Thanks MargcOriginally Posted by MargC
I Entirely agree about the distinction, indeed the main takeaway has to be backup systems to maximise the likelihood of correct start / finish runner accounting.
I have also thanked keith using the phrase " witness for police" rather than naming him, who I can state from dialogue with him, shares many of the concerns that I have about how the Way the rules can, were, and may in the future be used against an RO, and that ill thought out rule changes have made that likelihood greater.
Grump - UKA statement sec 2 b item(vii) clearly states that the fact of an excess count by marshal 3 was stated in and of itself as "poor practise" to be prevented , then later referenced under failures of duty, and ascribed to lack of experience and training, rather than an inevitable fact of life it really is, from time to time occurring in practise.
All marshalls should also be concerned by the fact that they too have the potential to be cited for failure of duty, leading to contributory cause - and the more onerous the new rules make a marshalls duty, the more likely that becomes.
Old rule 13 clearly sets wrong expectation that such counting can be flawless, communications can be perfect, and so tracking should be efficient enough that an RO can instigate needs for search or rescue prior to race end. Which is a false expectation. No RO has ever achieved it in a way that made material difference to a life, as far as I am aware. So wrong expectation set by that rule is the problem for an RO that ,as a result ,wrongly made the coroners report.
Had it been noted that all of these processes can be flawed, that additional runners can come through, runners can miss one checkpoint, reappear at another, numbers can Be and are misread, And off route and retiring runners often take hours to arrive back, then why would a coroner mention that failure to analyze that overcount ( rather than undercount ) as in any way material - when there is almost no possibility of a search being launched before race completion , or near completion in most races.
The rules need to focus on what is Reasonably practicable, not a false ideal utopia, and focus on what actually matters. The focus on number attachment for exampke is a red herring when in poor weather some or many are wearing raingear, and no attachment method helps with mishearing, and misreading happens regardless.
The most material matter in that unfortunate event is as margc points out - the start finish accounting, which needed to be more robust.
So the rules DO matter, as does the wording of them. An RO can clearly be held to account for what the rules say we can do, even when we cannot.
