Re: New Electrical Regulations

[IMM]

Or allow people proper access to land and build bungalows.

[RichardS]

Aaaaaaagh.

I think I now understand why people take hard drugs to escape from reality.....

-- Richard Sampson

email me at richard at olifant d-ot co do-t uk

[Martin Angove]

16 years of driving. The drivers I have most problems with are not those who obey traffic rules, it is those who don't, and in my personal experience, someone who passes me at 20mph over the speed limit is quite likely to get in the wrong lane at the next roundabout and exit the darned thing without signalling (just an example, but you get the idea).

Now you're being facetious :-)

No. The 40 signs are at the beginning of a straight 1/2 mile or so of wide single carriageway, a little way from the hidden dip part. Half way down it there is a light-controlled cross-roads. Houses down one side, couple of petrol stations on the other.

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. There is *no* safe place to cross this road. Eastwards is the 60mph section and so very few people walk along that stretch that it'd be silly to try there. Westwards lie the lights. The lights, as I said, are timed to ensure an almost continuous flow of traffic along the main road - this is a *very* busy road during the day. There are no pedestrian crossings *at all*, and certainly not a red/green man sequence to the lights. There is one island, on the Western side of the lights, but it doesn't really make things much easier, being almost directly outside one of the petrol stations. Getting to it also means we would have to cross a second (though less busy) road.

As it happens, we believe the safest place to cross is almost directly outside our house - about equidistant between the 40mph signs and the lights.

If they were not ignoring the limit they would not be speeding. I inserted "most" to cover the few occasions where a genuine mistake is made.

There isn't a bloomin' crossing, and the crossing isn't relevant anyway to the paragraph to which you are replying.

Ok, I understand what you are saying about people who drive too close. I really meant something slightly different but...

[snip. can't be bothered]

Fair comment :-)

If you only knew :-)

Hwyl!

M.

[Frisket]

Ah-Ha! Now we have a solution. Leave the building / electrical regs alone and ban people from living in houses. This, along with a proposed ban on all motor vehicles, tobacco products and alcohol, fat in food, meat, carbohydrates, and water (both drinking and bathing) will result in us all living forever and never having an illness or accident - Marvellous!

Richard.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Mostly, they come from the Regulatory Impact Assessment. However, they are missing accidental deaths in the home due to non-electrical fires, which I added in as it's quite significant compared with the other figures. I found those on one of the government websites (Home Office IIRC). If there are other causes of accidental deaths in the home which neither the RIA or I have not thought of, they are missing too.

See my original response to the consultation:

[Andrew McKay]

I found some figures relating to electricity in the home on the ROSPA web site:

"During 2000, there were a total of 44 deaths involving electric current in the UK".

And from their facts and figures page:

"Every year there are approximately 4000 deaths as a result of a home accident".

Says it all really. The government are aiming big by trying to solve

1% of the problem, with legislation that won't reduce deaths at all.

I imagine the figures relating to injury and death from ladders would be far higher than those involving electricity.

Andrew

Do you need a handyman service? Check out our web site at

[Andrew McKay]

He's old enough to go in a pub?

Andrew

Do you need a handyman service? Check out our web site at

[John Laird]

It's a fair bet that a good proportion of those will be abraded or loose flexes, kids poking metal objects into sockets, complete morons working on live appliances, in short, nothing to do with bodged installations. (More likely to cause fires I would have thought.)

I fear for this country, I really do.

[Mary Fisher]

Absolutely.

I've been driving far longer than sixteen years but my experience has been exactly the same.

Anyone can drive fast. It takes a responsible person to drive safely.

Mary .

[geoff]

No they don't

[Andrew McKay]

I agree in principle with what you say. However driving slowly does not equate with driving safely.

On a motorway for example, what is the safest speed to be driving at?

70mph? 50mph? Neither - it's the speed of the rest of the traffic. If you aren't going at the same speed as the rest of the traffic then you are either (a) going too fast or (b) going too slow. And slow drivers relative to the rest of the traffic on a motorway are a PITA.

Andrew

Do you need a handyman service? Check out our web site at

[geoff]

That's a rather stupid reply

[geoff]

In message , Martin Angove writes

Sounds Welsh to me - and last time I looked, Wales was still in the UK

[geoff]

In message , RichardS writes

Reality?

[IMM]

Yes all those steps.

[IMM]

It is the truth. Get real!!!! On crime/juvenile delinquency. It is blamed on not having a stable home base as the parents are out at work. Only 7% of households have the mother at home all day. Ever thought why? The parents are out trying to pay a hefty mortgage because the land amount to 2/3 of the valve of the tiny roof over their heads. There are amazing detrimental knock on effects of creating an artificial land shortage. Why don't you ever think. Lateral thinking has passed most of the population by.

[derek]

A mere bagatelle.

Firstly I don't break speed limits (within the limits of measurement), the mileage I do I couldn't afford to pick up the points, Licence still blemish free, and I don't make any excuses for those who do. I currently drive 22,000 miles per year (440 miles today) and have been driving since 1967, odd years it has been up to 40K.

IME people intentionally driving 20 mph over the limit are simply likely to continue doing just that. It's what they do and they have a whole range of reason . People in the wrong lane / not indicating /hesitating/puzzling over their task come into a different category called "Incompetants", they are incapable of doing any better, I've seen about 40 instances today. Most of them seem to adopt abnormal postures sitting at the wheel sitting bolt upright gripping the wheel, white knuckled, hanging on for dear life, and have facial features that would be taken as indicating "Low grade intelligence" (Think Mr Bean) elsewhere. A great many simply don't know where they are, or where they are going (seriously).

For the PC brigade these terms were taken directly from my Uni. course in Psychology.

Do you also laugh at your own jokes?

No, they aren't racing. There is a definition of racing. They might well chose to drive fast, you might not like it, it might be over the limit, but it's not racing, which is a different offence.

That is very unusual, but by no means impossible. On the Leeds ring road near Elland Road, on "Football" days ring road traffic gets a single green phase lasting *4 seconds* every 2nd iteration and there

4 car phases and an all stop pedestrian phase every iteration. Football traffic seems to get a couple of minutes of green phase.

Have it changed.

Indeed, they would not.

But you said "Blithely" now justify it.

All in all, rather too much detail for a usenet post methinks.

I see you do too. :-)

And, in all honestly I think you should campaign to have the speed limit over the whole lot reduced to 30 mph, on account of the hidden dips USW ... And a pedestrian crossing of some sort created somewhere where it would be safe(st). We have campaigned for, & got a Pelicon crossing, a school crossing warden, and 2 speed cameras (for this financial year).

Bear in mind tho that the local police said that when they put a mobile camera on the A643 outside the school entrance all the speeders they caught were locals. :-)) What was it Preacher mend thyself?

DG

[Christian McArdle]

The fact that cable colours are changing. It's goodbye to red and black, hello to brown and blue.

Christian.

[IMM]

The highway code is a "guide". If there are no other vehicles, and you takes the shortest route across the roundabout (not over), like doing a chicane, and not indicated, then you have not broken any law, as you are not reckless and driving dangerously. Do it when there are cars all over the place and you have broken a law.

[stuart noble]

What, you mean I don't have right of way just because I'm approaching the roundabout faster than you?