Safe Speed Forums

That's a non-sequiture. I still get paid when I take annual leave or remain home with sickness.

As always, there are options for those who are willing to look. An example: give a performance bonus for those who are willing to reside nearby on risky days; would the directive still apply? When our department received bonuses for completing week-long training sessions (including hotel stays and plane flights), does that mean I would have been paid to work >120 hours in a week? (ps, we can't opt out of the directive).
Can train drivers become consultants?

I did say that the on-call scheme for doctors is different.

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

I have always refused to opt-out.
And the hours are not 48 a week maximum. The hours are a maximum of 48 hours per week averaged over a 17 week period, which can (by agreement) be averaged over 52 weeks.
Since holidays do not qualify as working time, and the holidays per year are 28 days, that gives a week of (about) 52 hours.
Night workers, as said, are not allowed an opt-out. So their week is 48 hours max.
Since train drivers are shift workers their working times are variable....
But the employer has to pay attention anyway....

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

There we go, that's all we need (and thanks for the clarification).
Very few days per year pose enough risk to warrant drivers being retained close to their posts, so they're unlikely to exceed their average working allowance (unless their average is already very close 48 hours, if so a bonus system could be considered).

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

Believe it or not, train drivers already work to the limits.
Rotating three shifts takes it out of people.
Don't forget the mandatory hours-worked/rest times for night workers. Which has to be factored into the limits for times.
Staff have to be available to cover for holiday/sickness and absence.
Whole departments are used just to enable the staff planning....
Never mind for the 2 days in 18 years bad weather.
Loads of time has been spent trying to figure why the USA can cope with bad weather every year, while Britain fails to cope with bad weather once in a blue 10 years...
The answer is simple: Who is going to invest in snow clearing gear for one year in eighteen ?

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

our council only gritted the roads that are used foe enforcement

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now retired

I hear Snake Pass is still closed.


However.. Switzerland did grind to a halt in early December. Went to minus 35 degrees and their system in Zurich just was not designed for that degree of coldness. The Swiss ended up gridlocked for a change (Wildy has all the press cuttings)

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

Smilies are contagious
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KEEP SMILING
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Smily to penny.. penny to pound
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I should take a look in each forum before posting as I have posted twice in news and in safety on same topics

But then .. I come home. I play with the kids. I fiddle around on the internet. I do not always find the time to peruse all threads .. nor does my wife. Our family is just too big.. and we have two more due soon. (They look cute. on scans to date .. . but cute means bother )

_________________
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.

But road safety means what it says on the tin. I would interpret this as "grit on the offchance they touch the pedal slightly and power up to above lolly in a split second before returning to "legal" ish .. as alleged in the Manchester case

_________________
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.

GPS only get this perk. Hospital based don't.. but juniors to middle ranks do get overtime pay .. as do nursing staff for hours above contracted hours.

My first contract as a junior medic gave me an option of one weekend per month or two weekends per month. I got paid overtime for those weekends by the way.. even back then As they took me above contracted hours (LONG) when I worked 'em


If you are hourly paid in some industries. you get SSP .. which is about £75 per 5 day week only. If salaried .. you get paid normally in most firms. All get holiday pay based on a standard week as contracted per employment contract. Usually based on 40 hour standards

But it still does not explain why this country ceased to operate over a few inches of snow when the incredibly bad winter of 1942 did not stop the war effort nor did 1963 with months of frozen solid rivers and seas .. along with feet of snow in the rurals .. . prevent England's main towns .. like London etc from a normal work-a-day industry.

_________________
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.

Perhaps therein is the problem. Ease back the working hours a little bit to build up some contingency time. If the disruption is due to the drivers being unable to make it in, surely this is absolutely the simplest solution of all?
This has got to be financially much better than losing revenue as well as future business (customers remaining with the alternate mode of transport they were forced to use).

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

In 1942 we had war time economy which meant "action this day" with no need to count the cost. In 1947, my father told me, large numbers of PoWs were formed into road-clearing gangs. Despite that there was considerable disruption before things got organised. In 1963, from my own memory, there was initial confusion before things got organised.

In those far off days we were much less dependant on road transport. Most of us walked to school or work so snow merely meant wearing wellies instead or clogs. There was a huge amount of coal burned back then, both industrially and domestically, and the ash from these fires was put on the road, removing the need for gritting.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Everything relates to moral hazard. If there is no personal downside to staying home,
then that is what people will do. A safety inspector will feel free to close a school or stop
a train, unless we punish him later for doing so. A banker will run the business
into the ground, as long as he gets out with his massive pension pot.

The obvious answer is to punish those that cause the trouble, and reward those who sort it out.
The British always do everything arse about tit, though. So they reward those that cause trouble,
and punish those who sort it out, then wonder why things don't work!

What explains the difference is that we have far more reliant on mechanised transport. Even 30 years ago most children were within easy walking distance of their schools but now the government's idea of giving "choice" has meant people driving miles in all directions dropping off children. Many more people now live beyond walking distance of their work and it has been so slippery on the minor roads here that cycling is not possible. Village shops have closed so you have to drive miles even to get the basics.

You're right Semitone, I also think attitude has a lot to do with it. Personally I wouldn't have a problem with walking three or four miles to work (about an hour/hour and a half walk). But, having read a thread on Pistonheads, there are a lot of people who wouldn't be willing to do this. Go back 20/30 years and it would be completely acceptable and you'd be expected to make the effort to get in. Not so these days.

There's a tone of disapproval in this thread, as if everybody has slipped but us (the posters). Yet Shakespeare teaches us that the general nature of the people doesn't change in many lifetimes, yet alone in 2 or three decades. If things are different, what is the cause - surely it's not just "people are worse nowadays"?

As an eco-facist tree-hugger it seems ludicrous to make a big macho issue about fighting the weather. Let nature have her way for a couple of days and ignore work and play in the snow. But, and this is the crucial bit, catch up by working a weekend or let the schools shorten one of their long holidays by a couple of days.

We are far too bound to the fixed hours, fixed days working culture. If nothing else it puts an enormous strain on the transport and power infrastructures.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

You're right there Abeecrombie, and thank you for acting as a bit of a conscience to us!

I don't think people are worse nowadays (despite the tone of my last post!), I believe every generation thinks this about the current one though! I suspect there are many factors relating to the change in attitude. The biggest that I can think of is probably peoples perception of risk and what an accetpable level of risk is (that links quite nicely into speeding too, but not on this thread!).

For example, 20/30 years ago a given population size would've been expected to walk to work despite the weather. In the course of that commute 25% may've tripped or fallen, 5% would've been injured seriously enough to be off work, 3% for longer than a week, 0.5% permanently injured and 0.01% fatally. Maybe the cost to society (of such a commute) is now thought too high both morally and financially and it is cheaper, and more ethical, to allow people one or two days off?

NB - All the figures in the above post were plucked out of thin air to illustrate my point. Please don't attach any significance to them.

The trouble is by being protected from danger we are not learning how to deal with potentially dangerous situations.

As the chief inspector of the HSE said several years ago, life is not risk free, nor should we be striving for a risk averse society, we should be dealing with serious risks and managing them sensibly.

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Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk

Eeeee, when I were a lad, winter hadn't arrived 'till Snake pass was closed.