Dangerous bollard?.

[Nearholmer]

The pyramids are to stop our travelling friends from driving on to the redways to camp.

Really? I’d never worked that out, and now you’ve said it I still can’t make sense of it, because their locations are so entirely random. Were they an idea that was tried, then abandoned?

[DaveReading]

I wouldn't have thought it beyond the wit of man to design something that would function as an obstacle to motor vehicles without impeding the passage of cycles. Is it really that difficult?

and, Your design is?

Er, a gap that's wider than a cycle, but not as wide as a car, perhaps ?

[Toffee]

The pyramids are to stop our travelling friends from driving on to the redways to camp.

Really? I’d never worked that out, and now you’ve said it I still can’t make sense of it, because their locations are so entirely random. Were they an idea that was tried, then abandoned?

They were put in where there was a lot of incursions from travellers. As usual not all the entrances were covered so it didn't and still doesn't work

[peetee]

There are lots of obstructions to watch out for on cycle routes. Many of them are dark; vegetation, debris, litter, people, dogs. The fact that this bollard wasn’t ‘high viz’ doesn’t make it dangerous.

Correct.

The fact that someone might ride into it and hurt themselves makes it dangerous. We have evidence this has already happened, at least once.

(Are you aware of Health and Safety laws peetee? Had any training? )

I have a local cycle route hereabouts that is about 8 miles long and an off road trail for all but a few hundred yards of road. There is one bollard placed in the middle of the trail. That bollard is dark but not hard to spot from either direction. Elsewhere en-route there are kerbs, rocks, brambles and gorse hedges overhanging, gullies, loose gravel, animal droppings and a surface that changes every few hundred yards. Around this corner you could meet a stray dog or horse and rider, around that a car or tractor. Anywhere and everywhere you share the route with walkers of all ages.
To be inattentive enough to run into that bollard or the one on my local trail shows a disregard for the reality of riding in a environment that is inherently hazardous and requires awareness at all times. It’s an old cliched argument but perhaps that bollard is there to make a point and remind folk that it could have been a child.

[cycle tramp]

I have a local cycle route hereabouts that is about 8 miles long and an off road trail for all but a few hundred yards of road. There is one bollard placed in the middle of the trail. That bollard is dark but not hard to spot from either direction. Elsewhere en-route there are kerbs, rocks, brambles and gorse hedges overhanging, gullies, loose gravel, animal droppings and a surface that changes every few hundred yards. Around this corner you could meet a stray dog or horse and rider, around that a car or tractor. Anywhere and everywhere you share the route with walkers of all ages.
To be inattentive enough to run into that bollard or the one on my local trail shows a disregard for the reality of riding in a environment that is inherently hazardous and requires awareness at all times. It’s an old cliched argument but perhaps that bollard is there to make a point and remind folk that it could have been a child.

That's what I thought, too. Which gave way to a further thought... if a person could collide with a stationery object on whilst on their bike, would it then indicate that there was an increased risk of that same person colliding with another road user if they were, say, driving a car?

[mattheus]

There are lots of obstructions to watch out for on cycle routes. Many of them are dark; vegetation, debris, litter, people, dogs. The fact that this bollard wasn’t ‘high viz’ doesn’t make it dangerous.

Correct.

The fact that someone might ride into it and hurt themselves makes it dangerous. We have evidence this has already happened, at least once.

(Are you aware of Health and Safety laws peetee? Had any training? )

<snip>...
To be inattentive enough to run into that bollard or the one on my local trail shows a disregard for the reality of riding in a environment that is inherently hazardous and requires awareness at all times. It’s an old cliched argument but perhaps that bollard is there to make a point and remind folk that it could have been a child.

I'll take that as NO then!

[cycle tramp]

There are lots of obstructions to watch out for on cycle routes. Many of them are small or narrow or dark; vegetation, debris, litter, people, dogs. The fact that this bollard wasn’t ‘high viz’ doesn’t make it dangerous.

Highway engineers would never use the term 'dangerous'. Dangerous implies that it has the potential to hurt or injure someone through an action that the object, itself may perform, such as a diseased tree falling in the wind, or a sink hole opening in the ground. These are dangerous.

Highway engineers would use the term 'hazardous' that whilst the object itself is not going to perform an action which could hurt or injure someone, it presents a hazard to persons using the shared walk way if it's presence isn't seen and actions aren't taken to consideration to immigate the existence of the pollard.

The pollard doesn't uproot itself from the path and terrorise teenagers or threaten the elderly.

In the past, a great many things have been described as dangerous.. trees by the side of the road- a car left the road and crashed into the trees, had the trees been felled, it wouldn't have happened... well yes, it's true the car might have stopped on the verge, or if the trees hadn't have been there slide, across the verge and into a 5 foot drainage ditch.. but the presence of the trees wasn't in itself dangerous, had the car not come off the road then the collision wouldn't have occurred and they wouldn't be called dangerous, in the same way had the pollard been successful navigated then that, too, would not have been called 'dangerous'

Ages ago, I used to be a gardener and held my professional chainsaw license when I was 18. It is a tool mostly described as being 'dangerous'. Well, they're not. they are an inanimate objects. By themselves they are not going to jump out of their box and start chopping anyone up. You have to interact with them, and by doing so then they become hazardous. But by recognising that they are hazardous, you work in ways to minimise that hazard. The first step of avoiding hazards is to recognise them.

[pwa]

If I were in the position of having to order a bollard to prevent cars using an entrance, whilst at the same time allowing others to pass, I think I would consider visibility in low light conditions one of the no-compromise considerations when selecting it. I'd also be avoiding wood, which is much to easy to damage, and is likey to rot within ten years anyway.

[peetee]

Correct.

The fact that someone might ride into it and hurt themselves makes it dangerous. We have evidence this has already happened, at least once.

(Are you aware of Health and Safety laws peetee? Had any training? )

<snip>...
To be inattentive enough to run into that bollard or the one on my local trail shows a disregard for the reality of riding in a environment that is inherently hazardous and requires awareness at all times. It’s an old cliched argument but perhaps that bollard is there to make a point and remind folk that it could have been a child.

I'll take that as NO then!

Yes, I am aware of the existence of health and safety laws. Am I aware of all of them? No. I’m not sure anybody is.
What training I have received in the roles I have performed has instilled in me that they can often compensate for a propensity to assume or lack of awareness, self preservation, concentration and responsibility.
Would you care to explain what exactly I am missing?

[Nearholmer]

What you seem to be missing is that when a person designs and orders the installation of a bollard, or anything else for that matter, they have choices, and they are legally obliged to make the choices that control risks to the lowest level reasonably practicable.

It’s not a complicated concept, or a new one, the underlying thinking has been part of common law ‘forever’, it’s been part of formally embedded case law since I think 1947, and part of statute law since 1974.

The big gripe about the form of these low and visually recessive bollards is that they fail that test: less hazardous ones could be chosen at no greater cost. And, the big gripe about the positioning of many bollards is that that also fails the test, sometimes in an extreme way where they create hazard while delivering no discernible benefit, in return for the time, trouble and expense of installing them.

Another thing that you seem to be missing, if I may be so cheeky, is that there is a very material difference between a purpose-designed cycleway or shared path, and a bit of the countryside over which one happens to have the right to ride a bike. In the first case, the provider of the path should be making it fit for purpose, which is usually to facilitate cycling, walking and “wheeling” by all potential users of all levels of experience and ability, while n the second case the obligation on the landowner is far more limited, practical considerations limit access to the experienced and physically fairly fit, and there is naturally a far greater burden of “self care” on the user. As an example, I doubt that allowing bulls up to an age of semi-maturity to roam on purpose-designed cycleways would be considered a tolerable risk, whereas it is on ordinary bridleways, and come about August or September, when the lads that haven’t been castrated are getting a bit big and feisty, it becomes a common hazard.

[peetee]

Nearholmer, I accept your argument that the bollard could have been substituted for one more visible or repositioned to be less hazardous but I would also say IMHO it doesn’t present a hazard to anyone who is paying sufficient attention. Also I would have it on record that the trail I mentioned, AKA The Great Flat Lode Trail, is specifically laid out for the use of cycles.

[rjb]

Those concrete pyramids are anti tank traps. Does someone know something.

[Nearholmer]

it doesn’t present a hazard to anyone who is paying sufficient attention

My contention being that the level of attention, and indeed experience, to be expected of a user of a public cycleway is lower than that in, say, a bridleway.

The only real way to test it would be for some poor person to have a nasty accident, and for it to go to court. Your team of barrack-room lawyers can act for the provider of the cycleway, and mine will act ‘pro bono’ for the injured party.

When you contend that the bollard is OK, because it is no worse than that installed on another cycleway somewhere else, I will contend that to be largely irrelevant, because the provider’s duties revolve around care to users, fitness for purpose, and eliminating risk so far as is reasonably practicable, that there are plenty of examples of better practice to draw upon, and that they have failed in all points.

(I rode most of that Great Flat Lode route last summer, and it’s really nice. I didn’t crash into any bollards.)

PS: Forestry England get this all right, by clearly designating and laying-out paths for different sorts of users, ranging from “family rides”, through to terrifying MTB ‘black runs’, and they cover their obligations well by making very clear the level of experience and fitness needed to tackle each sort of path. On the family paths, they attempt to eliminate hazards; on the toughest MTB paths, they actively create them!

[mattheus]

<snip ... > You have to interact with them, and by doing so then they become hazardous. But by recognising that they are hazardous, you work in ways to minimise that hazard. The first step of avoiding hazards is to recognise them.

Good stuff.

So if an injury occurs where someone interacted with a hazard, you might then work to minimise that hazard?

Do you think the hazard that you are posting about has been minimised?

[mattheus]

it doesn’t present a hazard to anyone who is paying sufficient attention

Mr Holmer,
Thankyou for highlighting this ridiculous piece of text (which I think was typed by member Petee?)

But are you aware that you're chopping out the member's name etc from your quotes? IMO this is bad etiquette, as - for one thing - the member is not notified, so it COULD be interpreted as criticising their words behind their back.

If you just use the built-in quote function (then delete any irrelevant wordage, if you wish), this problem doesn't arise. win-win!