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The article that got the guy fired is [1] apparently. If you search for "Gareth Dennis" - honestly his criticisms seem pretty mild. My experience is the UK rai

The article that got the guy fired is [1] apparently. If you search for "Gareth Dennis" - honestly his criticisms seem pretty mild. My experience is the UK rail network targets truly patronising levels of safety. Signs and announcements on the dangers of running. Announcements on the dangers of slippery floors in wet weather. Announcements and signs about the importance of holding the handrail on stairs. Special extra video screens and announcements about the dangers of taking luggage on escalators. Announcements and warning signs that a flight of stairs is particularly long and tiring. Announcements on the dangers of using your phone while walking. Announcements that it's good to carry a bottle of water in hot weather. I'm surprised this guy got fired - in the rail network I know, they'd have addressed his concerns by adding even more posters and announcements. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20240414153709/https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/euston-trains-station-delays-london-overcrowding-cancel-b2527730.html https://web.archive.org/web/20240414153709/https://www.indep...

sealeck 2y ago
I genuinely don't see the harm of these things – I often think the issue is that lots of measures improve safety at the margins (e.g. if someone is drunk and stumbling down the stairs this announcement might help them) rather than on average. That is: many safety features will produce limited tangible benefit to the average person most of the time, but they do reduce accidents which normally happen at the tail end of the distribution in more extreme circumstances.
- newsclues 2y ago
  You think stumbling drunk people are helped by signs and announcements?
  - justinclift 2y ago
    Sometimes, probably yes? :)
    - newsclues 2y ago
      I'd love to see the research that would substantiate that, from anecdotal evidence, stumbling drunks don't read or listen to anyone.
    - jahewson 2y ago
      Ha ahahahahahah ha.
  - salawat 2y ago
    There is an art to the production of low cognitive load information systems, which, as somewhat of a bonus, have the side effect of being navigable even by the mentally impaired. Don't believe it? Think about that credit card of yours. You can instigate the movement of money while so piss drunk you can't even walk! Amazing on how such care isn't put into other things.
- MrBuddyCasino 2y ago
  Behold, the last man.
- cwillu 2y ago
  Banner blindness. If 95% of safety signage is banal and useless to most people, then most people will simply stop paying attention to signage. Putting up a sign is not a free action!
  - short_sells_poo 2y ago
    To be honest this is a general problem with the UK. Try driving on any major street and you'll realize it's plastered with mostly useless signs. A dozen warnings assault your senses at any one time, which makes it very difficult to pick out what is actually important. This is compounded by sometimes completely braindead implementation of rules. E.g. most bus lanes in London can be used by motorcyclists, but some cannot. There's no rhyme or reason, the entire thing is decided by a small blue sign at the start of a particular stretch which may or may not have an even smaller motorbike icon on it - among an icon for a bus, taxi and pushbike. Whoever thought this is a good idea is either a moron or deliberately wanted to extract fines from motorcyclists who accidentally use the wrong bus lane.
    - logifail 2y ago
      > To be honest this is a general problem with the UK Hotel lifts would appear to be another example of this. Automated "doors closing" / "doors opening" announcements seem to be present almost everywhere. Presumably a significant number people suffer appaling crush injuries from lift doors in other countries ... or maybe they don't, and companies across the UK just let their Health and Safety conslutants get the upper hand.
      - hnlmorg 2y ago
        ...or visually impaired and thus use those announcements to understand what state the lift is in.
        jakey_bakey 2y ago
        Lol yeah of all the examples to choose Why are the pavements at crossings so bumpy?! It's political correctness gone mad!
- 2-3-7-43-1807 2y ago
  it's not so much "harmful" as it is a symptom of and also reinforcing a society mentality of immature and infantile irresponsibility. but one might also argue it is harming visual and acoustic silence by constantly announcing something and hanging signs everywhere.
- logifail 2y ago
  > I genuinely don't see the harm of these things [..] they do reduce accidents It would be good to see actual data backing up this hypothesis. The cynic in me says another equally plausible hypothesis would be that this is entirely about the owner/operator/landlord avoiding any legal responsibility for accidents than actually reducing the number of accidents.
  - tim333 2y ago
    My mother had a job coming up with such warnings. She was a 'home safety technician' for the local council, advising people not to fall off ladders and the like. It seems to work like there are statistics that so many people end up in hospital after falling of a ladder or whatever and the council thinks we must fix this, we'll hire someone to educate the public. The odd poster probably doesn't make much difference to the number of people falling but it was quite an easy and entertaining job for my mum.
jnsaff2 2y ago
The posters and announcements won't make anything safer. They are CYA for the time the risk materializes.
- zero_k 2y ago
  Exactly. See Sidney Dekker's Field Guide to Understanding Human Error. The posters do (almost) nothing -- other than covering the backside of those who put them up, and doing safety theatre. Looks good, does nothing for safety. The same author, Sidney Dekker, has a very good book about how to deal with someone like this whistleblower. It's called "Just Culture". Well worth a read. Spolier: It's not to silence them, not this way. You can silence the person by, you know, actually doing something useful. But that requires actual change, and more importantly, a change in attitude. And you need to convince the crowds that you are doing better by NOT putting up posters. You'll be surprised how many people really think the posters help.
throw73748 2y ago
Posters are just a charade. Try to remove dangerous aggressive dog from transport, and see what happens.
chgs 2y ago
Euston is a special case. The lack of training/concern (depending on your level of cynicism) of ticket validity of the barrier staff isn’t unique (Paddington had this problem too), but the unique problem is the way the operator (network rail) do not announce platforms until the last minute leading to stampedes to the barriers. The announcements are just there to sell more noise cancelling headphones in the on-station shops.
- pm215 2y ago
  I think at Kings Cross also they have a tendency to not announce platforms until quite soon before departure.
  - michaelt 2y ago
    Unlike Euston, Kings Cross was extensively renovated for the 2012 olympics, which by the standards of UK rail stations is a very recent upgrade. They seem to have built it with enough capacity that they can announce platforms at the last minute and send everyone scurrying without causing any great danger.
    - tialaramex 2y ago
      Kings Cross is a mess of different systems, especially as the whole Kings Cross/ St Pancras complex rather than solely Kings Cross (which is only a dozen platforms). The low numbered Kings Cross platforms (zero through seven) are all accessed via a sideways entrance gate line, which is not good at all and you'd clearly never do that unless there's no economic alternative.
      - michaelt 2y ago
        Oh absolutely. The underground bit is a total maze. Crossings on all the nearby roads are a nightmare. Nowhere near enough seating. But that gate line you mention has loads of ticket barriers - there's zero crush risk.
DrBazza 2y ago
You're talking about railway lines and stations with ad-hoc upgrades that are as much as 200 years old (yes). Most of the network is comfortably over 100 years old and trains were slower, and frankly, people were less mollycoddled. But, with regards to the article, he's 100% correct, Euston is dangerous. And it's currently one of the worst central London stations for things going wrong. It's pretty much every other week at the moment. London Bridge used to be as bad with overcrowding until they rebuilt most of it. Then again, Euston was supposed to be redeveloped for HS2, and that's been kicked into the long grass, even though all the hard work has been done. I don't think there's anyone truly as stupid as the UK government.
yodelshady 2y ago
Interesting, "the Office of Rail and Road ... issued Network Rail with an improvement notice" For the benefit of readers not versed with UK regulation, an improvement notice is a formal instrument under the powers of the Health and Safety Executive. Whilst short of a prosecution notice, it definitely indicates that the powers that be are Officially Not Happy with, in this case, Network Rail.
truculent 2y ago
The most egregious ones were ubiquitous signs on the London Underground stating that travellers should take care on the escalators; there were 111 accidents on the escalators last year, after all. There are over 4 million tube journeys a day[1]. [1]: https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2023/november/latest-tfl-figures-show-the-tube-reaching-4-million-journeys-per-day https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2023/novemb...
- closewith 2y ago
  So the signs work!
- PaulRobinson 2y ago
  Those accidents can be life changing, and often cause delays to services or dangerous levels of congestion during rush hour. I also suspect TfL are motivated to reduce liability - if they can show on CCTV somebody walking past a sign saying to take care, and then not taking care, TfL's coffers (i.e. the public's, it's not a private profit making entity), can be protected a little more from egregious legal claims.
GoToRO 2y ago
those are just to limit their liability: we told them not to so it's not our fault. The real safety, the one that they should provide is somewhere else.
dazc 2y ago
I believe the purpose of these safety warnings is more about mitigating liability for accidents rather than any true concern for traveller's well being.
red_admiral 2y ago
The UK rail network is in the unhappy position of getting sued whenever someone gets hurt, however stupid they're being. I think there was a case where some youths cut through the fencing around a depot, climbed on a train and got killed by the overhead wire - and then Network Rail got fined for not having a more vandal-proof fence or something like that.
- aix1 2y ago
  This? https://www.orr.gov.uk/search-news/fine-for-network-rail-following-orr-investigation-into-electrocution https://www.orr.gov.uk/search-news/fine-for-network-rail-fol...
philjohn 2y ago
But then trains highly overcrowded so in the case of another Greyrigg the death and injury toll would be far higher. But affording to a train company there is "no upper limit on the number of passengers in a given train carriage". I did point out that the laws of physics, and basic human physiology would refute that assertion. So, maybe safety theatre rather than patronising levels of safety.
whatshisface 2y ago
>Signs and announcements on the dangers of running. Announcements on the dangers of slippery floors in wet weather. Announcements and signs about the importance of holding the handrail on stairs. Special extra video screens and announcements about the dangers of taking luggage on escalators. Announcements and warning signs that a flight of stairs is particularly long and tiring. Announcements on the dangers of using your phone while walking. Announcements that it's good to carry a bottle of water in hot weather. I don't think there is a shred of evidence that being bombarded with neurotic fretting improves safety - here in the states this is usually recognized as limitation of liability. Juries will accept "we warned you," as a counterbalance to their universal tendency to want to side with the little guy against the giant corporation.
- lesuorac 2y ago
  Well, it could be liability related. But, falls are basically the only way people get injured at DC's Metro so it seems to make sense to have significant signage about that. I'd have to imagine there's nothing unique about DC so it's probably the same story for the UK. "96% of the customer injuries were related to slips and falls within rail stations, and about 52% of those were on escalators." [1]. The stat for employees was 40% with being struck by an object in #2 at 25%. [1]: https://wmata.com/about/calendar/events/upload/3A-Metro-s-Safety-Management-System.pdf https://wmata.com/about/calendar/events/upload/3A-Metro-s-Sa...
  - whatshisface 2y ago
    What's the connection between signage talking about falls and the rate of falls? I don't see any.
  - hex4def6 2y ago
    I'm not sure being reminded not to slip would reduce my likelihood of slipping. Seems like things like making sure floor transitions are mild, adequate drainage, textured floors would be more effective. (polished stone and concrete are a nightmare with some shoes that I own in wet weather).
  - 2y ago
jdietrich 2y ago
>My experience is the UK rail network targets truly patronising levels of safety. It's clearly working, because the British railway network is the safest large network in Europe, despite some pretty dilapidated infrastructure. https://international-railway-safety-council.com/safety-statistics/ https://international-railway-safety-council.com/safety-stat...
- iggldiggl 2y ago
  Getting passenger fatalities down is mainly achieved by not letting your trains crash, and keeping an eye on the platform-train interface. Copious announcements about how to safely walk around a railway station probably only make a minor difference.
- bramblerose 2y ago
  Judging by the graph on the linked page, the UK's rail network is mostly safer due to a lower number of workplace accidents. A cynic might suggest that that's correlated with a lack of maintenance :-).However I do also believe that the UK takes workplace accidents more serious than some other European countries.
rootusrootus 2y ago
What stuck out to me wasn't the signage, but "See it, say it. Sorted." Right along with "mind the gap!" that is going to be my enduring memory of UK rail.
- cameronh90 2y ago
  "If you see something that doesn't look right, speak to staff or text British Transport Police on 61016. We'll sort it. See it, say it, sorted." It haunts my dreams.
- TylerE 2y ago
  "See something say something" signs are common in the US in places like subways and airports.
  - rootusrootus 2y ago
    Sure, but the "See it, say it, sorted" announcement is played over and over ad nauseam on the train; it's not just a sign. It's the national rail equivalent of "mind the gap" on the tube, which is also said over and over again. In the case of the tube it makes a little more sense since the ridership is changing significantly at every stop. But on a 4+ hour ride up to Edinburgh, it is pretty redundant to make the announcement every minute or so.
    - Symbiote 2y ago
      "Mind the gap" announcements used to exist only where there was a huge gap on curved platforms. These locations still use the authoritative, male voice. Playing the woman's voice version at every station started about 15 years ago.
  - jahewson 2y ago
    No this is not the same. The U.K. has taken it to ludicrous levels.
  - lupusreal 2y ago
    It's a thing our governments do to ensure that we are all slightly traumatized by the possibility of terrorism at all times. They make us afraid to make us easier to control.
ReptileMan 2y ago
>My experience is the UK rail network targets truly patronising levels of safety. Signs and announcements on the dangers of running. Announcements on the dangers of slippery floors in wet weather. Announcements and signs about the importance of holding the handrail on stairs. Special extra video screens and announcements about the dangers of taking luggage on escalators. Announcements and warning signs that a flight of stairs is particularly long and tiring. Announcements on the dangers of using your phone while walking. Announcements that it's good to carry a bottle of water in hot weather. Everything wrong with the UK today can be summarized as society going from "Mind the gap" to this insanity.
- foldr 2y ago
  I agree that the announcements are annoying, but isn't this an overly emotional response? UK railways are extremely safe (as shown in the following link that someone else already posted here), and the annoying announcements might just be one of the less appealing aspects of an overall safety culture which is working as designed. I certainly don't see any connection between annoying announcements and any of the real problems facing the UK at present. E.g. what do they have to do with the housing crisis, or the social care crisis, or ...? https://international-railway-safety-council.com/safety-statistics/ https://international-railway-safety-council.com/safety-stat...
  - ReptileMan 2y ago
    It showed that culture of the place changed. And culture is what determines how the rest of society fares.
  - jahewson 2y ago
    The annoying announcements are due to very a real problem facing the U.K. - what do you think the “it” is that we’re supposed to be spotting? It’s not a herd of unicorns.
    - foldr 2y ago
      We’re talking about the “health and safety” announcements, not the crime/terrorism ones. Check the examples upthread.
jahewson 2y ago
Oh it’s absurd. When I grew up in Britain we used to joke about America and how they had a sign on everything but the U.K. is now 10x worse. The endless announcements. The sign language video on every single timetable screen (Why? can deaf people not read? How do they navigate the 99.9999% of the world that lacks such screens? Can’t their iPhone help?). It’s madness. My favourite is how the classic “mind the gap” (worthy as some of those gaps were quite big and it varies from station to station) has been replaced with “mind the gap between the train and the platform” as if some people are too stupid to know where the gap is? (And no sign language videos for that, so presumably it’s a slaughterhouse for the hard of hearing!). And what is the “it” that we’re supposed to be seeing and spotting anyway? Maybe they could solve that problem instead.
julian_t 2y ago
So much this! Several of the stations on my local line (SWR out of Waterloo) have sliding gates that are prominently labelled "Warning! Sliding Gate!!". But they are manually operated, so they're never going to move of their own accord. The place is a bit overrun with "don't run with scissors" warning notices, but they don't fix the things that are actually dangerous, like the terrazzo flooring that's like a skating rink the moment it gets even slightly damp.

sealeck 2y ago

I genuinely don't see the harm of these things – I often think the issue is that lots of measures improve safety at the margins (e.g. if someone is drunk and stumbling down the stairs this announcement might help them) rather than on average. That is: many safety features will produce limited tangible benefit to the average person most of the time, but they do reduce accidents which normally happen at the tail end of the distribution in more extreme circumstances.

newsclues 2y ago
You think stumbling drunk people are helped by signs and announcements?
- justinclift 2y ago
  Sometimes, probably yes? :)
  - newsclues 2y ago
    I'd love to see the research that would substantiate that, from anecdotal evidence, stumbling drunks don't read or listen to anyone.
  - jahewson 2y ago
    Ha ahahahahahah ha.
- salawat 2y ago
  There is an art to the production of low cognitive load information systems, which, as somewhat of a bonus, have the side effect of being navigable even by the mentally impaired. Don't believe it? Think about that credit card of yours. You can instigate the movement of money while so piss drunk you can't even walk! Amazing on how such care isn't put into other things.
MrBuddyCasino 2y ago
Behold, the last man.
cwillu 2y ago
Banner blindness. If 95% of safety signage is banal and useless to most people, then most people will simply stop paying attention to signage. Putting up a sign is not a free action!
- short_sells_poo 2y ago
  To be honest this is a general problem with the UK. Try driving on any major street and you'll realize it's plastered with mostly useless signs. A dozen warnings assault your senses at any one time, which makes it very difficult to pick out what is actually important. This is compounded by sometimes completely braindead implementation of rules. E.g. most bus lanes in London can be used by motorcyclists, but some cannot. There's no rhyme or reason, the entire thing is decided by a small blue sign at the start of a particular stretch which may or may not have an even smaller motorbike icon on it - among an icon for a bus, taxi and pushbike. Whoever thought this is a good idea is either a moron or deliberately wanted to extract fines from motorcyclists who accidentally use the wrong bus lane.
  - logifail 2y ago
    > To be honest this is a general problem with the UK Hotel lifts would appear to be another example of this. Automated "doors closing" / "doors opening" announcements seem to be present almost everywhere. Presumably a significant number people suffer appaling crush injuries from lift doors in other countries ... or maybe they don't, and companies across the UK just let their Health and Safety conslutants get the upper hand.
    - hnlmorg 2y ago
      ...or visually impaired and thus use those announcements to understand what state the lift is in.
      - jakey_bakey 2y ago
        Lol yeah of all the examples to choose Why are the pavements at crossings so bumpy?! It's political correctness gone mad!
2-3-7-43-1807 2y ago
it's not so much "harmful" as it is a symptom of and also reinforcing a society mentality of immature and infantile irresponsibility. but one might also argue it is harming visual and acoustic silence by constantly announcing something and hanging signs everywhere.
logifail 2y ago
> I genuinely don't see the harm of these things [..] they do reduce accidents It would be good to see actual data backing up this hypothesis. The cynic in me says another equally plausible hypothesis would be that this is entirely about the owner/operator/landlord avoiding any legal responsibility for accidents than actually reducing the number of accidents.
- tim333 2y ago
  My mother had a job coming up with such warnings. She was a 'home safety technician' for the local council, advising people not to fall off ladders and the like. It seems to work like there are statistics that so many people end up in hospital after falling of a ladder or whatever and the council thinks we must fix this, we'll hire someone to educate the public. The odd poster probably doesn't make much difference to the number of people falling but it was quite an easy and entertaining job for my mum.

jnsaff2 2y ago

The posters and announcements won't make anything safer. They are CYA for the time the risk materializes.

zero_k 2y ago
Exactly. See Sidney Dekker's Field Guide to Understanding Human Error. The posters do (almost) nothing -- other than covering the backside of those who put them up, and doing safety theatre. Looks good, does nothing for safety. The same author, Sidney Dekker, has a very good book about how to deal with someone like this whistleblower. It's called "Just Culture". Well worth a read. Spolier: It's not to silence them, not this way. You can silence the person by, you know, actually doing something useful. But that requires actual change, and more importantly, a change in attitude. And you need to convince the crowds that you are doing better by NOT putting up posters. You'll be surprised how many people really think the posters help.

throw73748 2y ago

Posters are just a charade. Try to remove dangerous aggressive dog from transport, and see what happens.

chgs 2y ago

Euston is a special case. The lack of training/concern (depending on your level of cynicism) of ticket validity of the barrier staff isn’t unique (Paddington had this problem too), but the unique problem is the way the operator (network rail) do not announce platforms until the last minute leading to stampedes to the barriers. The announcements are just there to sell more noise cancelling headphones in the on-station shops.

pm215 2y ago
I think at Kings Cross also they have a tendency to not announce platforms until quite soon before departure.
- michaelt 2y ago
  Unlike Euston, Kings Cross was extensively renovated for the 2012 olympics, which by the standards of UK rail stations is a very recent upgrade. They seem to have built it with enough capacity that they can announce platforms at the last minute and send everyone scurrying without causing any great danger.
  - tialaramex 2y ago
    Kings Cross is a mess of different systems, especially as the whole Kings Cross/ St Pancras complex rather than solely Kings Cross (which is only a dozen platforms). The low numbered Kings Cross platforms (zero through seven) are all accessed via a sideways entrance gate line, which is not good at all and you'd clearly never do that unless there's no economic alternative.
    - michaelt 2y ago
      Oh absolutely. The underground bit is a total maze. Crossings on all the nearby roads are a nightmare. Nowhere near enough seating. But that gate line you mention has loads of ticket barriers - there's zero crush risk.

DrBazza 2y ago

You're talking about railway lines and stations with ad-hoc upgrades that are as much as 200 years old (yes). Most of the network is comfortably over 100 years old and trains were slower, and frankly, people were less mollycoddled. But, with regards to the article, he's 100% correct, Euston is dangerous. And it's currently one of the worst central London stations for things going wrong. It's pretty much every other week at the moment. London Bridge used to be as bad with overcrowding until they rebuilt most of it. Then again, Euston was supposed to be redeveloped for HS2, and that's been kicked into the long grass, even though all the hard work has been done. I don't think there's anyone truly as stupid as the UK government.

yodelshady 2y ago

Interesting, "the Office of Rail and Road ... issued Network Rail with an improvement notice" For the benefit of readers not versed with UK regulation, an improvement notice is a formal instrument under the powers of the Health and Safety Executive. Whilst short of a prosecution notice, it definitely indicates that the powers that be are Officially Not Happy with, in this case, Network Rail.

truculent 2y ago

The most egregious ones were ubiquitous signs on the London Underground stating that travellers should take care on the escalators; there were 111 accidents on the escalators last year, after all. There are over 4 million tube journeys a day[1]. [1]: https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2023/november/latest-tfl-figures-show-the-tube-reaching-4-million-journeys-per-day https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2023/novemb...

closewith 2y ago
So the signs work!
PaulRobinson 2y ago
Those accidents can be life changing, and often cause delays to services or dangerous levels of congestion during rush hour. I also suspect TfL are motivated to reduce liability - if they can show on CCTV somebody walking past a sign saying to take care, and then not taking care, TfL's coffers (i.e. the public's, it's not a private profit making entity), can be protected a little more from egregious legal claims.

GoToRO 2y ago

those are just to limit their liability: we told them not to so it's not our fault. The real safety, the one that they should provide is somewhere else.

dazc 2y ago

I believe the purpose of these safety warnings is more about mitigating liability for accidents rather than any true concern for traveller's well being.

red_admiral 2y ago

The UK rail network is in the unhappy position of getting sued whenever someone gets hurt, however stupid they're being. I think there was a case where some youths cut through the fencing around a depot, climbed on a train and got killed by the overhead wire - and then Network Rail got fined for not having a more vandal-proof fence or something like that.

aix1 2y ago
This? https://www.orr.gov.uk/search-news/fine-for-network-rail-following-orr-investigation-into-electrocution https://www.orr.gov.uk/search-news/fine-for-network-rail-fol...

philjohn 2y ago

But then trains highly overcrowded so in the case of another Greyrigg the death and injury toll would be far higher. But affording to a train company there is "no upper limit on the number of passengers in a given train carriage". I did point out that the laws of physics, and basic human physiology would refute that assertion. So, maybe safety theatre rather than patronising levels of safety.

whatshisface 2y ago

>Signs and announcements on the dangers of running. Announcements on the dangers of slippery floors in wet weather. Announcements and signs about the importance of holding the handrail on stairs. Special extra video screens and announcements about the dangers of taking luggage on escalators. Announcements and warning signs that a flight of stairs is particularly long and tiring. Announcements on the dangers of using your phone while walking. Announcements that it's good to carry a bottle of water in hot weather. I don't think there is a shred of evidence that being bombarded with neurotic fretting improves safety - here in the states this is usually recognized as limitation of liability. Juries will accept "we warned you," as a counterbalance to their universal tendency to want to side with the little guy against the giant corporation.

lesuorac 2y ago
Well, it could be liability related. But, falls are basically the only way people get injured at DC's Metro so it seems to make sense to have significant signage about that. I'd have to imagine there's nothing unique about DC so it's probably the same story for the UK. "96% of the customer injuries were related to slips and falls within rail stations, and about 52% of those were on escalators." [1]. The stat for employees was 40% with being struck by an object in #2 at 25%. [1]: https://wmata.com/about/calendar/events/upload/3A-Metro-s-Safety-Management-System.pdf https://wmata.com/about/calendar/events/upload/3A-Metro-s-Sa...
- whatshisface 2y ago
  What's the connection between signage talking about falls and the rate of falls? I don't see any.
- hex4def6 2y ago
  I'm not sure being reminded not to slip would reduce my likelihood of slipping. Seems like things like making sure floor transitions are mild, adequate drainage, textured floors would be more effective. (polished stone and concrete are a nightmare with some shoes that I own in wet weather).
- 2y ago

jdietrich 2y ago

>My experience is the UK rail network targets truly patronising levels of safety. It's clearly working, because the British railway network is the safest large network in Europe, despite some pretty dilapidated infrastructure. https://international-railway-safety-council.com/safety-statistics/ https://international-railway-safety-council.com/safety-stat...

iggldiggl 2y ago
Getting passenger fatalities down is mainly achieved by not letting your trains crash, and keeping an eye on the platform-train interface. Copious announcements about how to safely walk around a railway station probably only make a minor difference.
bramblerose 2y ago
Judging by the graph on the linked page, the UK's rail network is mostly safer due to a lower number of workplace accidents. A cynic might suggest that that's correlated with a lack of maintenance :-).However I do also believe that the UK takes workplace accidents more serious than some other European countries.

rootusrootus 2y ago

What stuck out to me wasn't the signage, but "See it, say it. Sorted." Right along with "mind the gap!" that is going to be my enduring memory of UK rail.

cameronh90 2y ago
"If you see something that doesn't look right, speak to staff or text British Transport Police on 61016. We'll sort it. See it, say it, sorted." It haunts my dreams.
TylerE 2y ago
"See something say something" signs are common in the US in places like subways and airports.
- rootusrootus 2y ago
  Sure, but the "See it, say it, sorted" announcement is played over and over ad nauseam on the train; it's not just a sign. It's the national rail equivalent of "mind the gap" on the tube, which is also said over and over again. In the case of the tube it makes a little more sense since the ridership is changing significantly at every stop. But on a 4+ hour ride up to Edinburgh, it is pretty redundant to make the announcement every minute or so.
  - Symbiote 2y ago
    "Mind the gap" announcements used to exist only where there was a huge gap on curved platforms. These locations still use the authoritative, male voice. Playing the woman's voice version at every station started about 15 years ago.
- jahewson 2y ago
  No this is not the same. The U.K. has taken it to ludicrous levels.
- lupusreal 2y ago
  It's a thing our governments do to ensure that we are all slightly traumatized by the possibility of terrorism at all times. They make us afraid to make us easier to control.

ReptileMan 2y ago

>My experience is the UK rail network targets truly patronising levels of safety. Signs and announcements on the dangers of running. Announcements on the dangers of slippery floors in wet weather. Announcements and signs about the importance of holding the handrail on stairs. Special extra video screens and announcements about the dangers of taking luggage on escalators. Announcements and warning signs that a flight of stairs is particularly long and tiring. Announcements on the dangers of using your phone while walking. Announcements that it's good to carry a bottle of water in hot weather. Everything wrong with the UK today can be summarized as society going from "Mind the gap" to this insanity.

foldr 2y ago
I agree that the announcements are annoying, but isn't this an overly emotional response? UK railways are extremely safe (as shown in the following link that someone else already posted here), and the annoying announcements might just be one of the less appealing aspects of an overall safety culture which is working as designed. I certainly don't see any connection between annoying announcements and any of the real problems facing the UK at present. E.g. what do they have to do with the housing crisis, or the social care crisis, or ...? https://international-railway-safety-council.com/safety-statistics/ https://international-railway-safety-council.com/safety-stat...
- ReptileMan 2y ago
  It showed that culture of the place changed. And culture is what determines how the rest of society fares.
- jahewson 2y ago
  The annoying announcements are due to very a real problem facing the U.K. - what do you think the “it” is that we’re supposed to be spotting? It’s not a herd of unicorns.
  - foldr 2y ago
    We’re talking about the “health and safety” announcements, not the crime/terrorism ones. Check the examples upthread.

jahewson 2y ago

Oh it’s absurd. When I grew up in Britain we used to joke about America and how they had a sign on everything but the U.K. is now 10x worse. The endless announcements. The sign language video on every single timetable screen (Why? can deaf people not read? How do they navigate the 99.9999% of the world that lacks such screens? Can’t their iPhone help?). It’s madness. My favourite is how the classic “mind the gap” (worthy as some of those gaps were quite big and it varies from station to station) has been replaced with “mind the gap between the train and the platform” as if some people are too stupid to know where the gap is? (And no sign language videos for that, so presumably it’s a slaughterhouse for the hard of hearing!). And what is the “it” that we’re supposed to be seeing and spotting anyway? Maybe they could solve that problem instead.

julian_t 2y ago

So much this! Several of the stations on my local line (SWR out of Waterloo) have sliding gates that are prominently labelled "Warning! Sliding Gate!!". But they are manually operated, so they're never going to move of their own accord. The place is a bit overrun with "don't run with scissors" warning notices, but they don't fix the things that are actually dangerous, like the terrazzo flooring that's like a skating rink the moment it gets even slightly damp.