[OT] Risk adverseness and fear of heights

[Tim Watts]

Totally OT, but with lots of older folk here who may play on ladders, I am interested in some observations:

I have never had a significant fear of heights - used to run up a ladder on our 2 storey house when I was 14 quite happily.

Yesterday I drove our kids to the Isle of Sheppey (N Kent) for some fossil hunting. I saw this coming up in the distance:

[Sheppey Crossing]

and thought "Oh Christ, do I have to drive up on that!"

Call me a woofter by all means, but I have never experienced reticence at big high bridges before. The QEII bridge (Dartford) does not bother me. Nor the Severn Crossing(s). Maybe it's the fact the Sheppey Crossing looks like God's Own Scalextric kit.

I did it and it was not too bad thanks to the side barriers being solid, but there was a little bit inside me that went "wibble".

I've also noticed I'm a lot less gung-ho about almost everything - checking and double checking everything where the outcome of failure could be bad(TM).

Age? Or conditioning?

[Andrew Mawson]

When I was 17 I had a holiday job helping a handyman at a haberdashers shop in the Fulham / Chelsea borders. One day we had to re-glaze a 4th story window pane, and I was quite happy to sit on the wide window ledge with the window shut, putting in the putty - no ladders, no scaffolding, no safety harness. Time went by - got my first house, happy up ladders and doing gutters etc. THEN - first child is born and all of a sudden I find my self not at all happy taking the 'risks' any more. Not a conscious thing, just found myself going wobbly when I tried. So has nature and Darwinism put something in the DNA to stop you taking risks as your responsibilities increase? An intriguing thought :)

Andrew

[Tim Watts]

That's a very interesting observation...

[Adrian]

Or a memory of...

?

[Andy Burns]

I not so keen on "edges" though, doesn't matter if it's stepping round the corner from the garage onto the porch (both single story flat roofs) to clean out the guttering, or hundreds of feet of cliff.

A few years back I installed TV/FM/DAB aerials on the chimney using one of those roof ladder conversion hooks, which took me half a dozen excursions up/down to do the job, the transition from the upright ladder onto the roof ladder (and more especially the reverse) was a *very* slow and deliberate process.

It'd make me a little nervous, but it would have a decade ago too.

That makes me a little nervous too, then again I have driven over this, which is the same height as the QEII bridge, but considerably "humpier"

it's just a matter of reminding yourself 000's of people do it without coming to any harm ...

Much as we'd like to think the conditioning comes with age, I think there's an element of knowing the reaper is out there somewhere and wanting to keep plenty of distance from him!

[Jethro_uk]

When I worked in London, in the 80s, I'd walk along Baker Street. The window cleaners would happily stand on 5th floor ledges with one arm inside the window frame, and the other cleaning away. Again, no harness, no scaffolding.

I really couldn't look ....

[Davey]

There was an instance at a jobsite in Mexico City where I was working, where a scissor lift was installed next to a building, and extended fully; an extending ladder was then wired to the platform rails of the lift so that the higher parts of the building wall could be reached. The building itself was on stilts, above a plant roadway, so was higher than normal. There was nothing to which a harness could be attached for anyone up the ladder.

[Bob Eager]

Perhaps your subconscious was remembering this, and the fact that people were stuck on it for hours:

[S Viemeister]

I never had a problem with flying - until I had children.

[John Rumm]

In a sense its not that far OT - DIY is inherently risky some of the time...

I think its partly a visual "trick". The fact that there is no superstructure above the roadway makes it look very "open" - creating the impression that there are no edges and it would be easy to fall off.

The QEII by comparison has lots of visual stuff above the roadway.

I remember watching them build that as I went past it each week. Some of the piers when standing in isolation before the road was added, looked ridiculously tall in isolation, and I remember thinking that working on the top of one of those would not have been for those of a nervous disposition!

(can't find many images of it under construction interestingly...

makes you wonder what it would be like walking up to the "open" end ;-)

Bit of both probably - also Andrew's comment above about having dependants also probably plays a part...

[Jeremy Nicoll - news posts]

IIRC the Tay Bridge bans double-decker buses, because anyone on the top deck is terrified by the view.

One of the advantages with the Forth bridge's design is that the pedestrian walkways are quite a lot further out than the roadway, so although you can glimpse sea through the gap between roadway and walkway, anyone in a car mainly finds themselves looking out at a pretty flat angle.

I recall being frightened on the Brenner Pass bridge(s) and also in fact (viewing the surroundings from a tour coach) all the approach roads which were cantilevered out from the sides of the hills. If you were driving on the 'inside' edge it was ok as you could see hill close-to, but on the other side you felt completely unsupported.

On such roads you can feel that the driver only has to twitch the wheel a tiny amount and the vehicle will hurtle over the edge. But that risk exists on many roads without being quite so frightening.

[Tim Watts]

Ow! That's just nasty...

I can forms the conclusion thinking about it this morning that the problem with that and the Sheppey crossing is not the height.

It's the flatness. Well, being on top of the entire structure with no higher points of reference. The QEII bridge is suspension so you are mostly "under" something even if it is a bunch of wires.

I would not go up on my dormer flat roof with the roofer. However, I'm quite happy on top of flat roofs in London, eg work - because they all have a waist high wall around the edge.

Maybe... teenagers are indestructible. I have straightened out my diet and long since given up smoking as my grandpa was reaped young (60's) by a stroke that was almost certainly related to smoking and not outstanding fitness. My mother had a stroke in her 50s - ditto poor fitness and lots of smoking. That scares me more than outright death as being "useless" in my eyes would be a fate worst than death - especially as my family depend on me getting lots of stuff done that they cannot do.

[Tim Watts]

Perhaps. The approach road was closed for hours later in the day (we were coming back) due to someone rolling their car into a field requiring umpteen police, fire engine and a helicopter.

I notice that recent stories about the bridge collision says that dozens of drivers are being offered education sessions at the risk of being prosecuted if they decline.

[Tim Streater]

I think the difficulty with that is that you can't see the end of it, unlike most bridges that are generally flat(ish). Even with the QE2 bridge, it's straight and although there's a summit, the towers help give an idea of what the profile is. With the Sheppey bridge, it looks like you can't even see the top as you drive over.

Thass where there was a major pileup recently in fog.

[Johny B Good]

Yeah, they _can_ be a pain on long haul flights.

[S Viemeister]

:) _Other people's_ kids can sometimes be a pain...

[harryagain]

You wouldn't like this much then?

[harryagain]

Fellow here doesn't seem to worry.

[harryagain]

Another good bridge here.

[harryagain]

Another good bridge here.