Robin T Cox wrote:
Clare asks:
Lydia, he JUMPED over a railing into the path of traffic on a busy road. How on earth is that the fault of adults? There was a crossing just yards away.
I think Lydia was suggesting that if adults had created an opening in the wall, and a crossing to keep them safe, this young man would have had nothing to jump over.

Lydia wrote:
Maybe we should look at the responsibility of the adults who have not created an opening in the wall and a crossing to keep them safe.
Plainly, prevention is better than cure, and it is realistic not to expect mature judgement from the young, but to design such crossings with the young in mind, and in order to minimise risk.

Robin, I think you should look at the video again. There IS a crossing only yards from where he jumped over the SAFETY fence which I assume is there to protect pedestrians from traffic or traffic from pedestrians crossing away from the pelican. The crossing IS there, as are the traffic lights, so the safety aspect IS covered.

Blaming ourselves for idiot young people really isn't the way to go nor is making excuses for them. Fortunately the vast majority have common sense which is something we should be thankful for. I think the majority of young people will view this footage and proclaim the person at the centre of it a complete idiot. And rightly so. I don't think he's typical. To suggest this particular road is somehow to blame, or planners are to blame is just plain stupid when the crossing is plain to see in the footage itself.

Clearly in this case the design intention behind the structure failed to achieve the result of delivering safety. And therefore the design was flawed.

Blaming the user for a flawed design does not help. This has been tried many times before, which is why better safety on our roads has been so difficult to achieve.

Clare wrote:

Blaming ourselves for idiot young people really isn't the way to go nor is making excuses for them. Fortunately the vast majority have common sense which is something we should be thankful for. I think the majority of young people will view this footage and proclaim the person at the centre of it a complete idiot. And rightly so. I don't think he's typical. To suggest this particular road is somehow to blame, or planners are to blame is just plain stupid when the crossing is plain to see in the footage itself.

The guy did one stupid thing. For all we know, it's the only time he's done it - and he most certainly won't do it again.

Have you not ever taken a short cut in doing anything and put yourself at risk ? Have you never stepped of a pavement and not noticed a car coming the other way ? Have you never been distracted and done something you wouldn't normally do ?

I know I have. And I have no doubt I will do so again.

But then I'm not perfect.

TLJ wrote:
Clare wrote:

Blaming ourselves for idiot young people really isn't the way to go nor is making excuses for them. Fortunately the vast majority have common sense which is something we should be thankful for. I think the majority of young people will view this footage and proclaim the person at the centre of it a complete idiot. And rightly so. I don't think he's typical. To suggest this particular road is somehow to blame, or planners are to blame is just plain stupid when the crossing is plain to see in the footage itself.

The guy did one stupid thing. For all we know, it's the only time he's done it - and he most certainly won't do it again.

Have you not ever taken a short cut in doing anything and put yourself at risk ? Have you never stepped of a pavement and not noticed a car coming the other way ? Have you never been distracted and done something you wouldn't normally do ?

I know I have. And I have no doubt I will do so again.

But then I'm not perfect.

TLJ I'm not perfect either and I don't recall claiming to be.

I think the fact we have this particular incident caught on camera proves just how stupid and irresponsible this lad is. He did not step off a pavement. He jumped into the path of oncoming traffic, over a safety railing, when there was a crossing only yards away.

What I really can't get my head around is that the blame is being put on everyone else. People are talking about getting walls knocked down for God's sake and suggesting it isn't this boy's own fault and demanding safety improvements. Like I said, there was a crossing yards away, he just chose not to use it and I'm wondering why people are choosing to ignore that. I'm sorry if you don't understand that aspect yourself but I really am amazed.

Clare wrote:

I think the fact we have this particular incident caught on camera proves just how stupid and irresponsible this lad is. He did not step off a pavement. He jumped into the path of oncoming traffic, over a safety railing, when there was a crossing only yards away.


Do you always use the crossing when one is provided ? I know that I don't - and if that makes me stupid and irresponsible, then so be it.

As I said before, I'm not perfect. Consequently, I don't expect youngsters to be either.

In the case of this so-called 'safety' barrier, which failed to provide safety, two cardinal principles of design were clearly not observed:

1. Human error should be designed out of the solution: there should be no room for human error to compromise safety.

2. The design should fail safe.

In designing race tracks for fast cars, we no longer seek to blame drivers for irresponsible driving when there are injuries or fatalities. And blaming people is no way to prevent such accidents in future.

Nor, in the cirsumstances of modern road traffic, should we expect less than safety in the design of thoroughfares where pedestrian and vehicular traffic are mixed. Otherwise such traffic should be segregated.

TLJ wrote:
Clare wrote:

I think the fact we have this particular incident caught on camera proves just how stupid and irresponsible this lad is. He did not step off a pavement. He jumped into the path of oncoming traffic, over a safety railing, when there was a crossing only yards away.


Do you always use the crossing when one is provided ? I know that I don't - and if that makes me stupid and irresponsible, then so be it.

As I said before, I'm not perfect. Consequently, I don't expect youngsters to be either.

I cross the road where I'm not supposed to certainly, but I check it is safe to do so first. There aren't always crossings either T. I also don't jump barriers. This isn't a five year old we're talking about.

Robin I think the layout of this road included all the safety bits and bobs we can put there, honestly. Railings bordering the road and a crossing controlled by traffic lights just yards away. Why is this everyone else's fault?

Robin I think the layout of this road included all the safety bits and bobs we can put there, honestly. Railings bordering the road and a crossing controlled by traffic lights just yards away. Why is this everyone else's fault?

Plainly, Clare, the fault is not yours.

But would you care to estimate how fast the bus was going as it went past the boy's position? And whether, as the bus was approaching a school, that speed was safe given the likelihood that there would be children on the road (as there were moments before the boy jumped)?

Would you also care to explain what the bus was doing driving so close to the barrier, seeing as it appears to be marked as a cycle lane, and the rest of the road was clear? Had the bus been further away, it would not have hit the boy.

No, the fact is that the design of that piece of road is plainly unsafe, and fails to protect road users properly.

According to the Make Roads Safe campaign, a young person is killed every 3 minutes because of bad road design.

http://www.makeroadssafe.org/

Clare wrote:

I cross the road where I'm not supposed to certainly, but I check it is safe to do so first. There aren't always crossings either T. I also don't jump barriers. This isn't a five year old we're talking about.


No, it's not. It's a 14 year-old lad doing something that 14 year-olds do all the time - not being aware of everything that's around them.

(I take it that, as an adult, you've never accidentally put yourself or someone else into danger. I know I have.)

Now this was deliberately running into traffic.

Lucky, lucky women.

Lucky doesn't even begin to cover it TLJ, it was a miracle they weren't both killed. That is totally disgraceful behaviour from two adults particularly because of their indifference to the safety of so many others.

They are two people I'd have no compunction about deporting and I'd ban them from entering the UK again.