Be Excellent To Each Other

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7878109.stm

The first one is a mere amateur compared to the last guy, it looks like he loses his shoe!

Two of those got a quite genuine FUCKING HELL out loud.

The last one he was just jogging across!

Jesus!

That's terrifying!

Heh, they showed that clip of the guy losing a trainer on BBC News 24, which was on on a big telly in the canteen at work - it got me to interrupt a conversation with my boss to stare over his shoulder and go "woah! shit!".

If it weren't for the train drivers and passengers, I'd say stop putting out warnings like this. If you're too stupid to understand why running level crossings is dangerous, we don't need you in the gene pool anymore.

For one month only, can't we create a giant metal slidey unmanned anvil thing in every town that swooshes across the road after barriers go down with red lights flashing? The set frequency of this would quickly kill off dare-devil idiots and impatient commuters and yet there would be no poor train driver getting traumatised or passangers put at risk.

And yup, that video of the guy WHO GETS HIS FUCKING TRAINER KNOCKED OFF BY A TRAIN seemingly elliceted a loud "Holy fuck!" from me.

Seeing as people survived, it was not Darwin at work.

Are you implying Darwin was a hitman?

It can only be "Darwin at work" if they don't survive to breed.

Of course, quite a few people die being twats on level crossings. The BBC is hardly going to show footage of someone getting smeared over 100 yards of track, are they? But no, those three specific clips of non-fatal scrapes are not "Darwin at work", but it seems that "ignoring level crossings" certainly tends towards it.

Also "natural selection" is a tendency, not a 100% rule. And you call yourself a scientist. Cuh.

Well, my comment was more that it would be Darwin's theory being demonstrated. Not Darwin at work, because he was a naturalist not a mass murderer.

People will see the video and go "hey look, last minute train escapes look exciting, I'll go do that". And then die. Without breeding. Darwinism at work.

He liked sunbathing in the nude? (subs please check).

seems daft to risk your life for waiting a few mins!!

Nah, Chick-flick-loving-lawyer-wannabe-space-greefa.

Not my type of science. My mate that came up at the weekend it is his type of science though, and he and MrsA had a big debate about the evolution of displays for mating, which was amusing.

I reckon that kid who lost his shoe had a fucked up ankle for weeks, he just didn't notice the smashed bones at the time because of adrenaline.

Feex.

JESUS CHRIST! I mean what the fuck is wrong with people? For the sake of waiting a few minutes and still having a life y'know, whats the massive rush to get over there? Nothing is worth risking your life over!

Seriously, I feel bad for the train driver, fuck those morons, if they are foolish enough to do that serves them right and I don't care if that sounds harsh because they should know better. I bet it frightened the driver to fucking death.

On the one video bit the rail defo needs some of those barriers though

I guess you guys don't have to deal with the local pricks running out in front of your car for shits and giggles then? The missus tends to speed up when they do that. They change their mind pretty quickly. They should put massive battering rams on the front of trains. No danger to anyone who has the sense to STAY OFF but 100% deadly for the retards

Edit: Didn't someone post a youtube link a while back to a public information film from the 70's about train tracks? That was pure, distilled gold.

Nah, round here they've got these little wheeled devices that they stick out on front of them as a useful device to check to see if something is coming and force car drivers into sudden halts.

What are they called again?... Tip of my tongue.... oh, yeah...."prams".

I'm not talking about people messing around in the roads, which is what you are referring to, 4D, but I have a real hatred of drivers that see you crossing the road and accelerate hard at you for their own amusement. They always come across as absolute morons and I bet they are the same sort of people that bully others. I hate it when some drivers lose sense of what it is like to be a pedestrian and make life difficult for people on foot - like not leaving a pedestrian crossing clear so when the light changes you've got a blinkin' Land Rover blocking the way across the road.

I've nearly crashed into cars coming the other way a couple of times because of making sure the cyclist I just overtook is definitely okay. Filthy humanitiarian that I am

Idiots strolling out into roads without looking, though - bastards. The way people react to a proper mid-90s German car horn exploding from 5 feet away is entertaining. People really do have no spatial or environmental awareness these days, or simply expect the world to magically conform to their selfish belligerence.

Yet instead of attempting to reverse this social retardedness and/or its causes, we're no doubt going to end up with locking metal total-closure gates or bridges/tunnels so person need never have to consider waiting for all those tonnes of speeding train again.

Not all that related but 'hatred of drivers' reminded me of this story from yesterday. Obviously innocent till proven guilty but I'd like to hear his excuses.

Apart from saving your life.

Heh - did they do demonstrations?

The buses in Bristol always do this. Always. At any time of day every single pedestrian crossing in Bristol which has a green man showing has a bus parked on it.

Well, they almost did fistfighting.

This was at about midnight ish though.

For fuck's sake.

It's not "Darwin at work" even if people do die. Darwin was only interested in observing evolution. He was not a Eugenicist, and never said anything about 'improving' any species or race.

Absolutely, Darwin was the first Chimp to Pokévolve into a Human.

I said Land Rover because that's what blocked the crossing this morning when I was coming back from the market and what tends to cause most trouble as you can't see past them because of their height, whereas you often can with a car. If it had ben a bus that blocked the way then I would have said that, it is not my fault that it was a Land Rover that parked itself across the pedestrian crossing.

Calm your boots, Grim...

It's not just Land Rovers... it's Range Rovers too. And Cayennes, and Troopers, and Freelanders, and etc, etc, etc...

And wasn't it a landrover with a trailer that went off the road and onto a train track and caused a train crash and killed people? SUVs - bad for the environment, bad for kiddies, and bad for national rail. They're just the car version of satan, aren't they?

As was repeatedly pointed out in the last discussion, it's not the car, it's the driver!
And also the car.

The problem is that you sit so high up in an SUV you can't make out the zebra markings on the road through the low-level cloud cover.

And don't even get started on Tomcats.

And if there were pedestrians about, your turret gunners would sort them out before they even think about crossing your path.

Well, when you are doing something like blocking somewhere for pedestrians or blocking something from sight, the size of the vehicle does have some effect, not that it is excusable whatever you drive, it's just the larger the vehicle, the larger the obstacle, obviously. I have seen buses and lorries do the same thing before now.

It doesn't matter how big the vehicle is. It could be a moped, the fact is, you shouldn't be stopping on a crossing. If there's a chance your not going to get through, don't go. I feel that almost all accidents and road problems are caused by selfish, impatient drivers.

And 4x4s, obv.

A car blocking a crossing leaves it just as blocked as a high one though.

Unless you mean a high bonnet makes the Starsky & Hutch bonnet roll/Dukes of Hazzard slide more difficult.

Quite. Except, SUVs in an urban setting are inexcusable in a completely separate category

Anyway, on railway crossings: I do think the automated barriers and lights are sometimes way too conservative about opening between trains. There's one near here, which if you hit it at the wrong time will be closed for a good 15 or 20 minutes. Two trains will pass during that time, but each one only takes about 10 seconds and then the track is clear again. The barriers don't take long to go up and down so it's a shame they're often set up badly.
Excuseable 60 years ago when you didn't have electronics and reliable radios and what not, but not today.

Yes, you are right, but what I mean is if it is a small car you can usually see over/around it to see if there is anything on the other side/another car pulling up behind. If it is a large car/truck/van/bus it makes that a lot harder. Obviously it is also easier to walk around a mini (giving the evil eye to the driver) than it is a bus.

Sorry, that was a reply to Bik.

I think it's a problem if you're trying to cross behind that vehicle and there's traffic still flowing in the other lane - you end up half way across the road peeping out with a narrow angle of visibility. If you can see over it, it's much safer. But that's a general problem too, not just at crossings.

Um, you enter roads while traffic's still flowing? That's a bit suicidal, isn't it?

How else are you going to get to the other side? The traffic on the still flowing side is only going to stop if they can see you, and you can only see if there's something coming if you can... see.
Hence high vehicles = a hazard in that situation.

There are a lot of drivers who see the red light at pedestrian crossings as more of a guideline than a rule.

Not too bad for that round here but stopping at zebra crossings seem to be entirely optional.