3 ms·

At one point we were not allowed to drive for anything non-essential. (was this the case for Cummings at the time? it's still the case where I live in Wales) S

At one point we were not allowed to drive for anything non-essential. (was this the case for Cummings at the time? it's still the case where I live in Wales) Stated reasons were (1) reducing load on health services from road accidents (which has worked - my friend in A&E says he's "never sat around on his arse so much at work before"); (2) reduce transmission of virus at fuel stations, risk to breakdown services, etc

marcoperaza 6y ago
Driving around was one of the ways I kept my sanity through all this. I'm sorry your government came up with such stupid rules.
- sideshowb 6y ago
  Yeah I'm not very enamoured with Welsh rules at the moment, especially the fact they are only revised every 3 weeks. Personally I'm lucky to live in the countryside, really feel for those trapped in cities though.
  - Nursie 6y ago
    I'm happy in my city, but then I live in the centre of a small-ish city on the South coast, we have a small garden and there are parks nearby. I feel for people stuck in apartments!
makomk 6y ago
The restrictions in Wales were generally stricter than the English ones. In England, people were somewhat advised against driving to national parks or other green spaces to walk, but ... well, read the wording of the Government's own contemporary FAQ and see: https://web.archive.org/web/20200402224312/https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-outbreak-faqs-what-you-can-and-cant-do/coronavirus-outbreak-faqs-what-you-can-and-cant-do#can-i-go-to-the-park https://web.archive.org/web/20200402224312/https://www.gov.u... Quite vague and fuzzy, isn't it? If I remember rightly, there was actually a bit of a controversy over this because the police in some areas got it into their heads that no-one should be driving to places to walk full stop and started pushing that message and complaining about people not following it, even though that wasn't actually a rule. Though it's entirely possible a lot of the media coverage of that has also been memory-holed and only exists in the Wayback machine; the BBC in particular have been completely rewriting articles a lot lately. (The restriction to one session of exercise per day was also only legally enforceable in Wales and not England, for some reason, even though it was part of the advice in both.)
- Nursie 6y ago
  > If I remember rightly, there was actually a bit of a controversy over this because the police in some areas got it into their heads that no-one should be driving to places to walk full stop There was a law mismatch here. The government were saying you can't do that, however the legal powers they had (and the powers they delegated to the police) were not sufficient to actually stop people for some of the things they were stopping them for. I think Derbyshire police were the worst for that. So it's possible here that Dominic Cummings didn't break the lockdown laws, but he certainly broke the lockdown rules his own government were telling the public.

marcoperaza 6y ago

Driving around was one of the ways I kept my sanity through all this. I'm sorry your government came up with such stupid rules.

sideshowb 6y ago
Yeah I'm not very enamoured with Welsh rules at the moment, especially the fact they are only revised every 3 weeks. Personally I'm lucky to live in the countryside, really feel for those trapped in cities though.
- Nursie 6y ago
  I'm happy in my city, but then I live in the centre of a small-ish city on the South coast, we have a small garden and there are parks nearby. I feel for people stuck in apartments!

makomk 6y ago

The restrictions in Wales were generally stricter than the English ones. In England, people were somewhat advised against driving to national parks or other green spaces to walk, but ... well, read the wording of the Government's own contemporary FAQ and see: https://web.archive.org/web/20200402224312/https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-outbreak-faqs-what-you-can-and-cant-do/coronavirus-outbreak-faqs-what-you-can-and-cant-do#can-i-go-to-the-park https://web.archive.org/web/20200402224312/https://www.gov.u... Quite vague and fuzzy, isn't it? If I remember rightly, there was actually a bit of a controversy over this because the police in some areas got it into their heads that no-one should be driving to places to walk full stop and started pushing that message and complaining about people not following it, even though that wasn't actually a rule. Though it's entirely possible a lot of the media coverage of that has also been memory-holed and only exists in the Wayback machine; the BBC in particular have been completely rewriting articles a lot lately. (The restriction to one session of exercise per day was also only legally enforceable in Wales and not England, for some reason, even though it was part of the advice in both.)

Nursie 6y ago
> If I remember rightly, there was actually a bit of a controversy over this because the police in some areas got it into their heads that no-one should be driving to places to walk full stop There was a law mismatch here. The government were saying you can't do that, however the legal powers they had (and the powers they delegated to the police) were not sufficient to actually stop people for some of the things they were stopping them for. I think Derbyshire police were the worst for that. So it's possible here that Dominic Cummings didn't break the lockdown laws, but he certainly broke the lockdown rules his own government were telling the public.