On 03/02/2022 09:01, Roland Perry wrote:
> Unfortunately, the way the law is at the moment the council is probably
> guilty of criminal damage/theft if it does so. The solution (if they had
> the time and energy to abstract from more important matters) is to put
> up a YET ANOTHER sign giving notice that unless the person who erected
> them removes them in 7 days the council will do so, and the sign owner
> will then have 14 days to claim it back from wherever the council stored
> it.

Sticker on the offending sign, big enough to obliterate its message.

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read.

On 03/02/2022 09:01, Roland Perry wrote:
> But what is a traffic engineer supposed to do when a side-road has four
> more restrictions on it than the main road?

Perhaps do not obscure two signs with the illumination for the other two?

On 03/02/2022 09:21, Graeme Wall wrote:
> Sticker on the offending sign, big enough to obliterate its message.
>
> --

The people responsible for the sign will probably never look at it after
installation so unlikely to see that it has been obscured.

On Wed, 02 Feb 2022 22:28:09 +0000, Charles Ellson <charlesellson@btinternet.com> wrote:

>On Tue, 1 Feb 2022 08:07:19 +0000, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk>
>wrote:
>
><snip>
>>As for an absence of vehicles in the 2.88m-3m range that's again
>>something which can be observed. I don't know if there's a regulatory
>>reason, but if we think about engine sizes, there are huge numbers of
>>cars with 1098cc engines and very few 1101-1190 (the next increment
>>typically being 1198).
>>
>OTTOMH a 1098 engine was usually an engine effectively designed as
>1100 with enough metal to allow re-boring to the nominal size (and
>occasionally beyond if it lasted that long).

Such engines were designed to be just under tax band boundaries. So, an 1100cc engined vehicle might be taxed more
highly than a 1098cc engined vehicle. I don't know if such tax bands are still used, so the pressure to have nn00-2 cc
sized engines has probably gone.

On 03/02/2022 11:17, MB wrote:
> On 03/02/2022 09:21, Graeme Wall wrote:
>> Sticker on the offending sign, big enough to obliterate its message.
>>
>> --
>
> The people responsible for the sign will probably never look at it after
> installation so unlikely to see that it has been obscured.
>

Doesn't matter, after the fortnight dismantle the whole thing.

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read.

In message <stbqg1$sgq$1@dont-email.me>, at 17:26:25 on Tue, 1 Feb 2022,
MB <MB@nospam.net> remarked:
>On 01/02/2022 14:36, Roland Perry wrote:
>> I agree that "when appropriate" is a bit awkward to interpret when
>> training. On one hand, perhaps only genuine emergencies are appropriate,
>> on the other hand, if they've never practised it, what could possibly go
>> wrong on their first emergency outing?
>
>They park up and wait for an emergency call to another vehicle and head
>for the scene so legally they are responding to an emergency.

That's an interesting loophole!
--
Roland Perry

In message <stboeo$d20$1@dont-email.me>, at 16:51:37 on Tue, 1 Feb 2022,
GB <NOTsomeone@microsoft.invalid> remarked:
>On 01/02/2022 16:27, Roland Perry wrote:
>>
>>> You've never had to transport stage-sets obviously!
>> Nor do most people. But the ones you refer to, did they fit inside a
>>3.5 ton van, rather than something much heavier?
>
>I looked up the heights of a couple of Luton vans, and they were both
>over 3m. But, you are saying that those rarely hit the bridge.

I'm saying that vans very rarely hit the bridge by more than half an
inch. The majority simply get wedged underneath. Of course the Tiger
stripes take a bit of a beating, but that's because the edge of the
bridge is quite sharp and tends to peel the roof off like a tin-opener.
So it goes upwards and into the stripes.

>"How tall is the tallest Sprinter van? The interior height of the
>tallest Sprinter van is 89 inches (or 2260 mm). The exterior height (or
>clearance) is 120.1 inches (or 3050 mm). This is the roof height H3.
>The second tallest roof height is the H2. This model's interior height
>is 79.9 inches (or 2030 mm), and the exterior height is 111 inches (or
>2820 mm)."
>
>So, there's certainly a range of sizes, but you may be right that there
>are relatively few of the 2.85m+ ones.

And even if there are a few, that doesn't mean preventing all the rest
from hitting it is futile. What if only 1:10 Luton vans are 2.86m-3m,
for example (and ones >3m should probably have a sticker inside, but
perhaps they all don't).

So I thought I'd do an experiment. As I've described before, LWB
Sprinters (and -alikes) aren't very useful because in order to keep
under the 3.5t limit they have a severely restricted payload.

So I counted the ratio of LWB and standard Transit/Sprinter/etc vans
travelling in the opposite direction on the A142 between Newmarket and
Ely this afternoon, as I was driving home. It surprised even me! 1:35

So indeed they aren't very popular at all. Not that this means anything
about their height, but I think that "not very popular at all" might be
a good description of vans between 2.85 and 3m, whether deliberate or
happenstance, we'd have to investigate further.

So if we could get the bridge fixed to allow through these 2.87(?)metre
Mercedes and clones, perhaps as many as 9:10 of the bashes simply won't
occur. And that'll thoroughly take it off the top end of the "most
bashed" list.
--
Roland Perry

In message <80pivgp3qd7k9319793c5fvhmltnho6p9n@4ax.com>, at 16:58:39 on
Tue, 1 Feb 2022, Mark Goodge <usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk>
remarked:
>On Tue, 1 Feb 2022 14:36:51 +0000, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk>
>wrote:
>
>>In message <stbf4g$5av$1@dont-email.me>, at 14:12:32 on Tue, 1 Feb 2022,
>>MB <MB@nospam.net> remarked:
>>
>>>On 01/02/2022 11:46, Roland Perry wrote:
>>
>>>> Apparently there's no legislation to make an exception, unlike that
>>>> which says that when appropriate they can exceed the speed limit and
>>>> run red traffic lights.
>>>
>>>Some regulations for ambulances are quite strict, more so than the
>>>police. Ambulances can't break speed limits and cross red lights during
>>>training unlike the police who can drive around like maniacs (and do)
>>>and say they are practising.
>>
>>I agree that "when appropriate" is a bit awkward to interpret when
>>training. On one hand, perhaps only genuine emergencies are appropriate,
>>on the other hand, if they've never practised it, what could possibly go
>>wrong on their first emergency outing?
>
>Possibly a little counter to popular opinion, speed in transit is rarely
>a critical factor in ambulance response times.

So all this talk of "Golden Hour" is nonsense? And all the graduated
target times for different class of call out.

Approximately half of all ambulance trips are *to* a casualty, and even
they don't just scoop and run, getting to someone with a heart attack,
severe bleeding or whatever, is pretty time-critical while "ECS".

>Unlike the police, where half a minute can make the difference between
>catching a perpetrator in the act or not, or, of course, when chasing
>another vehicle. So ambulance drivers are trained to be cautious about
>breaking the speed limit or going through red lights, and only do so
>when they can be certain of doing so safely.

No-one suggested they were overly gung-ho, but they do jump lights etc
all the time.

>They don't need to be as gung ho as the police, and therefore aren't.
>
>>>I believe they
>>
>>??Police drivers practising, or something else??
>
>Ambulance drivers, as is obvious from the context.

I don't think it's practical for an ambulance driver to get out of his
cab and engage a driver ahead in conversation, in any event.

>>>cannot give permission for a non-emergency vehicle do things like going
>>>through a red light to allow an ambulance through which is why the turn
>>>off sirens at red lights.

I've seen Ambulances turn off sirens at red level crossings, but they
rarely get stuck at red traffic lights.

>>I thought any police officer in uniform[1] could do that, regardless of
>>what else they were doing at the time, practising or otherwise.
>
>Yes, but an ambulance driver isn't a police officer, and cannot
>therefore give permission for another vehicle to go through a red light.

No-one suggested they could.
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:

>
> I've seen Ambulances turn off sirens at red level crossings, but they
> rarely get stuck at red traffic lights.
>

I've frequently seen them stuck 3-4 vehicles back from the red traffic
lights; as you say, they turn off the sirens while there's no opportunity
for them to proceed.

Anna Noyd-Dryver

On Thu, 3 Feb 2022 09:21:16 +0000, Graeme Wall
<rail@greywall.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>On 03/02/2022 09:01, Roland Perry wrote:
>> Unfortunately, the way the law is at the moment the council is probably
>> guilty of criminal damage/theft if it does so. The solution (if they had
>> the time and energy to abstract from more important matters) is to put
>> up a YET ANOTHER sign giving notice that unless the person who erected
>> them removes them in 7 days the council will do so, and the sign owner
>> will then have 14 days to claim it back from wherever the council stored
>> it.
>
>Sticker on the offending sign, big enough to obliterate its message.
>
If it isn't fixed in position or secured to something, other councils
would have no difficulty in treating it as a highway obstruction and
taking it away.

On Thu, 03 Feb 2022 12:00:39 +0000, Recliner
<recliner.usenet@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Wed, 02 Feb 2022 22:28:09 +0000, Charles Ellson <charlesellson@btinternet.com> wrote:
>
>>On Tue, 1 Feb 2022 08:07:19 +0000, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk>
>>wrote:
>>
>><snip>
>>>As for an absence of vehicles in the 2.88m-3m range that's again
>>>something which can be observed. I don't know if there's a regulatory
>>>reason, but if we think about engine sizes, there are huge numbers of
>>>cars with 1098cc engines and very few 1101-1190 (the next increment
>>>typically being 1198).
>>>
>>OTTOMH a 1098 engine was usually an engine effectively designed as
>>1100 with enough metal to allow re-boring to the nominal size (and
>>occasionally beyond if it lasted that long).
>
>Such engines were designed to be just under tax band boundaries. So, an 1100cc engined vehicle might be taxed more
>highly than a 1098cc engined vehicle. I don't know if such tax bands are still used, so the pressure to have nn00-2 cc
>sized engines has probably gone.
>
I have a reference for 1999 - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/357607.stm
but e.g. 1098cc Austin-Morris engines predate that by a long time. The
1100cc threshold was upped to 1200cc in 2001 :-
https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/2001/2/15/small-cars-to-benefit-from-road-tax-change/8696/

Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
> In message <stboeo$d20$1@dont-email.me>, at 16:51:37 on Tue, 1 Feb 2022,
>
>
> So I thought I'd do an experiment. As I've described before, LWB
> Sprinters (and -alikes) aren't very useful because in order to keep
> under the 3.5t limit they have a severely restricted payload.
>
> So I counted the ratio of LWB and standard Transit/Sprinter/etc vans
> travelling in the opposite direction on the A142 between Newmarket and
> Ely this afternoon, as I was driving home. It surprised even me! 1:35
>
> So indeed they aren't very popular at all.

Might be interesting to see who is using them, I had a company Vauxhall
Vivaro which because it replaced an Estate car was just about top of the
range at the time, Air con, interior trim,Metallic paint finish for which I
chose Black, Tinted windows which included side ones in the sliding doors
to the load area and a set of passenger seats behind the drivers which were
quickly removable,tailgate instead of rattly rear doors.
Like many vans of the type it was basically used as a large mobile toolbox
with racking for various spares and a relatively small load area and we
were offered the Vans to that spec to temp us into using them as some
equipment was getting bigger to the extent that getting it into an estate
was hurting backs . It was a SWB as that made finding parking in towns on
ordinary bays easier .
When the time came to replace it I was reluctant to see it go as it was
such a pleasant vehicle to use
and I did have the option to purchase it from the lease company at a very
good price, at the time my brother was looking for a decent Van for his job
as a self employed builder and if it had been a LWB
would have snapped my arm off for it.The reason he declined was that
frequently small tradesmen like him often have to nip to Wickes ,Travis
Perkins etc to pick up some sheets of plasterboard ,MDF
or similar materials. The standard 8ft length of such materials isn’t easy
to fit in a SWB unless they are almost empty or devoid of tool boxes etc
whereas the LWB vans can accommodate such sheets and some other materials
or tools relatively easy.

GH

On 03/02/2022 23:20, Charles Ellson wrote:
> On Thu, 3 Feb 2022 09:21:16 +0000, Graeme Wall
> <rail@greywall.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> On 03/02/2022 09:01, Roland Perry wrote:
>>> Unfortunately, the way the law is at the moment the council is probably
>>> guilty of criminal damage/theft if it does so. The solution (if they had
>>> the time and energy to abstract from more important matters) is to put
>>> up a YET ANOTHER sign giving notice that unless the person who erected
>>> them removes them in 7 days the council will do so, and the sign owner
>>> will then have 14 days to claim it back from wherever the council stored
>>> it.
>>
>> Sticker on the offending sign, big enough to obliterate its message.
>>
> If it isn't fixed in position or secured to something, other councils
> would have no difficulty in treating it as a highway obstruction and
> taking it away.

Isn't he complaining about the housing developer signs that are fixed to
convenient poles in the landscape?

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read.

In message <stbq45$r2j$1@dont-email.me>, at 17:20:05 on Tue, 1 Feb 2022,
Tweed <usenet.tweed@gmail.com> remarked:

>Every ambulance on blue lights round here goes as fast as they are able and
>jumps every red light they can, to the extent of driving on the wrong side
>of the road to skip the queues at the lights.

That's normally the case here, which is why I was surprised, recently,
to see one get stuck behind a car which hadn't pulled far enough across
the pavement (pulling across at all being advised against in the Highway
Code) on the exit of a traffic light junction. Normally they'd just
whizz the Ambulance down the wrong side of the road.
--
Roland Perry

In message <3vrivgliap7qlv9plpbaa26n02vcttrspo@4ax.com>, at 17:46:14 on
Tue, 1 Feb 2022, Mark Goodge <usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk>
remarked:
>On Tue, 1 Feb 2022 17:20:05 -0000 (UTC), Tweed <usenet.tweed@gmail.com>
>wrote:
>
>>Mark Goodge <usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>> Yes, but an ambulance driver isn't a police officer, and cannot
>>> therefore give permission for another vehicle to go through a red light.
>>
>>It only requires a change in the law to allow ambulance drivers to act as a
>>police officer in this context. There is presumably a reason why this
>>hasn’t happened.
>
>Even the police don't expect other vehicles to go through red lights in
>order to get out of their way, even though they are, technically, able
>to instruct them to do so. The ability of a police officer to tell a
>driver to disregard the lights (or other road traffic law) is intended
>for circumstances when that's necessary to clear the road for everybody
>- for example, when the lights have failed on red, or when a one-way
>street is blocked and people need to be authorised to leave in the
>"wrong" direction. And when an officer exercises that right, he is
>expected to have properly assessed the situation and is sure that giving
>such an instruction will not generate significant danger to anyone. None
>of which is applicable to a police car running on blues and twos.

And yet they do it. I remember following a police car gingerly (urban
30mph dual carriageway, he was doing maybe 20mph in the lefthand lane, I
would otherwise have been doing slightly more in the righthand lane) as
we both approached a crossroads with red lights. So we slowed down in
our side-by-side convoy until he was about a car length from the red
lights, at which point he floored the accelerator and screeched across
my front and through the red lights, into the road on the right.

It was all so sudden it seems unlikely to have been fully assessed.
Afterwards I did wonder if the slowish-speed he'd been going earlier
was because he was preoccupied taking instructions on his radio.

Another incident on the same bit of dual carriageway, an ambulance on
blues and twos overtakes me and a little way ahead turns right down what
I know to be a fairly short cul-de-sac. "Wonder what's going on there" I
think.

Twenty seconds later the ambulance emerges, even faster, still on blues
and twos turning right, in front of me, almost on only two wheels and
carries on down the dual carriageway. I suppose he was cross at having
taken a wrong turning, but could not possibly have assessed the traffic
coming in the opposite direction.
--
Roland Perry

In message <oq0mvgtt44igoul9spmtdncqllqs85fld4@4ax.com>, at 22:28:09 on
Wed, 2 Feb 2022, Charles Ellson <charlesellson@btinternet.com> remarked:
>On Tue, 1 Feb 2022 08:07:19 +0000, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk>
>wrote:
>
><snip>
>>As for an absence of vehicles in the 2.88m-3m range that's again
>>something which can be observed. I don't know if there's a regulatory
>>reason, but if we think about engine sizes, there are huge numbers of
>>cars with 1098cc engines and very few 1101-1190 (the next increment
>>typically being 1198).
>>
>OTTOMH a 1098 engine was usually an engine effectively designed as
>1100 with enough metal to allow re-boring to the nominal size (and
>occasionally beyond if it lasted that long).
><snip.

Yes, but deliberately starting off below 1100 (you could just as easily
have a 1102 engine delivered new as 1100) because of various taxation
band issues.
--
Roland Perry

In message <jignvgp5m4qult8vrgorbgkeetu2qp1rk0@4ax.com>, at 12:00:39 on
Thu, 3 Feb 2022, Recliner <recliner.usenet@gmail.com> remarked:
>On Wed, 02 Feb 2022 22:28:09 +0000, Charles Ellson
><charlesellson@btinternet.com> wrote:
>
>>On Tue, 1 Feb 2022 08:07:19 +0000, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk>
>>wrote:
>>
>><snip>
>>>As for an absence of vehicles in the 2.88m-3m range that's again
>>>something which can be observed. I don't know if there's a regulatory
>>>reason, but if we think about engine sizes, there are huge numbers of
>>>cars with 1098cc engines and very few 1101-1190 (the next increment
>>>typically being 1198).
>>>
>>OTTOMH a 1098 engine was usually an engine effectively designed as
>>1100 with enough metal to allow re-boring to the nominal size (and
>>occasionally beyond if it lasted that long).
>
>Such engines were designed to be just under tax band boundaries. So, an
>1100cc engined vehicle might be taxed more highly than a 1098cc engined
>vehicle.

Absolutely, and not just tax in the UK, such engines were designed for
worldwide consumption.

>I don't know if such tax bands are still used, so the pressure to have
>nn00-2 cc sized engines has probably gone.

In the UK we've pretty much gone to emissions CO2, rather than pure
engine size (which was a rather simpler proxy for that).

--
Roland Perry

In message <0roovgpqm45nh4dpf36qrg8rj37q4nesue@4ax.com>, at 23:33:00 on
Thu, 3 Feb 2022, Charles Ellson <charlesellson@btinternet.com> remarked:
>On Thu, 03 Feb 2022 12:00:39 +0000, Recliner
><recliner.usenet@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On Wed, 02 Feb 2022 22:28:09 +0000, Charles Ellson
>><charlesellson@btinternet.com> wrote:
>>
>>>On Tue, 1 Feb 2022 08:07:19 +0000, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk>
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>><snip>
>>>>As for an absence of vehicles in the 2.88m-3m range that's again
>>>>something which can be observed. I don't know if there's a regulatory
>>>>reason, but if we think about engine sizes, there are huge numbers of
>>>>cars with 1098cc engines and very few 1101-1190 (the next increment
>>>>typically being 1198).
>>>>
>>>OTTOMH a 1098 engine was usually an engine effectively designed as
>>>1100 with enough metal to allow re-boring to the nominal size (and
>>>occasionally beyond if it lasted that long).
>>
>>Such engines were designed to be just under tax band boundaries. So,
>>an 1100cc engined vehicle might be taxed more
>>highly than a 1098cc engined vehicle. I don't know if such tax bands
>>are still used, so the pressure to have nn00-2 cc
>>sized engines has probably gone.
>>
>I have a reference for 1999 - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/357607.stm
>but e.g. 1098cc Austin-Morris engines predate that by a long time. The
>1100cc threshold was upped to 1200cc in 2001 :-

>https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/2001/2/15/small-cars-to-benefit-from-ro
>ad-tax-change/8696/

1549 it says here, so I suppose that catches all the "nominally 1600cc
and above", 1500's weren't a very popular size:

<https://www.carbuyer.co.uk/car-tax/112227/uk-road-tax-2022-ved-tax-rates
-and-bands-explained>

Ford Escorts of that era had engine sizes such as (source, wikipedia):

1.3 L (1297 cc) HCS 60 PS (44 kW; 59 bhp)
1.4 L EFi (1392 cc) CVH 75 PS (55 kW; 74 bhp)
1.6 L EFi (1598 cc) Zetec 90 PS (66 kW; 89 bhp)
1.8 L EFi (1796 cc) Zetec 105 PS (77 kW; 104 bhp)
2.0 L EFi (1998 cc) I4 DOHC 150 PS (110 kW; 148 bhp)
2.0 L (1993 cc) Cosworth YBT 227 PS (167 kW; 224 bhp)
1.8 L (1781 cc) VW AP 96 PS (71 kW; 95 bhp)
2.0 L (1984 cc) VW AP 116 PS (85 kW; 114 bhp)
--
Roland Perry

On 04/02/2022 09:41, Roland Perry wrote:
> That's normally the case here, which is why I was surprised, recently,
> to see one get stuck behind a car which hadn't pulled far enough across
> the pavement (pulling across at all being advised against in the Highway
> Code) on the exit of a traffic light junction. Normally they'd just
> whizz the Ambulance down the wrong side of the road.

The thing to be very wary of is letting an emergency vehicle past at a
red traffic light if there is a camera. There is a well known case of
someone doing that for an unmarked police car on blues.

In message <p54mvg9kiatkr2qock9kc74dhvoen98jpg@4ax.com>, at 23:25:45 on
Wed, 2 Feb 2022, Charles Ellson <charlesellson@btinternet.com> remarked:
>On Tue, 1 Feb 2022 14:36:51 +0000, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk>
>wrote:
>
>>In message <stbf4g$5av$1@dont-email.me>, at 14:12:32 on Tue, 1 Feb 2022,
>>MB <MB@nospam.net> remarked:
>>
>>>On 01/02/2022 11:46, Roland Perry wrote:
>>
>>>> Apparently there's no legislation to make an exception, unlike that
>>>> which says that when appropriate they can exceed the speed limit and
>>>> run red traffic lights.
>>>
>>>Some regulations for ambulances are quite strict, more so than the
>>>police. Ambulances can't break speed limits and cross red lights during
>>>training unlike the police who can drive around like maniacs (and do)
>>>and say they are practising.
>>
>>I agree that "when appropriate" is a bit awkward to interpret when
>>training. On one hand, perhaps only genuine emergencies are appropriate,
>>on the other hand, if they've never practised it, what could possibly go
>>wrong on their first emergency outing?
>>
>>>I believe they
>>
>>??Police drivers practising, or something else??
>>
>>>cannot give permission for a non-emergency vehicle do things like going
>>>through a red light to allow an ambulance through which is why the turn
>>>off sirens at red lights.
>>
>>I thought any police officer in uniform[1] could do that, regardless of
>>what else they were doing at the time, practising or otherwise.
>>
>>In other news, I was in Cambridge last week and an ambulance coming the
>>other way at a junction got stuck. (There was nothing I could have done
>>to help). In my view they should have gone the wrong side of a traffic
>>island, especially as all the other traffic had stopped.
>>
>>The problem was a car driver who had ignored the Highway Code and no
>>doubt with good intent, mounted the pavement to let them pass. (The HC
>>specifically says not to do this). But they hadn't quite cleared enough
>>of the road, so had to drive a bit further forward and sideways.
>>
>>Not sure what they would be recommended to do as an alternative.
>>
>>Stopping on the road (like everyone else had) would have blocked it even
>>more, and it takes nerves of steel to carry on driving with an ambulance
>>on blues and twos on your tail, until you get to a bit of road with
>>sufficient clearance for them to overtake. Especially as you might soon
>>get blocked by another well-meaning person who has stopped (rinse and
>>repeat).
>>
>>[1] Is there even caselaw that the policeman has to be on-site, what if
>> you phoned a friend who was a policeman, checked he had his uniform
>> on, explained the situation and asked him to tell you to pass the
>> red light? Or maybe they are trained to always say "no".
>>
>I have been aware of a driver being told over the radio that they have
>permission/instruction to ignore a banned turn or similar; possibly
>jocular but you never know what sort of clown might have wasted police
>time with a complaint about them doing so previously. AFAIAA the
>person giving such an instruction only has to be a "constable in
>uniform" but without considering (originally in 1930 or earlier) they
>might not be there in person.

There's an assistant chief constable I worked with quite a lot (devising
policy for e-crime investigations) and while he wore a suit most of the
time, he had a dress uniform hanging on a hook on the back of his office
door, in case he needed to greet a VIP, or talk to the press. I always
wondered if I could make a call and say "do me a favour..." And would he
need to put more than the jacket on, and should it have been buttoned
up?
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
> In message <jignvgp5m4qult8vrgorbgkeetu2qp1rk0@4ax.com>, at 12:00:39 on
> Thu, 3 Feb 2022, Recliner <recliner.usenet@gmail.com> remarked:
>> On Wed, 02 Feb 2022 22:28:09 +0000, Charles Ellson
>> <charlesellson@btinternet.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, 1 Feb 2022 08:07:19 +0000, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> <snip>
>>>> As for an absence of vehicles in the 2.88m-3m range that's again
>>>> something which can be observed. I don't know if there's a regulatory
>>>> reason, but if we think about engine sizes, there are huge numbers of
>>>> cars with 1098cc engines and very few 1101-1190 (the next increment
>>>> typically being 1198).
>>>>
>>> OTTOMH a 1098 engine was usually an engine effectively designed as
>>> 1100 with enough metal to allow re-boring to the nominal size (and
>>> occasionally beyond if it lasted that long).
>>
>> Such engines were designed to be just under tax band boundaries. So, an
>> 1100cc engined vehicle might be taxed more highly than a 1098cc engined
>> vehicle.
>
> Absolutely, and not just tax in the UK, such engines were designed for
> worldwide consumption.
>
>> I don't know if such tax bands are still used, so the pressure to have
>> nn00-2 cc sized engines has probably gone.
>
> In the UK we've pretty much gone to emissions CO2, rather than pure
> engine size (which was a rather simpler proxy for that).
>

I checked, and found that modern engines still seem to go for nn98 cc, so
there are presumably still countries that have rounded tax bands, with
bigger engines charged more.

Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
> In message <st907b$ssj$1@dont-email.me>, at 15:45:47 on Mon, 31 Jan
> 2022, Sam Wilson <ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> remarked:
>> GB <NOTsomeone@microsoft.invalid> wrote:
>>> On 31/01/2022 15:03, Roland Perry wrote:
>>>
>>>>> They know they are close to the indicated bridge height, but they
>>>>> reckon there's probably a safety margin built in. So, build in a
>>>>> bigger safety margin, and it will all be fine!
>>>>
>>>> Is 15cm not sufficient?
>>>
>>> You want to spend say £1m lowering the roadway in order to make the
>>> margin 18cm. :)
>>>
>>> You have no evidence that it will work. Yes, I know that 9 out of 10
>>> collisions were caused by drivers only misjudging by a couple of cms,
>>> but you have no evidence that they won't continue to do so after the
>>> road is expensively lowered.
>>
>> I’ve tried to take this up with Roland before but he insists, without much
>> in the way of evidence except that the vans that are a couple of inches too
>> tall are the ones that hit the bridge, that there is a break point in the
>> distribution of van heights at around 2.85.
>
> Find me some which are. It might take you a while.

No, you keep insisting that there is a fleet of vans out there that are a
couple of inches too tall for the bridge and that raising the bridge that
far will make sure that no vans hit it. It’s up to you to verify that
claim. You keep producing evidence of vans that are just too tall, but you
provide no evidence of vans that are more than a couple of inches too tall
because they don’t hit or scrape the bridge. On the basis of the evidence
you present it’s impossible to distinguish your thesis from a case of
classic observer bias. Abraham Wald might have had something to say about
it.

> An analogy I've used before is multi-storeys and SUVs. Typically the
> former will have a height limit of 2m, and that works fine because even
> the taller SUVs are rarely above 1.85m. If there were significant
> numbers of SUVs that are 2.05m tall, I'm sure we'd have heard the
> complaints about them being excluded from the facilities everyone
> else uses.

Or perhaps, just perhaps, SUV designers know that to fit into common spaces
like car parks they have to make vehicles that fit under a 2 m bar.
Where’s the evolutionary pressure like that to make vans fit into a 2.85 m
high space?

Sam

--
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Anna Noyd-Dryver <anna@noyd-dryver.com> wrote:
> Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>
>> I've seen Ambulances turn off sirens at red level crossings, but they
>> rarely get stuck at red traffic lights.
>>
>
> I've frequently seen them stuck 3-4 vehicles back from the red traffic
> lights; as you say, they turn off the sirens while there's no opportunity
> for them to proceed.

Only last week I saw something almost opposite to that. An ambulance was
approaching a junction with traffic lights and a pedestrian island. It was
on blues and twos on the wrong side of the road passing a queue of stopped
traffic at the red light. When it reached the head of the queue, instead of
passing the wrong side of the island it nosed into the queue and switched
to a different siren noise to get the leading offside car to pass the
lights to let it through. It seemed odd at the time.

Sam

--
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MB <MB@nospam.net> wrote:
> On 02/02/2022 23:25, Charles Ellson wrote:
>> I have been aware of a driver being told over the radio that they have
>> permission/instruction to ignore a banned turn or similar; possibly
>> jocular but you never know what sort of clown might have wasted police
>> time with a complaint about them doing so previously. AFAIAA the
>> person giving such an instruction only has to be a "constable in
>> uniform" but without considering (originally in 1930 or earlier) they
>> might not be there in person.
>
> An ex-police friend told me once he would sometimes get a call from EOD
> vehicles on the way to an incident, requesting permission to use the
> hard shoulder on the motorway (before the law was changed).

Some years ago I was driving with friends along the M20 towards Dover when
we joined the back of three lines of slow moving traffic, at maybe 30 or 40
mph. At the front were two or three police cars with blue lights on.
After a minute or two a nondescript unmarked saloon - something like a grey
Ford Focus but I don’t remember exactly - came haring down the hard
shoulder followed at some distance by another police car with blue lights.
Once they’d passed the leading police cars turned off their lights and the
whole caboodle accelerated back up to 70 mph. We couldn’t tell whether it
was a pursuit or an escort.

Sam

--
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On Fri, 4 Feb 2022 10:15:45 +0000
Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>In message <p54mvg9kiatkr2qock9kc74dhvoen98jpg@4ax.com>, at 23:25:45 on
>Wed, 2 Feb 2022, Charles Ellson <charlesellson@btinternet.com> remarked:
>>I have been aware of a driver being told over the radio that they have
>>permission/instruction to ignore a banned turn or similar; possibly
>>jocular but you never know what sort of clown might have wasted police
>>time with a complaint about them doing so previously. AFAIAA the
>>person giving such an instruction only has to be a "constable in
>>uniform" but without considering (originally in 1930 or earlier) they
>>might not be there in person.
>
>There's an assistant chief constable I worked with quite a lot (devising
>policy for e-crime investigations) and while he wore a suit most of the

Another unsubtle Roland humblebrag.

I'm surprised you haven't casually dropped into a conversation being quoted in
this months PC Pro.