New safety rules

[Hank]

Is that in the James Brown sense?

A well known advocate of health and safety.

[mr brightside]

Is that in the James Brown sense?

Erm, let's go for it being in a Bart Simpson sense...

[CL]

I agree, but it isn't the direction the committee appear to be sailing in and i don't hear any shouts of, "prepare to tack!"

I don't object to RO giving more information than the minimum if they are doing so as an added bonus, to help people. It's when they do it through fear of being sued that I resent as it replaces incentive with fear. It's this "oooh I better tell them there's a river crossing in case someone drowns and blames it on me," hysteria that irritates me.

As far as I'm concerned any race with the term 'Fell' in it's title is enough to imply 'hazardous.' And the more extreme the terrain and weather the greater the risks. Hence the title 'Langdale fell race,' implies all sorts of hazards without having to name every flaming one.

[Henry Porter]

What a dismal business and it is a business. For the first time I'm not sure I can be arsed to renew my membership. I know this is not helpful but, as this is just a discussion forum, I don't care if it is safe or not, in fact that is a big part of what I love about it. Presumably it is possible to write something that covers the arse of the great people who volunteer to put races on for us. If not and the current calendar collapses, something else will emerge. Might even be a good thing, take a bit of pressure off the fells.

[Penguin]

What a dismal business and it is a business. For the first time I'm not sure I can be arsed to renew my membership. I know this is not helpful but, as this is just a discussion forum, I don't care if it is safe or not, in fact that is a big part of what I love about it. Presumably it is possible to write something that covers the arse of the great people who volunteer to put races on for us. If not and the current calendar collapses, something else will emerge. Might even be a good thing, take a bit of pressure off the fells.

you don't care if it's safe or not!! ????

[Henry Porter]

Not particularly, I decide what I do and accept the consequences. As it happens I don't think fell running is a very hazardous thing to do. As long as ROs are covered legally I'm not that bothered, if I enter a race I will carry whatever I'm told to carry.

[mr brightside]

I don't object to RO giving more information than the minimum if they are doing so as an added bonus, to help people. It's when they do it through fear of being sued that I resent as it replaces incentive with fear. It's this "oooh I better tell them there's a river crossing in case someone drowns and blames it on me," hysteria that irritates me.

As far as I'm concerned any race with the term 'Fell' in it's title is enough to imply 'hazardous.' And the more extreme the terrain and weather the greater the risks. Hence the title 'Langdale fell race,' implies all sorts of hazards without having to name every flaming one.

That is the nature of compensation culture, you just can't get away from it. Fell running is very accessible and i think quite a lot of the Tough Mudder set are finding their way accross these days, often ill-prepared and assuming there are safety nets and room for large errors.

[wynn]

when are the new rules going to be available - does anyone know???/

any news yet

[Madeleine]

They are very nearly ready. Will be posted on the main website asap (hopefully next day or so)

[wkb21]

Both Scottish Hill Runners(SHR) and UKA, represented at the inquest by Keith Burns and John Temperton respectively, had reviewed the witness statements. Whilst much has already been said/intimated on this thread about the UKA input, the SHR input has not been mentioned. Both Keith and John appeared as witnesses towards the end of the inquest. Keith followed John and was able to inject objectivity and realism into the interpretation of the facts from the point of view of an experienced race organiser and runner. For example he pointed out that fellrunning is a dangerous sport that cannot be made risk free and that accurately monitoring people round a course is not always straightforward eg in bad weather when waterproofs are obscuring numbers and when there may be runners on the course who aren't in the race. All of us with a passion for fellrunning should be grateful to SHR and Keith for their input.

I attended the inquest as an observer because I wanted to hear first hand what had happened.

With regard to improving the content of the "FRA Safety Requirements" one thing that struck me during the inquest was a need to stress to organisers the importance of accounting individually for each and every competitor at the end as a "did not start", did not finish (retired) or as a finisher with a time and any discrepancies resolved as quickly as possible. Since this is the end stop I think it should be differentiated from the monitoring at checkpoints round the course. At Buttermere Sailbeck the organiser had relied on a headcount of finishers plus retirees. Unfortuneately one retiree had in effect been double counted.

I mentioned this requirement to Graham at the inquest but was told it was too late to make any changes to the version of the "FRA Safety Requirements" which had been referenced on the FRA website on Sept 11th and already circulated to other interested bodies. However, at the end of the inquest the Coroner announced his intention to write to the FRA re Matters of Concern (Regulation 28) at which point I assume the committee realised it was unlikely to be the final version!

Margaret C

I am grateful to Margaret for this clarification. I would also like to emphasise that in SHR's role as independent reviewers of all the evidence, both before and during the inquest, we expressed the view (as 4 competitors/ organisers with over 100 years total experience of competing and race organisation) that the Sailbeck Race was better organised than most we had experience of. As with all races in our experience, there were human errors. NONE of these errors had any bearing on the tragic outcome. This simple point seems to have been lost during this extended debate on issues peripheral to the tragedy. We now face the risk of over-reaction with more prescriptive safety requirements which could lead to unintended consequences which could actually jeopardise safety culture in fell racing. Let us hope that the collective wisdom of the FRA Committee will save us all from such an outcome, even at such a late stage.

Race Organisers have very good reason to be alarmed.

KB