h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

As HonestIago says the only thing there is shops. There are no car parks (there are car parks easier to get to than going through the bollarded area) no hospitals and so on.
There have been restrictions on cars travelling over parts of streets there for years which were regularly flouted.
A new bus station opened earlier this year which meant that many buses now no longer travel through the city centre on those streets, the only ones that do are the free shuttle buses.
If you chose to ignore the warning signs my thoughts are you deserve to get what happens to you.

As to where the footage came from, it has been released, certainly to the local paper - http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/225/225933_drivers_lose_the_bollards_battle.html

Brilliant video.

To those concerned about whether your passenger is in labour or having a heart attack - if the driver is taking dangerous risks with such a delicate passenger, he's even more stupid than the idiots on that video.
There are HUGE warning signs there.

No sympathy whatsoever, the first driver (a woman, unfortunately) had first used the area as a parking place , then reversed to wait for a bus to try and attempt the crossing afterwords. Utter, utter ignorant stupidity!
The second driver, obviously accelerating hard to try and clear the bollards, with a child in the back? Doesn't think that the bus may stop after going through, in which case he would've hit the bus! That man is an insult to all name-calling words. So har bloody har, as long as the child is okay, where's Nelson Muntz when you need him?
The third.... well, he's a while van man, nowt else needed.

Having just read all the reports on the News website - I still don't feel sorry for any of the people. Tailgating buses is stupid and dangerous in any situation, you have your just desserts, think yourself lucky you didn't injure yourself, or worse - an innocent bystander.

Fair enough, if there's no reason for anyone to go that way for a medical emergency then I guess there's no excuse.

I think the very fact that you can be driving at a not inconsiderable speed through a built up crowded shopping area, and being either totally unaware of the rules, or not giving a damn about the rules, precludes you from any reciminatory action against the council.
I would go further, and suggest that your driving licence was a damn sight harder to gain in the first place (advanced only, anyone?) and a damn sight easier to lose if you prove yourself unable to follow the law either through your own ignorance, or from a lack of willing to do so.


I'm sorry if anyone in the video got hurt, but these drivers are the kind of cretins that tend to cause other people's tragedies through their thoughtlesness, rather than suffer the consequences of their own.

Driving isn't a right if you endanger other people's lives. If a licence was easilly confiscated for life, this would be easier for some people to keep in mind.

I think T.E.Laurence had the right idea - get rid of seatbelts and replace the horn with a metal spike - see how carefully people can manage to drive then.

(Although this point is slightly eroded by the fact that he dies falling off a speeding motorbike).

I wonder if we will see any of these numbnuts trying to sue the local council for damage to their vehicle or themselves?
I'm sure the local authority will have held endless think-tanks and brain-storming sessions with their corporate lawyers to make sure they are beyond reproach.

Here's an idea though. As well as the obvious shame and expense caused by their stupidity, perhaps the motorists should also recieve a prosecution for dangerous driving, and a bill for repair to the bollards.

I agree with Offsoon, driving isn't a right, its a privilege. The cars were driving too fast for the road conditions and the drivers were not supposed to be there.

Like Queeglesproggit said, the first of those drivers was parked in front of the bollard and reversed to let the bus through, so was clearly deliberately trying to beat the bollard. She knew she should not have been going down that road so I have no sympathy for him.

The second was travelling at a stupid speed and it wouldn't surprise me if he was also trying to get through before they rose again (probably thinking the height of his car would let him get through in time, he seemed to be speeding up as he hit them).

The van driver was probably thinking he could use the bus lane as a short cut, a lot of them seem to think that because they are delivering goods the law doesn't apply to them (and I say that as someone who used to be a white van man).

These rising bollards are always placed in prominent positions and always get a lot of publicity when they are first installed. They are so common around the UK that any driver should expect to find them in any town or city they drive through. If drivers choose to ignore them and take their chances they deserve to rip the sump out of their cars. I saw a driver in Bristol try to get through a manually operated bollard last month while the operator was raising it. He tried to drive around the operators van which was parked blocking the entrance while the bollard was being raised. Unbelievable.

'so I have no sympathy for him' should have read 'so I have no sympathy for her'

>>As well as the obvious shame and expense caused by their stupidity, perhaps the motorists should also recieve a prosecution for dangerous driving<<

I've thought they should get this at the very least. Also to note that the people who are claiming they've been injured weren't wearing seatbelts, and apparently where there was a baby involved the baby was in the front seat where they should never be.

When I go home to Manc I am going to hang around these bollards, see if I see any other morons caught out.

Babies should never be in the front seat?

Rear-facing seats for babies (not toddlers) usually go in the front, don't they?

TRiG.

I've always been told babies never go in the front seat full stop - they're at risk from the airbags or something. Is that not true?

However, I have neither baby nor car so I might be wrong

Looking at the video again, the baby's in the back seat anyway.

Infants should be put in the front passenger seat in a rear facing baby seat as long as there is either no airbag or the airbag has been disengaged. After they are too big for a rear facing seat or if the airbag in front cannot be disengaged, they should be put in a front facing baby seat in a rear seat of the car.

I have no sympathy for the driver of any of these vehicles. However, I do have sympathy for the kids in the back that don't have an air bag or a choice.

I assume they would be referred to as collateral damage. It's a bit like running around you house trying to swat a fly with a hammer.

Wolfticket

>>When I go home to Manc I am going to hang around these bollards, see if I see any other morons caught out.<<

Now that is a great idea. How about we raise a bit more revenue here, and turn it into a spectator sport?

Tiered seating, stalls for selling eggs/flour and tomatoes(so we can pelt the ameobae as they exit their bollard bouncer), instant playback on big screens......i think i'm on to something here.
Stocks and pillories were around for a reason....to humiliate the offender into not comitting another offence, i'm sure this would work equally well.

And as much as that sounds , with the proliferation of these videos on the net, i'm willing to bet most people won't risk running the bollards in future.

http://www.cokemachineaccidents.com/

Sorry jwf, I don't see the comparison between the bollards and the Coke machine accident.

But it's exactly the same sort of thing! Put some dumb inamimate object in front of people and they'll find a way to hurt themselves. Yikes! My keyboard is eating my fingers!

~jwf~

Sorry. Didn't mean to kill the thread as I so often (3000 convos and counting) do.

It has finally dawned on me that the images in the video clip remind me of an old fashioned pin-ball game. There often are bumpers and flippers in pinball arcade games that rise and fall without warning or reason (while some can also be triggered for extra points).

It was perhaps this subconcious connection in my mind that led me to rage against the folly of putting such devices in the public roadway. Are the roads, with all their signs and arrows, and now immovable barriers, turning us into rats in some pinball or video game type maze? (Some video gamers may not realise that pinball machines are the great granddaddies of many navigational games.)

I also wanted to say how good it was to see someone as thoughtful and intelligent as Gnomon taking a stand (back about 40 posts) against such stupidly dangerous devices. Not that he actually said they were 'stupid' or 'dangerous' but at least he was against them in principle.


~jwf~

I'm still a big fan of these things, and would welcome even more

It is a good point though, that the roadside 'furniture' that is clogging up our streets and countryside is an eyesore. Beside the fact that a lot of it is pointless and unnecessary, i think a lot of it is confusing and a pontential hazard in the case of an accident.
Again are we assuming that the average person is so stupid he needs signs at the end of a dock saying - STOP DEEP WATER, or outside a farm - WARNING FARM ANIMALS.

Actually, i've just watched the bollard clip again.......i guess we do.