite was some American who having run out of beer made his own by mixing petrol with milk. This vile beverage resulted in almost immediate vomiting which he did into the fireplace with the fire still burning…
It wasn’t as bad as it looked at first. I didn’t have to shave again for weeks.
Even worse, the death of stupid people in stupid accidents is not a problem. It is not a bug, it is a feature.
Evolution in Action! Cleanse your end of the gene pool!
More respect due to William Huskisson, who was after all, a great supporter of free trade!
” Even worse, the death of stupid people in stupid accidents is not a problem. It is not a bug, it is a feature.”
The ever greater entrenchment of the state in every aspect of life is also a feature not a bug. It is what these people want. The dismantlement of civil society didn’t happen by accident.
Precisely Jay.
This post was somewhat inspisred by speed limits in Cheshire which tend to fluctuate for no aparent reason wildly. It’s actually dangerous because you have to be watching the speedo and not the conditions or traffic all the time. Will this lead to more accidents? Yes. But therein lies the beauty of The Plan. That means more traffic calming, more rules, more, more more! Feed Me! Feed Me! as Audrey the plant said.
The first casualty was the Corsa’s front offside shock. Traffic calming. The mechanic sucked his teeth and said he was getting loads in since they but in the speed bumps.
I’m actually firmly of the belief that almost everything done for our safety decreases it because it removes indvidual judgement and replaces it with box-ticking.
Liam,
I used to temp for HMRC (as now is). Utter chaos. I was reduced to re-programming the big photocopier to operate in Turkish to alleviate the boredom. Oddly enough I was on a table with a lad doing a Comp Sci Masters who had previously been working safety on the London Underground. He’d had enough of dealing with the aftermath of suicides. One particular station was especially bad. It was directly outside a mental hospital. Oh and if you’re getting big-bucks for not a lot from the government… I’d rather it be in your pocket than theirs.
This stinks of ‘job justification’ to me. People who have nothing else to do decide that there is a problem and that something must be done in order to look busy and hopefully avoid losing their job.
LFAT,
You have a point but I think it’s deeper than that. It’s this desperate need our society has to eternally pass the buck. Las time I was in the Co-op I noticed they were selling “ethical water” and the impression the display gave was that you buy that and you save Africa entire because every bottle you buy helps dig a well. Therein lies the rub. You and me take clean water for granted. Africans by and large don’t. This in a sense is due to a lack of plumbing but in a deeper sense it’s due to the lack of a whole lot more.
The whole “don’t do that” thing exists because organisations (and especially the guv’mint) have so little idea what to do with the real issues that they can spend time running round “doing things” on a trivial level. Or, in this case, a trivial level-crossing.
Once you are seen to be doing things it masks the reality that the things you are doing are either small events or utterly inconsequential, but busy-busy-busy means they don’t have to look at the real things that matter.
Minister on arriving home: “What a day I’ve had! The reminders we had to put out today! Seat belts fastened… using the soft side of the toothbrush to clean your teeth… It’s been all go!”
Minister’s partner: “So… National debt and crazy spending, militant religious fanatics, stifling business petty regulations all taken care of?”
Minister: “I wish! If only I had the time!”
The problem is that we are now swimming around in a sea of state schooled, drone like stupidity.
I think more of the fricking idiots should drive in front of trains and keep their stupid genes out of the gene pool.
Makes you understand why the theory of Eugenics was developed really.
Ever read “The Marching Morons”?
Humanity debilitated by inbreeding.
The government didn’t care about road accidents.
Can’t remember who wrote it though.
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You think it is bad in the UK you should see what the French get up to. I live here so I should know. They all drive on the wrong side of the road for a start, I have got used to that now so I copy them. Their motorway slip roads are like the the North Circular, no straight on and off so you are dizzy when you eventually get on or off. Roundabouts frequently have traffic lights as well and of course they have the priority to the right, yea don’t even think about it. At pedestrian crossings the law is the same as that in Britain except the real law is survival of the fittest. On my infrequent return visits to Britain I have been given some very sharp looks by pedestrians as I weave between them at zebra crossings at speed; in France there is no conformity of colour or appearance. Speed limit signs are virtually non existent I think you have to tell by the colour of the surrounding terrain. The Gendarmes know the speed limits but don’t advertise the fact because it might bugger up their on the spot speed fine targets. Indicating to go right or left going round a bend is quite common, abruptly come to a halt in a stream of traffic to let someone in or out is normal. Funnily enough the French do not have a clue about road rage they haven’t cotton on to that yet but I am showing them the way. At traffic lights, if you are British do not cross unless you learn to understand that a green man does not mean that the lights for the traffic is at red because it does not, it means you can cross but a vehicle turning right or left may be heading straight for you and because he is turning he can not see you and you can not see him until the last heart stopping moment. I could go on, but enough to say the French are better at lane disciple on motorways than we are, still there is bugger all on their roads but they have four times more accidents than we do.
It wasn’t a daft sod who was the first rail fatality: it was William Huskison, a great free trader that helped this country become a great nation to be plundered by socialists a century later.
It was an genuine accident: he jumped out of the way of the slow-moving engine by hanging on to the side of the carriage. The door came unlatched and he swung out in the path of the train, was knocked off, had his leg mangled, and bled out.
Antishenes,
You should try Maltese roads. They are mentalists. My wife and I hired a Matiz or something equally chronic. We ought to have gone for the Tiger tank. Complete nutcases driving like speed is going out of fashion on roads pot-holed to complete buggeration and jousting with buses from the 1940s driven by blokes who think they are Sailor Malan. It was fun though.
It is not quite “something must be done”, but “*I* want something done so all of you must both suffer it and pay for it”
If people want something done, ask us and if we agree, we will pay towards it and if we want it to happen to us we will consent.
Otherwise…cough.
“Now it could be argued that railways were new then but should it not be obvious that several tons of metal moving at a reasonable lick is dangerous and should be avoided?”
Actually railways were about three hundred years old by then, albeit they were horse drawn in the main. Nevertheless rail fatalities were an ever present threat due to the fact that a loaded wagon (usually running downhill) still contained sufficient mass and momentum to kill anyone who strayed into its path.
The parish records around Newcastle have plenty of such records and even Leeds lads should know about the Middleton Railway.
Forget Stevensons bleedin Rocket, the first steam locomotive ran on 21st of Febuary 1804 from the Penydarren Steelworks near merthyr Tydvil, in South Wales, and the first passenger service ran between Swansea and the Mumbles in the Gower.
Just saying is all.