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From: Ian on 13 Dec 2009 10:55 Sod this OE thing, it keeps topposting and I keep screwing up the cut'n'paste to get it to the bottom..... so here is my former post, in the right place, so it makes sense "following on".... Sorry!! ====================== > "S" <s_pickle2001(a)yahoo.com> wrote in message > news:00e0e7b3-1e26-45da-9790-7081b2e4f393(a)g12g2000yqa.googlegroups.com... > On Dec 13, 1:58 pm, Ray Keattch <r.keattch5...(a)btinternet.com> > wrote: >> mike scott wrote: >> > alexander.keys1 wrote: >> >> On 11 Dec, 20:09, Chris Tolley <cj.tol...(a)bogus.co.uk (ukonline >> >> really)> wrote: >> >> >> "A double-decker bus carrying children on a school trip has had >> >>> its roof torn off after crashing into a bridge in Leicester. >> > .... >> >> height marked in the cab? Those that I've seen do. What >> >> happened? >> >> > Satnav in use? >> >> Why satnav? > > Satnav has the effect of turning the driver's brain off, so lorries > go > down narrow country lanes clearly marked as unsuitable for them and > get stuck, because that's the shortest route the satnav finds. > It wasn't a lorry. > > Lorries (tend to be) one lorry - one (or two) drivers. > Lorries which go to many strange destinations MAY sometimes be > fitted with satnav or the driver MAY have his own. > > Most lorry drivers know how to use a satnav properly. > > But: It was a bus. (seen pictures of it on the interwebbything, and > it looked more like a bus, even with its roof off, than a lorry.) > > Now: Buses tend to work all day, and have maybe 6 or 7 different > drivers during the day. > > Buses tend to work the same group of routes all day. > > Most bus drivers know where they are going - indeed, they know which > bit of road to use to minimise bumps. > > Any one busdriver is not very likely to drive the same bus two days > running (although it can happen). > > Any gizmo fitted to a bus only works until its first breakdown - > after that, it only gets fixed if absolutely necessary. > > Bus companies are exttremely unlikely to fit sat nav to their > vehicles. > > Bus drivers are very unlikely to fit sat nav to their vehicles. > > Taking all these factors into consideration, the likelihood that the > bus driver actually had a sat nav is small. And if he or she did > have a sat nav, the likelihood that he or she was relying totally > and blindly on it, is a magnitude of a thousand smaller. > > Please do not extrapolate the effect of a satnav on YOUR brain, th > the effect of a satnav on a lorry or bus drivers brain. > > (IMO, the driver probably either thought it was a cleared DD route, > or was on a route where he would normally have had a SD. His fault > maybe: but NOT sat nav.) > > -- > Please visit our appeal at > http://www.donatetobreastcancer.org/nakedbikeride > > Thanks > Ian
From: Cynic on 13 Dec 2009 11:48 On Fri, 11 Dec 2009 21:47:11 +0000, Denis McMahon <denis.m.f.mcmahon(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> He's certainly guilty of "driving without due care and attention", it >> is the driver's legal responsibility to be aware of hazards and avoid >> them, no excuses. >Looks like there was only the one sign, on the bridge from BBC video of >the bus being pulled away. The driver wasn't on a normal bus route, the >bus was being used for a school trip. >I can understand the driver looking forwards and not up, there may have >been something happening (a) inside his vehicle or (b) ahead of the >vehicle which was occupying his attention. Bear in mind that the reports say that there was fairly dense fog at the time. It is possible that the bridge was not clearly visible at all in such conditions, and certainly the driver would have needed to concentrate far more than normal on the road surface ahead. -- Cynic
From: Roland Perry on 13 Dec 2009 13:40 In message <IMWdnc5VgplMlrjWnZ2dnUVZ8qKdnZ2d(a)brightview.com>, at 15:44:49 on Sun, 13 Dec 2009, Ian <idh(a)henden.co.uk> remarked: >It wasn't a lorry. > >Lorries (tend to be) one lorry - one (or two) drivers. >Lorries which go to many strange destinations MAY sometimes be fitted >with satnav or the driver MAY have his own. > >Most lorry drivers know how to use a satnav properly. > >But: It was a bus. (seen pictures of it on the interwebbything, and it >looked more like a bus, even with its roof off, than a lorry.) > >Now: Buses tend to work all day, and have maybe 6 or 7 different >drivers during the day. > >Buses tend to work the same group of routes all day. This was in Leicester, the bus was a school outing from Nottingham. >Most bus drivers know where they are going - indeed, they know which >bit of road to use to minimise bumps. > >Any one busdriver is not very likely to drive the same bus two days >running (although it can happen). > >Any gizmo fitted to a bus only works until its first breakdown - after >that, it only gets fixed if absolutely necessary. > >Bus companies are exttremely unlikely to fit sat nav to their >vehicles. > >Bus drivers are very unlikely to fit sat nav to their vehicles. The (Nottingham) bus company says no satnav was fitted. >Taking all these factors into consideration, the likelihood that the >bus driver actually had a sat nav is small. And if he or she did have >a sat nav, the likelihood that he or she was relying totally and >blindly on it, is a magnitude of a thousand smaller. > >Please do not extrapolate the effect of a satnav on YOUR brain, th the >effect of a satnav on a lorry or bus drivers brain. > >(IMO, the driver probably either thought it was a cleared DD route, or >was on a route where he would normally have had a SD. His fault >maybe: but NOT sat nav.) There is talk of fog, but you'd have thought lots of people would have confirmed that it was foggy, in their reports at the scene. Plenty of stuff about helping people off the bus, but none saying it was foggy. Fog of war, and all that. -- Roland Perry
From: Denis McMahon on 13 Dec 2009 14:39 Ian wrote: > Buses tend to work the same group of routes all day. Not in this case, it was a school outing, not a scheduled service. > Most bus drivers know where they are going - indeed, they know which > bit of road to use to minimise bumps. See above. > Any one busdriver is not very likely to drive the same bus two days > running (although it can happen). Apparently this driver was driving the vehicle he normally drove. > (IMO, the driver probably either thought it was a cleared DD route, or > was on a route where he would normally have had a SD. His fault > maybe: but NOT sat nav.) He was not "on a route", he was driving a special charter. There didn't seem to be any roadside signage on the bridge approach (from the bbc clip I saw of the bus being pulled away). Reportedly (I didn't see this report) there was dense fog. I can understand a scenario where the driver was concentrating on the road ahead to the extent that he didn't look up and see the bridge height, or even that it didn't register (how many railway bridges does he regularly drive under in the bus and not have a problem, to the point that he's not in the habit of checking the height warning against the height plate in the cab?). I think this may be a "human factors" problem. When a bus driver drives the same routes most of the time, maybe he gets used to the fact that his bus fits under the bridges on those routes, and so gets out of the habit of doing a check when approaching bridges of vehicle height plate vs bridge clearance. Then when he gets sent on a route that he doesn't know, the fact he's out of the habit of doing the height checks leads to bus vs bridge. Rgds Denis McMahon
From: Harry Bloomfield on 13 Dec 2009 17:20
Denis McMahon has brought this to us : > I think this may be a "human factors" problem. When a bus driver drives the > same routes most of the time, maybe he gets used to the fact that his bus > fits under the bridges on those routes, and so gets out of the habit of doing > a check when approaching bridges of vehicle height plate vs bridge clearance. Alternatively.... If he was driving an unfamiliar route, in a bus he was familiar with, surely he ought to have been taking extra care? I can though sympathise with anyone driving a bus full of kids and the distraction they could create. -- Regards, Harry (M1BYT) (L) http://www.ukradioamateur.co.uk |