How on earth can these things happen?

[Guest]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-23478679

How on earth can these things happen? It doesn't seem all that long since there was another of these instances with a school bus, and I recall one in Chesterfield a few years ago. Surely it's not hard to keep double decker buses away from routes with low bridges? And if you change the route, you do a check. Simple.

As regards this one, had it been a later bus it may well have been packed with people returning to Manchester, and a very different story.

[Bryn]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england...ester-23478679

How on earth can these things happen? It doesn't seem all that long since there was another of these instances with a school bus, and I recall one in Chesterfield a few years ago. Surely it's not hard to keep double decker buses away from routes with low bridges? And if you change the route, you do a check. Simple.

As regards this one, had it been a later bus it may well have been packed with people returning to Manchester, and a very different story.

That's how many (most) open-top buses start their conversion process (no kidding). It's all too easy for a PCV driver used to driving single deckers, day in, day out, to fail to take note of height restrictions. It's no excuse, but those who drive double deckers most of the time are rather less likely to make such mistakes.



or similar should be first recourse to any high-topped vehicle driving a route new to them.



However with clear warning signs like that ... !

[Simon]

Yes, but you can understand it I suppose if the driver was a) used to lower vehicles and be) unused to the route and c) possibly distracted by someone or something.

I see the sign you pictured and I know there is in some ways no excuse, but I'd be tempted to say to the company - "Did you ensure that the driver was aware of the fact that there was a low bridge on his route?"

Of course, it may have been a diversion that was suddenly needed for some reason - I know the road but haven't been up there for a while and can't recall if it's a regular Transpeak bus route. What I do know, though, is that those Transpeak buses - at least the ones that come through Bakewell - are usually single deckers.

Is there a system in the PSV and/or HGV world, like there is in aviation, where accident investigation reports are published regularly for everyone to see, with every notified occurance of crash or failure?

[Bryn]

I don't know of any system relating to all accidents involving buses, but any collision with a railway bridge would certainly be publicly recorded. Whether the driver was briefed or not, it is he or she who carries the can. In the bus industry the buck tends to stay at the bottom.

[Simon]

I see. Well, I'll be interested to see what transpires and how exactly it came about.

[ahinton]

However with clear warning signs like that ... !

Clear? It's in some weird antediluvian measurement system! Replace 12'-9" (why the sdash, anyway?) with 3.8m and then there'd be a valid argument for there being no excuse!

[Hornspieler]

Clear? It's in some weird antediluvian measurement system! Replace 12'-9" (why the sdash, anyway?) with 3.8m and then there'd be a valid argument for there being no excuse!

It is typical of the jobsworths who run this country that Road signs, Distances, Speed restrictions, Warning Signs and Fuel consumption figures are required by law to be shown in Imperial measure, but Petrol and Diesel fuel must be bought in Litres.

[ahinton]

It is typical of the jobsworths who run this country that Road signs, Distances, Speed restrictions, Warning Signs and Fuel consumption figures are required by law to be shown in Imperial measure, but Petrol and Diesel fuel must be bought in Litres.

I know! It's a strange manifestation of jobsworthiness, though, wouldn't you say? And whenever I see a road sign that ends "100yds" I sadly cannot help but think of "youthful Duncan Smith"...

[Alain Maréchal]

Fortunately I can press a button so that all the readings on my car change from one to the other in the tunnel, so I do not have to make mental calculations while driving (apart from remembering what to do at roundabouts), but I see variations of Metric and Imperial measurements in the U.K., What currently is the legal requirement? I wouldn't mind which, I don't think either is superior to the other, as long as it were applied consistently.

[mangerton]

Fortunately I can press a button so that all the readings on my car change from one to the other in the tunnel, so I do not have to make mental calculations while driving (apart from remembering what to do at roundabouts), but I see variations of Metric and Imperial measurements in the U.K., What currently is the legal requirement? I wouldn't mind which, I don't think either is superior to the other, as long as it were applied consistently.

Oh no. We don't do consistency. Where's the fun in that?

Road signs and speed limits are in miles and miles per hour. Packaged food and drink in shops are sold with a metric weight declaration. Loose food (eg cheese, meat) is also sold metrically, but you'll also hear people asking for "a half pound" of ham - though they'll receive the metric equivalent.

Clothes are still sized in imperial measurements.

Petrol is sold in litres, but I for one, and I suspect many others, still think of fuel economy in terms of miles per gallon.

Pubs are good fun. Wine and spirits are sold in metric quantities, as is bottled beer. But (thank goodness!) draught beer is still sold in pints.

[umslopogaas]

Most of the food in my fridge seems to be in grams, but I've just bought a pint of milk in a plastic bottle in my local supermarket (Morrisons): the metric equivalent is also given, in brackets.

I remember we started going over to metric about forty years ago: mustnt rush these things.

I have a particularly schizophrenic approach to this. I'm of an age when I learned that a hot day was up in the eighties Fahrenheit and to this day I measure my own comfort/discomfort in degrees F. But as a scientist, I've always done temperature in Centigrade. So, I get hot in F, but my cultures got hot in C.

[johncorrigan]

It doesn't just happen here - some may recall the Orica GreenWedge Bus from an early stage in this year's Tour de France in Corsica.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2013/jun/29/tour-de-france-2013-chaos-crashes-first-stage

[ahinton]

When I first attended school in Scotland as I approached the age of four we were all taught metrtic measurement first, which was sensible as it's all calibrated in tens that accorded to our all having learned to count therein; all the unnecessarily complicated and frankly abstruse stuff of imperial measure came later once we'd all mastered the sensible ways - and with no small amount of unavoidable regret - and to this day I'm still not entiely certain as to how many pints there are in a mile or how many pounds in a gallon...

[mangerton]

When I first attended school in Scotland as I approached the age of four we were all taught metrtic measurement first, which was sensible as it's all calibrated in tens that accorded to our all having learned to count therein; all the unnecessarily complicated and frankly abstruse stuff of imperial measure came later once we'd all mastered the sensible ways - and with no small amount of unavoidable regret - and to this day I'm still not entiely certain as to how many pints there are in a mile or how many pounds in a gallon...

How many pints in a mile? All depends where you are. In the Sahara, about one pint in a thousand, I would think, but in Edinburgh's Rose Street, probably a good dozen or so.

At school, I suspect a few years before you, we were taught imperial measurements first, and then metric, with its incomprehensible prefixes of milli, centi, deca, hecto, and kilo. Gills, pints, quarts, gallons, rods, poles, perches, yards, chains, furlongs, roods, acres, stones, quarters, and hundredweights on the other hand, presented no problems.

Does anyone else remember bills, the bane of my life at primary school, from the "Sure Foundation" arithmetic books?

[ahinton]

At school, I suspect a few years before you, we were taught imperial measurements first, and then metric, with its incomprehensible prefixes of milli, centi, deca, hecto, and kilo. Gills, pints, quarts, gallons, rods, poles, perches, yards, chains, furlongs, roods, acres, stones, quarters, and hundredweights on the other hand, presented no problems.

Perhaps it was indeed before me, or in a different area, or both - I don't know - but it did seem to me like an eminently sensible way in which to introduce the concept of weights & measures following the business of counting in tens; all those absurdly inconsistent and already then mostly quaintly antediluvian imperial(ist?) measures might have presented no problems to you but they did to me from the get-go and still do today, or at least would do if I could be bothered with any of the wretched things.

Does anyone else remember bills, the bane of my life at primary school, from the "Sure Foundation" arithmetic books?

Not I.