This article is perhaps best described by pictorial examples, and I have attached some photos. But I just could not let the photos speak for themselves, I have to say something:
Where do we start?
Health and Safety warnings about climbing rocks or standing too close to cliff edges?
The photo above is not critical of the height one may fall if one climbed the rocks (there to create groins) as on installation those rocks would have been far higher above the soft sand.
Nor is it to point out that when they are underwater, you will not be able to read the message: ‘Danger – Underwater Structure’ with the North Sea having such poor visibility.
It is that someone has made a decision that entails a tradesman (sorry I meant Tradesperson) enjoying a day on the beach with a hammer drill, portable generator and fuel, plus a few dozen Rawl plugs and stainless-steel screws installing these signs. I wonder who paid for that?
These signs are attached to random rocks, yet on the other side, they have no warnings. So, you could approach from that direction oblivious to the danger of say: falling from height.
Regards swimming near groins, if you are daft enough to do that and get thrown onto them by waves or get your leg trapped and drown, then Darwin’s Law has played its part.
There have been recent deaths that to try and prevent a repeat: the ‘authorities’ have reacted to with great expense. The most obvious nationally would be the pedestrian gates at railway crossings. Which are now resplendent with red/green lights and audible sirens to warn of approaching trains. Now, that may seem like a great idea, but all this additional technology and power consumption was installed as far as I can tell, because some girl was looking at her phone whilst crossing the train line and was killed. A tragic event, but what is to stop people doing the same crossing a road? I am certain there has already been incidents of people ‘lost in their phones’ being killed or injured crossing roads without looking. We seem to be replacing common sense with technology.
Returning to water: In Norwich there is a small Broad close to a larger broad used for water sports. A few years ago, a boy drowned whilst taking a swim in that small broad. Because of that, the broad is now entirely fenced off! How long before they all get fenced off?
More warning signs: Walking on Common Land, and ‘that one does so at their own risk’
Or perhaps the ridiculous amount of road signs, particularly regarding speed, now let us consider the French method: They have a village entry sign, and a village exit sign and unless otherwise stated the speed limit between the two is 50 kph (28 MPH)
Not like the UK: 30 MPH signs on both sides of the road, every few hundred metres.
‘Pick up after your dog, max fine: £1,000’ There are usually lots of these signs in villages and dog walking locations, or variations asking you to pick up after your dog. Those that do pick up, do it without considering the signs. Those that do not do it, also do not, without considering the signs, so what is the point in producing the signs and then installing them? Other than to share the wealth: sign makers and council employees who plan and instal them. Often the installation requires a metal post erecting to mount them, which usually requires replacing after a million dog pees.
Worryingly there is a breakaway group of dog poo behaviourists: Those that bag the poo, then either drop it on the path or launch it, so that it hangs from the trees like some shitty Christmas decorations. Now these people are too stupid to have the responsibility of dog ownership, I would like to see them hanging from the trees. On our walks we often retrieve these bags and dispose of them properly. Extracting one from a bramble bush is fraught with danger! We have also heard that wild animals, cows and horses are attracted to these bags contents and can die an agonising death from ingesting these bags. The de-population agenda begins to make a lot of sense to me.
A common sign regards dog excrement, is the one that states: ‘There is no such thing as the poo fairy’ Well there is, as my wife and I obviously fulfil that role, but I have seen other good-hearted people cleaning up other owner’s dog’s waste.
‘No Fly Tipping’ signs appear occasionally in random lay-bys or parking areas. In my opinion: the signs themselves are a version of fly tipping.
Side note: Norfolk County Council have just introduced a Recycle Centre booking system, so you are no longer allowed to just turn up with your waste. I did a litter pick between our village and the next over the weekend, amongst all the cans, bottles and general rubbish I picked up was a 3 x 2 x 2 ins battery. I put it in my bin with all the other crap. Normally, I would take this to the dedicated battery bin at the Recycle Centre on one of my frequent visits. Now it will go to landfill. As will a lot more of my own generated waste. If I cannot be arsed to do the right thing, what’s the chances of others also irresponsibly disposing of these sorts of items? What is the likelihood of fly tipping increasing? It will greatly. There are people making decisions in local government equally as inept as our masters in national government. Or are all these changes we experience designed to annoy the proles?
Signage that stays up, way beyond its relevant date
These are dotted around all country and village roads, from big ones announcing a Dog Show or Village Fete. Or a charity Cycle ride that was last September, not the September coming up in a couple of months. Or the signs in my village, displaying the Fish and Quiz night that we missed months back. I do forgive people leaving signs up for lost cats.
If and when they do finally get removed, why do they just pull them off the post, leaving the drawing pins still attached to the wooden telegraph pole or the tie-wrap attached to the Lamp Post? So, it can poke someone’s eye out: perhaps that is also part of the depopulation agenda!
Three different height of people eye removers. With the fashionable speed reduction notices
Speed Signs
Don’t tell them, but I love the French system, mentioned above of when you pass a village sign. It is also great that all these village signs are all the same design. Not those individual signs created by a some local who has far too much cider.
In the UK, there are in the main far too many speed signs, but on occasion: not enough! I have often said to the wife: “is this a 30 or 40?” Usually, I split the difference and aim for 35
Especially in Suffolk, there are so many inconsistencies: You can enter a 30 MPH limit way before entering a village, perhaps they are forward planning for when they build huge swathes of houses on the outskirts. Others are built up, yet the national speed limit still applies, and it does not feel safe doing that speed with houses either side.
I will finish with a counter to the above points: Non installed necessary signage
We had a road narrowing entry/exit to the next village. Gawd knows why, possibly some pen pushers wet dream on how to spend taxpayers’ money. Now these narrowing of entries to villages serves as a good method of slowing people down, unless you are of the mindset to accelerate back to your original speed after passing through. Or perhaps you do not slow down at all. But I do get the theory about their use.
The one I find objectional, sits between two expanding and rapidly closing villages, where the speed limit of 30 MPH remains throughout the journey.
There are signs either side to make you aware that it narrows to one car width, but nothing to tell you who has priority. So, if two cars arrive from the two directions at the very same moment, there is a game to be played as to who lets who through. Obviously, if one is a BMW, that car always gets to go first. It’s like a priority version of Top Trumps. But what happens when two drivers of esteemed marques arrive simultaneously
I will finish with my favourite Elf & Safety signs, it is the one at Cadwell Park race circuit, where some of the spectators stand to watch motorcycle short circuit racing’s only two-wheel leap: ‘The Mountain’ often resulting in crashes and injury. There is a tree amongst where the spectators gather to witness this potential carnage and there is a sign on that tree that says ‘Beware of roots: tripping hazard’
