Jobandeep Singh Gill imprisonment over Beckett family deaths – another predictable cross roads crash

Here is another example of a trap set by road neglect.  A cross road that looks like a straight road.  A driver falls into this trap and four people die.  The parties responsible for this arrangement?  The government.

These cross roads look like continuing roads from both directions.  It is easily fixed.  An offset intersection would do.  It is cheap especially in relatively flat land and in a rural area with little infrastructure to work around.

“A truck driver has been sentenced to 10 years in prison over the deaths of four members of the same family in a collision in Melbourne’s south-east last year.

Jobandeep Singh Gill, 28, failed to stop at an intersection at Catani in February 2014, hitting a sedan carrying five members of the Beckett family.”

ABC News

The crash was predictable.  The four members of the Beckett family were victims of a predictable event.  So is the next one.

In Victoria we waste money on advertising that blames drivers.  The Transport Accident Commission (the compulsory insurer) has been wasting money on advertising since 1989.  All it amounts to is “barracking” for less accidents.  Like barracking for a horse to win a race.

The advertising does not work.  Some claim it works temporarily.  No one claims it works 20 years later.

But if advertising money in 1989 had fixed this intersection by making it “offset” it would have been still effective in 2014, the Beckett’s would most like still be alive, and Gill would not be in jail.

Here’s another one where a truck nearly destroyed a school bus.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-06/boy-who-survived-fatal-catani-crash-misses-mum-and-dad/6919082

Pyalong crash animation

 

Pyalong crash animation from 7 News.

Wire rope termination East Link Melbourne

 

Wire road barrier “ramps” need investigation – 4 fatalities in one crash

Four people have died as a car became airborne and hit a tree at Pyalong, Victoria, Australia.  The crashed car is in the rearground having left the road and hit a tree.

I think this officer of Victoria Police is onto something.

(a) Running the front of a car into something brings into play all the design features intended to absorb impact.

(b) BUT in this case the vehicle roof has hit the tree meaning that none of the front-impact design helps.  Assistant Commissioner of Victoria Police, Robert Hill:  “It has struck … the commencement of a wire road barrier. It then travelled airborne for some distance and then has crashed into a tree after rolling.”  “The roof of the vehicle has actually struck the tree.”

(c) Why does a car become airborne?

(d) By the path of the markers the left hand side of the vehicle would have run up the termination of the wire rope “safety” barrier where it meets its anchor.

(e) We shouldn’t be building “ramps” like this beside rural roads.

Australian Open Tennis. Heat safety rules inconvenient? Just change them.

Playing and working in heat is “hot topic” in the media for at least a few days every year at the Australian Open Tennis.  It affects players but also other people working and volunteering at the tennis; umpires, line umpires and children “working” as ball retrievers and ferrying sweaty towels to and fro the players.

Sports Medicine Australia publish heat guidelines summarized below.  So do Tennis Australia.  Both use the Wet Bulb Globe Temperature index.

The Sports Medicine Australia guidelines say at 30C WBGT to consider postponement as the risk is extreme.  But Tennis Australia raise this to 34C WBGT.  Moving the goalposts is obviously more convenient for the conduct of the tournament but is it safe/reasonable to operate outside the guidelines?

>26C Wet Bulb Globe Temperature

Sports Medicine Australia: Risk of thermal injury is high/very high.  Limit intensity.  Limit duration to less than 60 minutes per session.

Tennis Australia: No guideline.  Presumably don’t worry.

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>30 C Wet Bulb Globe Temperature

Sports Medicine Australia: Risk of thermal injury is extreme.  Consider postponement to a cooler part of the day or cancellation.

Tennis Australia: Changes to scoring formats (complicated – see the guidelines) OR A ten minute break between second and third sets in best of three.

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>34 C Wet Bulb Globe Temperature

Tennis Australia: Suspend play.

Physical activity – a different kind of hazard. What’s the right amount of work?

Physical activity is unlike some other hazards.  Reducing many hazards in their magnitude is always – as a goal – a good idea.  Some hazards are related to risk in such a way that less exposure to the hazard is always preferred.  Examples are hazards such as exposure to asbestos, or welding flash.  No one needs any level of asbestos or welding flash.  If zero can be achieved then that is good.  The risk-exposure curve begins at the “zero” origin conceptually something like the first figure below.

However physical activity is necessary in some amount.  An overly sedentary lifestyle is viewed as being less than ideal.  Hence the risk-exposure curve does not begin at the origin.  Zero exposure does not equate to zero risk.  The relationship is conceptually a bathtub type curve where risk rises with both too little and too much physical activity.  The challenge is to avoid excesses of both kinds.  Thus there will be examples of physical work where reducing the demand is not only not necessary but not helpful.

Positively correlated hazard-risk curve (e.g. asbestos, welding flash, falls from height)

“Bathtub” type hazard-risk curve (e.g. physical work)

How to tip over a vehicle (or at least lose steering traction)

Overhanging a load, especially a liquid load is probably a likely scenario.  A question to consider.  What is the bigger risk?

(a) Full tank?

(b) Half full tank?

The load is a 400l diesel tank with pump.