WCRC - the ongoing battle with ORR.

[cctransuk]

1 minute ago, Jonboy said:

We are currently having almost all residential areas changed to 20mph round here in Oxfordshire.

 

As a cyclist who averages 16-18mph it is awful, instead of motorists making a clean overtake they hang on your back wheel for a lot longer than they used as the approaching traffic takes longer to reach and pass presenting a gap the motorists feel is appropriate.
If they do get past you then catch up with them at the next parked car, traffic light, traffic calming measure etc and if you choose to pass them the whole charade starts again….

 

At some point increasing the  amount of time card and bikes are in close proximity and number of overtake attempts must have an impact in accident numbers and I doubt it’s going to be in the correct direction in the longer term.

 

Yet another example of the nanny-state / H&S culture putting 2 + 2 together and making 5! When will the penny drop that you can't legislate against stupidity.

 

Is the guy who drives at 50mph through a 30mph zone suddenly going to have a fit of remorse because the signs change to 20mph? Like h*ll he is!

 

..... and we all know that personal property crimes are ignored by the police because they're losing the battle against drugs - so who is going to pull you over for driving at 25mph in a 20mph zone?

 

It's all part of the 'gesture politics' trend - make a big fuss about your latest road safety initiative, then forget about the fact that it makes not a blind bit of difference!

 

Nothing changes! (.... and I know, being a veteran of more 'traffic calming schemes' than I care to remember.

 

CJI.

[SZ]

5 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

The UK courts and legal profession have decreed that there is no such thing as 'common sense' in UK law.

 

Are you sure? The concept of the 'reasonable man' appears frequently in UK law, isn't that just another term for common sense?

[woodenhead]

Another topic into the Ignore bin.

 

If we're just going to rant at each other what's the point.

[johnofwessex]

It was pointed out in a book I read on crime that - in the UK Police Officers have a very low 'in work' death rate - about the same as van drivers.  However serving and retired officers have a higher suicide rate than average.

 

Clearly avoidable and inevitably gory deaths have an impact on those who have to deal with them.

[phil-b259]

17 minutes ago, SZ said:

 

Are you sure? The concept of the 'reasonable man' appears frequently in UK law, isn't that just another term for common sense?

Yes

 

What you are describing is slightly different - and in legal terms that’s important because legal people only deal in absolutes.

 

It’s also sometimes known as the ‘duck test’ in law - i.e. if it looks like a duck, acts like a duck and quacks like a duck then a reasonable man is justified to assume that the item in question is indeed  ‘a duck’

 

The key point about this test is it’s based on reasoning and in particular what a person will perceive when they have the relevant information to had to make that reasoning.

 

However the problem with many risks is they are NOT perceivable in the same way. For example  - a layperson is not going to go round equipped with a copy of Network Rails Hazard directory (which lists areas of limited clearance) not are they going to be in possession of accurate information of where other trains or lineside furniture  like signal posts are with respect to themselves / their train. These are the sorts of information a person would need before they are in a position to make a reasoned decision whether or not to stick their head out of a train window and apply the ‘duck test’ to their situation.

 

This inability to make a reasoned judgement because a person doesn’t have the necessary information or the ability to interpret that information is why there is a legal obligation for organisations to actively identify risks and mitigate them - rather than simply putting the focus on a person to work things out for themselves.

 

 

Edited September 6, 2023 by phil-b259

[frobisher]

29 minutes ago, SZ said:

 

Are you sure? The concept of the 'reasonable man' appears frequently in UK law, isn't that just another term for common sense?

 

A "reasonable man" may not have "common sense" but just think they do.

 

[EDIT] A few seconds more thought...

 

A "reasonable man" will follow most instructions provided, if they had "common sense" they'd have made many of those calls without needing the supplied instructions.

Edited September 6, 2023 by frobisher

[cctransuk]

14 minutes ago, frobisher said:

 

A "reasonable man" may not have "common sense" but just think they do.

 

[EDIT] A few seconds more thought...

 

A "reasonable man" will follow most instructions provided, if they had "common sense" they'd have made many of those calls without needing the supplied instructions.

 

The bottom line, though, is that if you don't have the resources to enforce; what is the point of any new restrictions?

 

I'm afraid that most of these new restriction announcements are purely political - the proposers merely wish to be SEEN to be acting; the actual outcome is of no importance.

 

Forty years in local government - as an officer, not an elected Member - is my qualification for making this assertion.

 

CJI.

[cctransuk]

54 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

Another topic into the Ignore bin.

 

If we're just going to rant at each other what's the point.

 

No-one is ranting - expressing firmly-held views in a robust manner is debate; on which our democracy is founded.

 

CJI.

[Reorte]

1 hour ago, Neil said:

 

It's fairly obvious that you find rules and regulations distasteful but they exist not for the individual but for the benefit of wider society. It should be that the weakest are protected the most robustly and that's what speed limits do. Pedestrians and cyclists are the most vulnerable to traffic, they don't have air bags, crumple zones or seat belts. The new 20mph limits to be introduced in Wales where I live recognise that traffic moving at this speed poses less danger to these groups than the current 30mph limit. I'm a motorist but I applaud the Welsh government for this initiative. I have grandchildren who live in England and I hope that they will be afforded the same consideration.

Society is made up of individuals.

[john new]

10 minutes ago, cctransuk said:

 

The bottom line, though, is that if you don't have the resources to enforce; what is the point of any new restrictions?

 

I'm afraid that most of these new restriction announcements are purely political - the proposers merely wish to be SEEN to be acting; the actual outcome is of no importance.

 

Forty years in local government - as an officer, not an elected Member - is my qualification for making this assertion.

 

CJI.

The point of new restrictions is realistically not to change the habits of the extreme rule breakers but to influence those who generally always conform and those in the middle who usually do. The other prime factor is if you have banned it and someone does it anyway you have much of your defence in place. Low level example - where I live is urban, despite a low level of parking enforcement, there is a general compliance. Some breaches, yes, but it isn’t a massive problem despite a shortage of legal parking places.

[cctransuk]

44 minutes ago, john new said:

The point of new restrictions is realistically not to change the habits of the extreme rule breakers but to influence those who generally always conform and those in the middle who usually do. The other prime factor is if you have banned it and someone does it anyway you have much of your defence in place. Low level example - where I live is urban, despite a low level of parking enforcement, there is a general compliance. Some breaches, yes, but it isn’t a massive problem despite a shortage of legal parking places.

 

NOT my experience with speed limits - which are the subject of the original post.

 

Huge areas of both urban and rural   environments are now being designated as 20mph zones, regardless as to whether there is an existing speed-related accident record.

 

The political motivation is the visual impact - everyone notices the new signs. Our representatives have been seen to 'do something'; whether anything needed doing is irrelevant!

 

Classic case - a major city, well known to me, has declared a city-wide 20mph zone. Due to traffic congestion, the chances of the majority of motorists being able to achieve 20mph are minimal - so what is the point?

 

Funnily enough, one rarely hears of major reductions in traffic speeds being trumpeted, after these schemes are introduced.

 

Newcastle has just scrapped a major 'Low Traffic Zone' - draw your own conclusions!

 

CJI.

[cctransuk]

1 hour ago, Reorte said:

Society is made up of individuals.

 

I think that, after a 40 year career in local government traffic engineering - with a pioneering specialism in cycling provision - I may claim some knowledge of the motivation of most of our local democracy representatives.

 

I also know what works, and what doesn't, from bitter experience. Without enforcement, and strong publicity of that enforcement, legislation is pointless.

 

EVERY category of road user - and I particularly mention cyclists - will disregard the most sensible of traffic restrictions (eg. red traffic signals) if they can do so with impunity.

 

High-sounding platitudes, such as protecting the most vulnerable citizens, are the bread-and-butter of politicians; but only when there's an election on the horizon!

 

CJI.

[melmoth]

13 minutes ago, cctransuk said:

 

NOT my experience with speed limits - which are the subject of the original post.

 

Huge areas of both urban and rural   environments are now being designated as 20mph zones, regardless as to whether there is an existing speed-related accident record.

 

The political motivation is the visual impact - everyone notices the new signs. Our representatives have been seen to 'do something'; whether anything needed doing is irrelevant!

 

Classic case - a major city, well known to me, has declared a city-wide 20mph zone. Due to traffic congestion, the chances of the majority of motorists being able to achieve 20mph are minimal - so what is the point?

 

Funnily enough, one rarely hears of major reductions in traffic speeds being trumpeted, after these schemes are introduced.

 

Newcastle has just scrapped a major 'Low Traffic Zone' - draw your own conclusions!

 

CJI.

 

I appreciate your far wider experience of these issues than I have, but while saying (as I understand it) that lowering speed limits are perhaps merely a form of gesture politics, what statistical evidence is there regarding the pros and cons of lower speed limits in terms of injuries and fatalities (particularly pedestrians) in areas where they have been applied? That, I think, would be a better measure of effectiveness of such measures than whether or not the responsible authorities have the resources to actively police the measures and prosecute offenders.

[cctransuk]

1 minute ago, melmoth said:

 

I appreciate your far wider experience of these issues than I have, but while saying (as I understand it) that lowering speed limits are perhaps merely a form of gesture politics, what statistical evidence is there regarding the pros and cons of lower speed limits in terms of injuries and fatalities (particularly pedestrians) in areas where they have been applied? That, I think, would be a better measure of effectiveness of such measures than whether or not the responsible authorities have the resources to actively police the measures and prosecute offenders.

 

I entirely agree - the problem is that those who so loudly publicised their enthusiasm for a scheme never, in my experience, come back and tell us how successful, or otherwise, the scheme turned out to be!

 

From this, and more than a little inside knowledge, I draw my own conclusions.

 

The Newcastle example is a VERY RARE, and brave admission of failure. In the vast majority of cases, we are left with the mouldering, vandalised remains of these 'miracle' schemes, which served and serve no earthly purpose.

 

CJI.

[melmoth]

2 hours ago, cctransuk said:

 

I entirely agree - the problem is that those who so loudly publicised their enthusiasm for a scheme never, in my experience, come back and tell us how successful, or otherwise, the scheme turned out to be!

 

From this, and more than a little inside knowledge, I draw my own conclusions.

 

The Newcastle example is a VERY RARE, and brave admission of failure. In the vast majority of cases, we are left with the mouldering, vandalised remains of these 'miracle' schemes, which served and serve no earthly purpose.

 

CJI.

 

Again, I don't have the knowledge to disagree, but to take one quite specific area - is there statistical evidence that shows that a lowering of permitted road speed within a given proximity to a school has reduced either incidents or casualties? And not, obviously, just one school but enough examples to derive an opinion from.

 

Re: Newcastle, is that the abandonment of a speed restriction, or, as it reads to me from what you say, the abandonment of an LTN?

 

Apologies if I've got the wrong end of any particular stick here.

 

[beast66606]

8 hours ago, Reorte said:

Isn't that though because of unusually tight clearances on the Cumbrian Coast line? I'm sure I've read of barred windows on that route since the very early days.

 

Whitehaven tunnel, the clearance was ridiculously tight and the station immediately after / before the tunnel mouth increased the risk of someone opening the window and trying to lean out to open the door,

[roythebus1]

Without having to read through 10 pages of discussion about road traffic matters, what was the outcome of the Jacobite ban? Has it been lifted following fitment of bars to windows? Or was there more to the matter?

 

It's fun watching people at my local steam railway trying to press the button to get the carriage doors to open. They simply aren't used to big brass door handles and stand there pressing the door stop!

[Stoke West]

1 hour ago, beast66606 said:

 

Whitehaven tunnel, the clearance was ridiculously tight and the station immediately after / before the tunnel mouth increased the risk of someone opening the window and trying to lean out to open the door,

Mk1 were permitted to Maryport in passenger service the restriction was beyond to Carlisle 

[Matt37268]

9 minutes ago, roythebus1 said:

Without having to read through 10 pages of discussion about road traffic matters, what was the outcome of the Jacobite ban? Has it been lifted following fitment of bars to windows? Or was there more to the matter?

 

It's fun watching people at my local steam railway trying to press the button to get the carriage doors to open. They simply aren't used to big brass door handles and stand there pressing the door stop!

As ever West Coast were a little economical with the truth, Jimmy Shuttleworth and co were taken to task by the ORR and begrudgingly had to do with what his team said they’d do in the first place.
There was a recruitment drive for extra stewards to get the Jacobite going again on social media. 
The first comment on social media being ‘an ability to spot ORR staff is useful’ 
 

[jjb1970]

9 hours ago, johnofwessex said:

It was pointed out in a book I read on crime that - in the UK Police Officers have a very low 'in work' death rate - about the same as van drivers.  However serving and retired officers have a higher suicide rate than average.

 

Clearly avoidable and inevitably gory deaths have an impact on those who have to deal with them.

 

A reason medical professionals, military people, Police officers etc often have a very dark sense of humour and are able to see humour in awful things is because it is part of their defence mechanism to stay sane. Many years ago I dated an A&E nurse and got to know the A&E crowd very well, I was shocked by some of the jokes at first (and as a merchant seaman I was used to some rather questionable jokes) but the lady I was dating was quite frank in asking what would I expect? Scraping the remains of heads out of crash helmets, calling time of death, amputating arms and legs from RTA victims etc etc would drive them nutty if they weren't able to disengage from it all.

[jjb1970]

9 hours ago, cctransuk said:

 

No-one is ranting - expressing firmly-held views in a robust manner is debate; on which our democracy is founded.

 

CJI.

 

For all I disagree with some of the views being expressed I agree completely that people should be able to put their view forward and discuss things. One of the much bigger issues with our society is that it feels like discussion has ended and we've descended into a form of primitive tribalism where we just shout at each other with an expectation that our views prevail regardless of what anyone else might think.

[phil-b259]

8 hours ago, Ricochet said:

Given that window leaning/looking is effectively banned on mainline steam services, do we think there will be a similar movement to ban it on heritage railways? Can see a ban on heritage railways being much more problematic, difficult to implement, and honestly quite pointless. I hope i never see the day. 

 

That all depends on whether a near miss / injury / death occurs...

 

Put it this way if someone had their head smashed in by a bridge on a Heritage railway the ORR (and more crucially the providers of public liability insurance to said railways) would not sit back and say "ah well its a Heritage Railway"s so it doesn't matter....

 

Thats why the ORR already expect the issue of people putting body parts out of the window addressed in the railways safety management documentation. In many cases its the much higher staffing ratio of Heritage railways (both on trains and stations) allowing timely intervention to tell people to stop doing it that forms the biggest mitigation, but its quite conceivable that if an incident happened then there would be a need for window bars on rolling stock or the relocation of lineside infrastructure / track realignment as further mitigation measures.

 

Take a look at this guidance from 2019 https://www.orr.gov.uk/search-news/safety-first-droplight-windows-heritage-and-charter-trains where the ORR say:-

 

Heritage railways are different – the simple fact that they run at a maximum speed of 25mph makes the windows safer to have in place – but more is needed.

We want to see every heritage railway conduct a thorough risk assessment and then take appropriate and reasonably practicable measures including moving lineside structures such as signal posts away from the track, cutting back vegetation, restricted window opening to allow ventilation only , putting up prominent signs and making announcements over the public address system.

And, in cases where it is clear that passengers’ actions are putting themselves at risk, the railways need to have a sufficient number of stewards in place who are empowered to remove passengers from the train if they won’t obey safety instructions

There are more than 200 heritage railways operating across Great Britain providing great days out for tens of thousands of people and employing thousands of people in a range of jobs. We are determined that they continue to thrive and passengers can enjoy a1950s/1960s experience with 21st Century standards of safety.

 

 

And its worth remembering that ORR inspectors DO make surprise visits to Heritage railways from time to time so enthusiasts can help the cause (of retaining the status quo) by NOT engaging in behaviour like hanging out of windows (regardless of how 'safe' it might be in their eyes) and thus drawing the ORRs attention to things which shouldn't be happening.

Edited September 7, 2023 by phil-b259

[john new]

Was on the Lakeside & Haverthwaite a couple of days ago and a tannoy announcement was for someone to get back inside the coach and not lean out. Didn’t see them but obviously the guard or other L&H staffer/volunteer had.

[Nick C]

15 hours ago, Jonboy said:

We are currently having almost all residential areas changed to 20mph round here in Oxfordshire.

 

As a cyclist who averages 16-18mph it is awful, instead of motorists making a clean overtake they hang on your back wheel for a lot longer than they used as the approaching traffic takes longer to reach and pass presenting a gap the motorists feel is appropriate.
If they do get past you then catch up with them at the next parked car, traffic light, traffic calming measure etc and if you choose to pass them the whole charade starts again….

 

At some point increasing the  amount of time cars and bikes are in close proximity and number of overtake attempts must have an impact in accident numbers and I doubt it’s going to be in the correct direction in the longer term.

Yet another case of making a change without fully thinking through the potential consequences...

[roythebus1]

"putting up prominent signs and making announcements over the public address system."

 

I wonder how many heritage trains have a PA system? On many I suspect it's the guard bellowing at the top of his or her voice! :)