West Somerset Railway General Discussion

There are usually/often consequences for engineers who make such mistakes. In the 1981 Hyatt Regency walkway collapse, the engineering company responsible for not catching the mistake that led to the disaster lost its licenses. Heck, even after the Tay Bridge disaster, way back as 1879, when the profession was far less organized, the engineer responsible, Thomas Bouch, was basically drummed out of the profession.

Yes, unless there is a failure/disaster which highlights that a mistake has been made, an undiscovered mistake is (almost necessarily) less likely to result in consequences for the person who boobed. However, one cannot make such a mistake and expect to get away scot free.

Noel

 

From day one of my apprenticeship, my tutor would mention again and again, "measure twice, cut once". It certainly cut out the basic errors. But always remember, the person that never made a mistake was the person that never did anything. [BJ]

 

As an engineer, and a formal design authority, I can assure you nobody in my business runs processes that do not have the required checks and balances. Follow the process - it's the companies decision. Deviate, and it's your personal decision. Humans make mistakes, but the correct process can almost eliminate them.

 

Absolutely! Have the correct systems that check for errors and remedy them. My complaint is with the notion that punishment will stop people making mistakes.

 

What happened to the steam service? Presumably the three possibilities are that it continued after a bridge inspection; propelled its train back to the previous station; or was rescued by a rescuing loco from BL entering the section and hauling it back. From an operational perspective, it would be interesting to know which.

Tom

 

'09' diesel shunter hooked on the back and returned the train to Bishops Lydeard.

 

The issue I suggest and its right across the road system not just 'commercial' drivers is that the consequences if behaving like a complete idiot are low in most cases which results in poor behaviour becoming the norm.

 

That begs the question of whether the incidents that arise are genuine mistakes, or in fact the outcome of negligent behaviour by person or organisation. When it comes to low bridges, my strong suspicion is that negligent behaviour is the dominant mode, made possible by lack of formal duty of care in the industry.

 

As for example seeing an amber traffic light, with plenty of time to stop, but instead keeping going and passing it after it has turned to red.

 

Agree, that type of behaviour has become endemic and often extended to include the vehicle behind somebody slowing for amber pulling out and driving through the [by now] red light
See also temporary lights on single file flows, ignored reds.

 

The basic idea pre-dates electronic navigation systems; I once saw for sale, in a truck stop, a map-book which included annotations on things in the map which would only be of use to truckers (I don't recall whether it was clearances, or maximum weights; it was one of the two).

I have always remembered this because I didn't buy it, and have regretted, ever since, not so doing. Not that I had a use for it myself, directly; rather, it was a real-world example/implementation of an idea I had dreamed up for doing path selection in large internets (the Nimrod Routing Architecture).

Noel

 

Yes, I see rather too much of this, along with people who clearly haven't read the Highway Code since they passed their test and so are either unaware, or ignore, the new Hierarchy Of Road Users.

 

I quite agree that what some of you are calling negligence is a factor. But this is a cultural issue and I don't believe that cultures are changed by punishment; they are changed by education.

 

That’s true, but the existence of sanctions may form part of the education process. And this is one area where I believe that to be very true.

 

…. except in that case, the wagon belonged to a (very) local company, Budget Skips, and was being driven by a local 64 year old, who just happened to be the company owner.
In his haste to get to his destination he was driving down a country lane without having fully retracted the lifting boom of his ro-ro skip hoist.

 

You can educate all you want but without consequences it wont sink in.

The 'Dont Drink and Drive' campaigns have been very good at setting accepted standards of behaviour but it was the news that you would lose your driving licence and often your job as well that made it stick

 

I look forward to a plethora of posts along the lines of, "A good beating never did me any harm.".

 

A friend who works with these sorts of people points out that the real deterrent is the sheer hassle that being an offender generates, being arrested, ending up in the cells, having to go to court etc

Plus of course the impact of not being able to drive especially in a rural area with no public transportr

 

You must be referring to the cyclists who now insist on riding at least two abreast on a narrow main carriageway when there is an adjacent dedicated cycle path made especially for them and has mandatory pedestrian and cyclist signs posted every 100 metres or so... another waste million I guess