I think we should stop critisising ROs, even by association, AI != AW.
ROs should be free to mandate whatever equipment they feel is required, it is for the safety of others as muchy as for the runners themselves.
I think we should stop critisising ROs, even by association, AI != AW.
ROs should be free to mandate whatever equipment they feel is required, it is for the safety of others as muchy as for the runners themselves.
Originally Posted by dominion
Doesnt really belong on this thread - but this is where you were reading: and I would rather not post this on a thread of the name of the site. This site has been the sustained target of hackers over a number of years, and moved at least once to a virgin installation.
It has had all the best practice precautions taken, although I will decline to say what has been done: to avoid giving the hackers a clue as to what is being done currently.
But I have left some of the spam in to allow the host company admins that own and lease this server to me to investigate the next breach if any. Bear with us.
I have over a hundred sites, but for whatever reason only two or three of them ever get attacked! No idea why the hackers choose this one. It has neither page rank nor traffic. Have not even bothered setting pretty permalinks, since could not give a damn about SEO friendliness, as a result google rarely if ever scans it so the hackers are wasting their time - if they did their SEO monitoring properly , they would know their spam links are not being indexed, moreover the google penguin update(s) have made prime keyword links like theirs damaging not helpful.
[am hoping the hackers read that, to realise how genuinely futile their actions are!]
Last edited by alwaysinjured; 28-04-2014 at 08:38 AM.
I agree. But any mandate should not be seen as taking away responsibility from the athlete. It's no different to the state saying that when you drive a car the tyres must be legal, you must drive within the speed limit and you must have an MOT.
These do not take away the personal responsibility that is on the driver to drive safely on the roads.
The request for competitors to carry a waterproof jacket doesn't either. Someone who decides not to would be like a driver on the motorway not wearing a seatbelt - stupid, putting their own well-being at risk, but more importantly putting the well-being of others at risk and duty of care extends beyond just the competitors as far as I'm concerned.
I have to consider the marshalls, rescue team and the other volunteers involved in the event.
Richard Taylor
"William Tell could take an apple off your head. Taylor could take out a processed pea."
Sid Waddell
All I'm doing Wynn is demonstrating how easy it is to rip holes in the AW's rules in true AI style. So which rule takes precedence paragraph 2 or 5? Do I manage my safety 'wholly' and comply with rule 2 but not 5, or do I manage my safety 'partially' and comply with rule 5 but not 2?
Bad critical thinking CL. There is no contradiction at all except in your head.
You imply rules are mutually exclusive they are not. Complying with one instruction does not in anyway compromise the ability to comply with the other, because carrying of that amount of kit, does not compromise the safety of the runner, so does not interfere with his agreement to managing his own safety.
The key is the runner must proactively weigh up conditions before starting. And decide whether and what extra is needed for safety. Is is that express instruction to decide in "on the day runner instructions" that I think is missing from FRA rules. I do not have a gripe with the idea of specifying a minimum so long as it is explicitly rather than implicitly stated as "not warranted as sufficient"
The RO must not be seen to be telling you what kit is sufficient for conditions on day. Only the runner must choose that. It is quite appropriate for the RO to lay down a level subject to that runner decision.
If Wynn asks you to carry a golf ball and you enter under those conditions but then refuse to carry it, you will be disqualified. You also have a duty expressed in the conditions to ensure you carry enough kit to stay safe - in ADDITION to any other mandated items.
Safety legislation, guidelines and codes of practice, uses two different words here to emphasise that very distinction. "Suitable" and "sufficient". Something can be suitable, but not be sufficient.
The minimum kit is "mandatory" and intended to be (but deliberately not stated as "suitable" to avoid the implication of being warranted as such) it is specifically stated as not "sufficient" to force the runner to choose.
I come back to the first point I made, which trumps all of that.
Those are the entry conditions. Do what the RO says. You don't like them don't enter - go somewhere else.
Last edited by alwaysinjured; 28-04-2014 at 11:15 AM.
Playing Devil's Advocate, and don't have a specific example, but what if the RO's requirements actually caused injury or death?
What?????
You come down to whether that was reasonably forseeable
Sure - it is just possible for a mandatory waterproof top to end up asphyxiating a runner, or the runner being left hanging by it even!. Nobody would blame the RO unless that was a reasonably forseeable consequence of his instructions (it is not) or it had happened in the past a few times (it has not to my knowledge) and the RO did not heed the clear need to revise their recommendations, or put other reasonably practicable control measuresin place.
Which is part of why it needs FRA to ACTIVELY review incidents in ours and other related sports, and publish the lessons learned from them - not just the ones that kill - but also the ones that had the power to, and even amend rules because of them. The way they talk is scottish hill running is a different sport so largely irrelevant. Which is ridiculous. Only the management is different.
It also needs RO to review their race plans in the light of incidents occurring in them, that may not have caused a problem in the case in question, but had the power to do so.
How did the same number and name appear twice in results? Something went wrong, and that something needs investigating. I have seen a few times.
Also - Some lost soul on a big lakes trail event could not reach the phone number advertised as the "safety number". The RO needs to get the bottom of these - because it has the potential to be a problem NEXT TIME - even if it did not cause other than embarrassment this time - and the fact of it happening before, but not heeded DEFINITELY creates a potential legal liability for the RO. And the review has to be done at the time, when it is all fresh in peoples minds, and the outcome published for all to see. Mandatory race plans should contain a section for incident review.
But as I keep saying it is not just about law. Or culpability. It is about improving raw safety.
So many people go off at tangents from the last crinkle on langdale (how bad is fellrunner navigation??!!) that I think it is incumbent on the langdale organiser to say that in the race description "be warned at the end of the crinkles - you have a turn left to take - that many people keep missing! so study the map there (and generally) please!" It has not happened yet, but that could be an underlying cause for a tragedy - a runner going off piste there, getting lost in mosedale, off little stand or cold pike, falling, and becoming injured , dying of hypothermia before found, Whilst- I doubt if the RO could be blamed for it, to me that is not the only point. It is stopping obvious possibilities for fatalities. Learning from specific experience.
Grudgingly FRA has suggested putting "specific hazards on courses" into race descriptions originally a suggestion of mine. But so far nobody has actually asked me, what you do actually mean by and do with that suggestion and why - and what to put in guidelines concerning it: because, quote graham "we dont need janet and john, you have written it all a gazillion times".
They do need janet and john. There is a specific example of what I meant. A hazard is not just a rock like the bad step - there is one for navigation, clearly, the fact that it routinely confuses, is plenty enough to say it is confusing. And navigation errors are dangerous, ergo that is a specific hazard of the langdale course - ergo worth mentioning in the description - the decision to put it in the description the direct result of a mandated race post mortem review.
As it is, a group of us have had more to do with highlighting the incidents that give rise to precedents (such as Grand Raid, Zugspitze etc) - even that issue at the end of the crinkles - than FRA, and that is wrong.
Last edited by alwaysinjured; 28-04-2014 at 12:14 PM.
The draft pack of revised documents (including safety requirements) currently being considered by SHR and WFRA make no kit stipulations. They only demand that the RO covers it in the race plan, which means the RO is free to deal with it in whatever way he/she sees fit.
Guidance will be available but it's for the RO - and more importantly the runner - to make the decisions based on the nature of the event, weather, etc. Which is how it should be.
The basic tenet will still stand though - whatever rules the RO sets are a pre-condition of entry.
I could not possibly put it in more simple terms. AI grasped the concept.
If you are saying that the runner is wholly responsible for their own safety and then the RO's requirements led to their death then this leaves you open to criticism.
ROs requirements are primarily to protect against bad weather but what if, using AI's example, the waterproof top led to asphyxiation in mild conditions? However unlikely the event, the possibility still remains - in this case, it would be the kit requirement that led to the runner's death.
As I said, I was playing Devil's Advocate but something to consider.... I would prefer a 'recommended' rather than mandatory kit requirement.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote