Safe Speed Forums

I don't think they do (for whatever reason). There was a picture a couple of years back of a car with the front lifted about three feet where the evil thing had come up under the engine.

And even if they did, that doesn't eliminate the danger. Suppose it comes up into the engine compartment on the driver's side. As the vehicle moves forwards, the force isn't vertical - it's horizontal. As the firewall hits the bolland, perhaps the firewall crushes and damages the drivers legs and feet.

These things belong only in nightmares and horror films, not in our towns.

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Paul Smith
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I can believe this, bollard rips your car apart, and could possibly kill you and it is justice you deserve.

We would never consider sentencing a convicted murderer to death in this country. However drive in the wrong area, you deserve to die
I am in shock justice seems to be upside down.


These people may have made a genuine mistake. Inner city driving can be confusing. I have driven around inner city Birmingham now for over a year now, and I know my way round quite well. However because there is so much going on I can end up somewhere I do not want to be.

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Or the vehicle makes slightly better progress through the killzone, and the bollards rise up under whichever bit of the vehicle houses an exposed section of fuel line...

On the audible/visible warnings point, I was out last night with friends in Leicester Square and, right next to where we were sitting having a meal (busy restaurant, only available tables were outside) was a set of these bollards. The only clue I got that they were there was watching a car approach the end of the road and stop alongside us for no apparent reason. Paying closer attention I *then* noticed the bollards quietly retracting, allowing the car to proceed, and then equally quietly rising back up. Definitely no audible warnings, and any visual warnings were so subtle as to be lost against the brightly-lit backdrop of restaurants, souvenir shops etc.

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Chris

A friend of mine (who I regard as a reasonable chap) took the view that if people got their cars speared, they deserved what was coming to them.

I don't agree, even if you're fully aware of the restrictions (which many victims aren't), then destruction of a vehicle potentially worth £20k or more is not a fair penalty for contravening an access restriction.

In my view, all these bollards should be removed, and if really required, replaced by manned gates.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

DfT admits that they should not spike tailgaters.

I think so too. I was really shocked when I read this story - did not think this was approved practice.

As the editor comments.. difficult to believe so many did not see or hear any prior warning signs. The lady in the picture suffers from spina bifida - had disabled Mum with her and her baby. She was hunting a parking space and saw one .. headed for it. Per the paper - she did see the sign and was asking for permission to access when the bollard took out her car. Something wrong there for starts..

Manned gates or perhaps again opening via telecom system could be an answer. You could even have a remote control which bus drivers and taxi drivers can operate as well. There are so many better and safer options.

But let's not forget.. my colleagues at Manchester Royal's A&E all say the incidents in question involved collisions between pedestrians and buses with pedestrians simply not looking as they still think they are in a pedestrian zone.... I gather the pedestrianised Markeet Street is nearby. I confess I know Manchester more from memory than actual and when we visit .. for shows, dos and such - we usually stay in hotel and use the trams and buses as much easier. If I stay with my brother, sisters or IG's brother and sister based there .. they drive and guide us around!

I buy the MEN and BEN fairly regularly because I happen to like these papers and I like to take my wife out to the shows there instead of London (where we fell victim to Critical Mass more than once and we are still cross - some time later - about missing the essential first Acts of the play/opera as result ..... )

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I think I will e-mail this to the Manchester paper .. Ta!

You know .. not all ambulances are the typical van. Some are estate Mondeos, Vectras and BMW. These vehicles are also at risk from this stupidity of a bollard which even appears to have difficulty "sensoring a big bus" Ambulances are especially vulnerable in this daft system. What if a shopper has a heart attack in the M&S .. Boots or within St Anne's Square - which I know is near the M& S Manchester store.?

My view .. they should remove these things and use an electronic gate - which can be opened by bus/taxi/emergency vehicles and all the biking paramedics.


I have an electronic gate on my own property. I've never had intruders nor unsolicited calls since I installed it. I have intercom and a close circuit TV as well. It works fine.. and - um - some people might think our gate opener does some other things.

Our youngest bless her loves playing with this

I honestly do not know if she plays with it near Steve's vans .. nor have I faintest idea if this "affects" anything either though we did note that all automated shops doors seemed to have a bit of a turn once when the littlest one was fiddling once


I have since updated my post in which I got the scanned images to small to see. I think the corrected images show the sheer unsafe stupidity here.

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If you want to get to heaven - you have to raise a little hell!

Smilies are contagious
They are just like the flu
We use our smilies on YOU today
Now Good Causes are smiling too!

KEEP SMILING
It makes folk wonder just what you REALLY got up to last night!

Smily to penny.. penny to pound
safespeed prospers-smiles all round! !
But the real message? SMILE.. GO ON ! DO IT! and the world will smile with you!
Enjoy life! You only have the one bite at it.

In case you are in any doubt about the horrific destructive potential of these things...

click here

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nice

but i hardly think it's fair comparing these with driving a truck at speed into a raised bollard designed to stop car bombers.

do you know the ones shown in the film are the same ones?
certainly doesnt show the scenario being discussed.

"The test is a complete success".

This is only one step removed from stringing a hauser across the road to behead motorcyclists. How in the name of creation have these things ever been allowed to be installed in any public domain?

Take the other extreme - kids not even allowed to play conkers.

Cloud cuckoo land.

I didn't say it did, but nevertheless I think it does illustrate the principle fairly well.

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Very simple solution to all this, folks in manchester, vote these idiots out of office next local elections.

If the purpose of these things is to "pedestrianise" parts of the town, then why are buses allowed through anyway???

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So, can it be that the council apply similar logic to the scamerati....

Busses kill pedestrians so let's ban cars.....

Inattention and distraction causes the majority of deaths on our roads so let's zealously enforce speed limits....

Same logic school.....?

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Ross

Yes I'm a hoon, but only on the track!!!!

Yeek!

If they did this in France they'd get knocked over within hours! (Deliberately, of course )

Why don't people in this country protest properly?!

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Andrew.

has anyone actually sought a copy of the council's risk assesment for these?

is there such a thing as type approval for such devices?

surely there would be a risk assesment & failure analysis at the manufacturer's end, at the end of the day the people with damaged vehicles could take action back to them.

It seems to me that whoever signed the authorisation for this is guilty of negligence, or worse. If no risk assessment was carried out then there is your negligence - authorising a system that has the potential to kill and main without even considering the consequences.

But if they did complete a risk asseessment, then what does that make them guilty of? If this were authorised in the full and certain knowledge that people's mistakes were to be punished by deliberately deploying a car (and potentially occupant) destroying device.

This is analagous to the Police dealing with an escaping vehicle by dropping a 10 ton concrete block immediately in their path. That would be unthinkable, so why is this deemed ok?

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An interesting question. I honestly think it is to do with a thought mode that makes cars 'driverless'. Speed enforcement would work if cars were driverless.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I have never heard of these things spearing cars before. I have heard of them lifting cars off the ground though.


Apparently at a local school where I used to live, they had these bollards set up to only allow one parent's car into the pick-up zone at a time. Regularly people would try to tailgate someone into this zone and the bollard would lift their car off the ground.


The only damage caused was buy the little shits that attended the school who would lie in wait on the other side of the fence, and as soon as a car got lifted they would pelt it with stones until it was dropped to the floor again.

I guess the anti-car teaching is more intense than we thought.

The tested bullard would be perfect for a military base but what kind of tosser would install them where parents push little children in prams?