SM42 Posted March 8, 2019 Share Posted March 8, 2019 On 02/03/2019 at 07:25, rockershovel said: Regarding comparisons with driving in Europe, it’s true; being the most densely populated country in Europe by a considerable margin, does no good at all for driving standards... Belgium and the Netherlands have us beat on that. Regardless, proper use of the road space available makes a big difference. Banning lorries overtaking on some stretches of two lane motorways also helps as does a sensible approach to roadworks. Why use 5 miles of cones when 400yds is enough? Problem is you can't trust the British motorist to be sensible nowadays. Mind you, the mini digger in the outside lane of the A2 near Poznan (whilst digging a hole in the central reservation in connection with works of the other carriageway) with just six cones around it was taking it a bit too far. Almost as bizarre as the white lining machine being driven down the centre of 2 lane road, painting lines, with all lanes open which I came across a couple of years back They do have a very different attitude out there,. Maybe the UK isn't that bad after all. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockershovel Posted March 9, 2019 Share Posted March 9, 2019 On 06/03/2019 at 08:40, Coryton said: I think it depends how it's done - when you fund anything directly from fines there is the risk (or perceived risk which is also bad) that decisions on when to fine are based on revenue generation, leading to unfair fines and concentrating on easy sources of money rather than on deterrence. But if money is raised for fines and the police get more money for traffic patrols without the income to a particular force being directly linked to money raised by them from fines I think that objection becomes weaker. Some police forces don’t help themselves in this respect. The North Wales Traffic Taliban, crowing about the success of their Gatso regime and the additional resources funded from the revenue, for example; if they’d said “our traffic fines pay for two extra officers on the beat” that might well be a winner, but “two cameras raise so much money, we now have four” was never going to convince anyone else they were getting value. Nottinghamshire was infamous for this sort of thing, as was Northants to a lesser extent. The routes through Hull past the Smith and Nephew factory and past the docks and prison, were a pretty obvious example of police (and their contractors) gaming the system to maximise revenue, at one time. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockershovel Posted March 9, 2019 Share Posted March 9, 2019 (edited) One of the things you quickly learn in Europe, is how casual their attitude to HSE can be. I think it arises from the Roman law used in much of Europe (and Scotland) in which there is the possible verdict of “Not Proven”, ie the case is simply suspended or discontinued. Our Saxon law tends to mean that cases are fought to SOME sort of conclusion, however contentious or tangential it might be; they can turn on very specific phrases or interpretations, and have a distinct tendency to leave one side or the other with the (usually) impossible task of “proving a negative”. Mind you, the forms of contract used over here don’t help in the slightest, because they tend to produce elaborate contractual and commercial posturing about where is, and isn’t available for work, and what it means in programme terms. The problems with gaining access, allied to the constant logistic and availability problems caused by subcontracting virtually every activity, tend to mean that having long sections of the site nominally open (although very little actual activity is taking place) is an attractive thing to do, or at least tends to arise from the logic of the situation. Edited March 9, 2019 by rockershovel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejstubbs Posted March 9, 2019 Share Posted March 9, 2019 (edited) 1 hour ago, rockershovel said: One of the things you quickly learn in Europe, is how casual their attitude to HSE can be. I think it arises from the Roman law used in much of Europe (and Scotland) in which there is the possible verdict of “Not Proven”, ie the case is simply suspended or discontinued. Our Saxon law tends to mean that cases are fought to SOME sort of conclusion, however contentious or tangential it might be; they can turn on very specific phrases or interpretations, and have a distinct tendency to leave one side or the other with the (usually) impossible task of “proving a negative”. AFAIK "Not Proven" is only available to juries in Scotland. I'm not aware of it being used on the Continent (although Wiki says that one of the six different ways that a defendant may be acquitted in Italy may be argued to be a bit like "not proven"). There have been and still are repeated calls for "not proven" to be removed from Scots Law eg in this recent case. The main, very significant, difference between UK legal systems and those on the Continent is many/most continental countries use one or another variant of the inquisitorial system, whereby serious cases are investigated by a judge - including questioning witnesses and interrogating suspects - before the case goes to trial. The main upshot of this is that weak or doubtful cases tend not to reach the trial stage, in particular because the defence - being engaged to some degree during the investigatory process (as is the prosecution) - has more opportunity to cast doubt on the case against the defendant(s), including pointing out errors of procedure, before the thing gets to the stage of being argued out in front of a jury. That could be why it seems that more cases are abandoned or left unresolved in such systems. Edited March 9, 2019 by ejstubbs 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hobby Posted March 9, 2019 Share Posted March 9, 2019 (edited) 22 hours ago, SM42 said: Belgium and the Netherlands have us beat on that. Ever driven on the motorways in Belgium? B****y nutters the lot of 'em. They make driving on our motorways a walk in the park! Dutch roads are remarkably quiet, I don't know where they all are if the place is that crowded, but they certainly aren't on the motorways between Belgium and Germany! And the place is soooo clean!! Edited March 9, 2019 by Hobby 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hobby Posted March 9, 2019 Share Posted March 9, 2019 (edited) Oh, and if England is separated from the rest of the UK it is seems that it is more densely populated than Belgium and The Netherlands so RS is technically correct. 407 vs 394 and 344 per sq km. (Google search) (427 from this source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/281322/population-density-in-the-united-kingdom-uk-by-country/ ) Edited March 9, 2019 by Hobby 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnlambert Posted March 9, 2019 Share Posted March 9, 2019 A trip into Leamington this afternoon proved that driving standards are sitll as high as ever. Drivers who don't know the rules around using a box junction, drivers mounting the pavement to pass cars on the nearside and access a left turn, poor parkking and general impatience. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Reorte Posted March 10, 2019 RMweb Premium Share Posted March 10, 2019 On 08/03/2019 at 11:53, ejstubbs said: It's a bit like the "I didn't mean to" plea*. I can accept that whatever-it-was wasn't done deliberately, but the point very often is that the perpetrator didn't mean not to i.e. they didn't take care to try to ensure that it didn't happen. This is pretty much why H&S regulations require risk assessments: "I didn't mean for my employee to get crushed under the cement lorry" doesn't absolve you of responsibility if the risk that people could get run over by large vehicles moving around the building site was reasonably foreseeable and you didn't take reasonable measures to mitigate it. In law (and not just H&S law), absence of intentionality does not automatically mean absence of culpability. And of course that they didn't mean to shouldn't absolve them of responsibility, but it's still rather different than if they did mean to. So firstly you've got to work out whether there was any intention, and if not, just how unreasonably careless was the person being (I'd also throw in a difference between being fundamentally well-intentioned but careless and simply not giving a damn). 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Nick C Posted March 11, 2019 RMweb Gold Share Posted March 11, 2019 On 08/03/2019 at 22:36, SM42 said: Mind you, the mini digger in the outside lane of the A2 near Poznan (whilst digging a hole in the central reservation in connection with works of the other carriageway) with just six cones around it was taking it a bit too far. Almost as bizarre as the white lining machine being driven down the centre of 2 lane road, painting lines, with all lanes open which I came across a couple of years back They do have a very different attitude out there,. I remember driving through Bulgaria a decade or so back and coming across a a JCB in a 4' deep hole in the middle of the outside lane - protected, similarly, with half a dozen cones... 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SM42 Posted March 11, 2019 Share Posted March 11, 2019 On 09/03/2019 at 20:46, Hobby said: Ever driven on the motorways in Belgium? B****y nutters the lot of 'em. They make driving on our motorways a walk in the park! Dutch roads are remarkably quiet, I don't know where they all are if the place is that crowded, but they certainly aren't on the motorways between Belgium and Germany! And the place is soooo clean!! Yep regularly. The clue is when the chap at the petrol station in Eindhoven tells you it's only 2 hours to Calais. He knows what Belgium is like. You always know when you cross the border into Belgium by the great woop de woop in the road and the tenfold increase in tyre noise The Dutch? Probably on a bicycle. Last time I visited northern Holland, it was quicker to walk to the next village (15 minutes), by road it took 20 because you had to find a bridge or 4 . Andy (still hyper from the daily commute) 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shortliner Posted March 12, 2019 Share Posted March 12, 2019 WOOP-de- DOO! I've just seen a retro-fitted Beemer - It has after-market INDICATORS, and the driver has discovered how to use them! 6 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Joseph_Pestell Posted March 12, 2019 RMweb Gold Share Posted March 12, 2019 2 minutes ago, shortliner said: WOOP-de- DOO! I've just seen a retro-fitted Beemer - It has after-market INDICATORS, and the driver has discovered how to use them! I've just seen one of those in Salisbury. The indicator was working OK but the driver went straight ahead. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium TheQ Posted March 21, 2019 RMweb Premium Share Posted March 21, 2019 500 new cars were unloaded at Great Yarmouth and taken to a car park.... on public roads No tax No insurance, No registration plates ETC ETC https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/crime/great-yarmouth-resident-concerned-over-unregistered-cars-on-public-road-1-5949057 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Mallard60022 Posted March 21, 2019 RMweb Premium Share Posted March 21, 2019 Morning. Sure it has been discussed to death (apologies) on here, but I am just so amazed at what I have seen the last few days I can't stop myself. Being rather nice weather in 36E and needing the exercise the last couple of days, I have been walking locally to try to increase the mobility of my dicky hip. To make it less boring I decided I would look and see who wasn't driving with due care and attention in some way. Honestly, every other driver I saw appeared to be either looking at or holding a phone to their ear or just in their hand and a considerable number actually not looking at the road ahead or around whilst (presumably) texting or similar. OK so it was in 'local', fairly slow moving traffic' mostly but not always, but...…... Then there was the cars that appeared to have no driver as the seat was almost horizontal or the person was so small I couldn't see them at the wheel which would be comical if it wasn't bizarre. I went out several times just in case the first time was some sort of time warp; nope, same sort of situation every time. Interestingly it wasn't old people. Bl##dy frightening. If this post should be linked to a previous set of moans please tell me and I'll look up from this laptop and concentrate on the road, find a parking place so tha I can concentrate and then replace the post appropriately. Ar$£ 1 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hobby Posted March 21, 2019 Share Posted March 21, 2019 They were all wearing seatbelts then?! 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Mallard60022 Posted March 21, 2019 RMweb Premium Share Posted March 21, 2019 1 minute ago, Hobby said: They were all wearing seatbelts then?! Blimey, I hadn't even noticed that...……...didn't even think to look for that. P 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold chris p bacon Posted March 21, 2019 RMweb Gold Share Posted March 21, 2019 I had a bit of an eye opener last weekend. I needed a new power supply to a site which meant a road crossing. The application has been running for some months and a date was given by UKPN for the works to start and finish. The works entailed traffic lights as they dug the road one half at a time. A week before this date the local authority (CBC) decided the mothers causing chaos delivering their little Cherubs to the local school took precedent, and the works had to be either over a weekend or in half term. UKPN then moved the works to a weekend (all the time my timetable drags along at the whim of others), The weekend of works started and while there I noted just how much abuse the men were taking from passing motorists. On the first day I counted 20 + drivers with windows open shouting W*****s/C***s/ B******s etc at the men because they'd been held for no more than 90 seconds (the light timings) I asked if this was usual and the men said "Everyday, 20 times a day" It was amusing once when a most vocal driver shouted the worst of obscenties then realised the car in front was accessing a driveway and stopping his travels, and his window was adjacent to the Grab lorry driver who asked if he could repeat and spell what he'd said. We reckon we could smell the contents of his trousers at 20 paces. The men did say one of the frequent things they had was lorry drivers throwing bottles of pee at them as they passed, they would take the reg number and report but never heard of any action being taken. WTF has happened to this world! 1 4 13 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Re6/6 Posted March 21, 2019 RMweb Gold Share Posted March 21, 2019 2 hours ago, Mallard60022 said: Honestly, every other driver I saw appeared to be either looking at or holding a phone to their ear or just in their hand and a considerable number actually not looking at the road ahead or around whilst (presumably) texting or similar. https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/news/motoring-news/shock-statistics-reveal-alarming-rise-in-illegal-mobile-phone-use-behind-th/ Perhaps the consequences of being caught are insufficient. A three year driving ban perhaps...? 1 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Titan Posted March 21, 2019 Share Posted March 21, 2019 (edited) 22 minutes ago, Re6/6 said: https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/news/motoring-news/shock-statistics-reveal-alarming-rise-in-illegal-mobile-phone-use-behind-th/ Perhaps the consequences of being caught are insufficient. A three year driving ban perhaps...? The consequences are irrelevant if you don't get caught. You could have the death penalty and it would hardly make any difference. I expect the rise matches the reduction of police patrols more than the lack of punishment. Edited March 21, 2019 by Titan 11 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium TheQ Posted March 21, 2019 RMweb Premium Share Posted March 21, 2019 5 minutes ago, Titan said: The consequences are irrelevant if you don't get caught. You could have the death penalty and it would hardly make any difference. I expect the rise matches the reduction of police patrols more than the lack of punishment. The age group brought up with mobile phones welded to their ear gets older, then more start. gradually the number of users will increase. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Mallard60022 Posted March 21, 2019 RMweb Premium Share Posted March 21, 2019 1 hour ago, Re6/6 said: https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/news/motoring-news/shock-statistics-reveal-alarming-rise-in-illegal-mobile-phone-use-behind-th/ Perhaps the consequences of being caught are insufficient. A three year driving ban perhaps...? Now that is weird. I sometimes fall asleep with my radio earplugs still in place and have found I have been listening to stuff during the night but thinking it was parts of dreams; usually World Service or late/early news and similar. I wonder now if I had a subliminal (is that the word?) input about this, if it is recent, during one of these sessions and that made me think I should be watching for bad driving sometime after? Phil 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium kevinlms Posted March 22, 2019 RMweb Premium Share Posted March 22, 2019 18 hours ago, Titan said: The consequences are irrelevant if you don't get caught. You could have the death penalty and it would hardly make any difference. I expect the rise matches the reduction of police patrols more than the lack of punishment. The penalties are quite heavy in Australia, especially Victoria and lots get caught, but doesn't stop them. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium TheQ Posted March 22, 2019 RMweb Premium Share Posted March 22, 2019 All the way from Germany No insurance no licence, duff Brakes and six knackered tyres.. https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/crime/norfolk-suffolk-roads-policing-a11-stop-defective-tyres-1-5952506 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hobby Posted March 22, 2019 Share Posted March 22, 2019 (edited) Didn't realise minibuses had to have tachographs... Edited March 22, 2019 by Hobby 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejstubbs Posted March 22, 2019 Share Posted March 22, 2019 19 hours ago, Titan said: I expect the rise matches the reduction of police patrols more than the lack of punishment. And yet actually paying for effective policing seems to be a contentious subject: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-47625966 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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