Personal Locator Beacons

[jenniwren]

Horses aside I do love to get away from it all like you lot off the beaten track.

I wonder if any of you have had to call MRT because of illness or a broken bone preventing your fnding your own way off a remote track! Having watched Richard Hammond and the Helis it is apparent there is some need for MRT's for fellrunners as well, so you are just as human and mortal as anyone else.

I did not ask you to get excited about PLBs...just put it forward that the information was there and to consider signing the petition. If you can't debate or inform yourself with any intelligence and polliteness then I suggest you don't take part in it. People should have the right to choose if they want to carry a PLB or not no matter what outdoor pursuit they follow.

[Guick Dotto]

Yes that's what I said to you. I thought people were being a bit hard on you that's why I posted. I bet you haven't wasted your time either cos there are loads of fellrunners who love mobiles and GPS and stuff, have a look at the 101 uses for a mobile thread in general Fellrunning issues, and I'll bet they are falling over themselves to sign your petition. And by the way if you think there's been rudeness shown see what Yorkshire Thug and her ilk think about people like me!
You don't know it but you've stumbled into a significant ethical debate about safety and responsibility. I'm sure your side is going to win, by the way. And not just for outdoor pursuits either. My free copy of Teacher magazine, which the government insists I read as they send me three copies, has lovely pictures of smiling children who are made even happier at the prospect of being fingerprinted so that dinner registers are easier to take. I'm sure personal locator beacons will be injected into our earlobes and then we'll never be lost ever again. They'll always be able to find you.

[Grouse]

Excellent!!! I'm not the only paranoid looney in the world!!!


We will all be implanted with hypodermic microchips soon anyway so all of this will be irrelevant. I just think that people like Jenny of the green wellies and race organisers who insist on mobile phones will help this happen sooner. Technology looking for applications usually finds lots.

[Guick Dotto]

Paranoid????
Looney yes

[Grouse]

I think that we should be allowed to make mistakes. I think children should be given the chance to take responsibility for library cards and dinner money, and that includes being given the opportunity to lose those things. It's part of growing up. I think that fell runners should be given the chance to take responsibility for their own safety, and that includes being given the opportunity to get lost and find themselves in dangerous or even life threatening situations with only their own resources to rely on. That's part of growing up too. It's part of being human, truly human and it's why I run on the fells.

[Grouse]

BTW the Teachers magazine pisses me off too.

[FellShoeShuffler]

To put PLBs in a proper context have a look at

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle3215276.ece

[jenniwren]

I think that we should be allowed to make mistakes. I think children should be given the chance to take responsibility for library cards and dinner money, and that includes being given the opportunity to lose those things. It's part of growing up. I think that fell runners should be given the chance to take responsibility for their own safety, and that includes being given the opportunity to get lost and find themselves in dangerous or even life threatening situations with only their own resources to rely on. That's part of growing up too. It's part of being human, truly human and it's why I run on the fells.

I totally agree with what you say, but at the same time we are not all of the same mould and other's should have the choice of PLB's. The pro PLB people have no wish to make it compulsory to have a PLB when venturing onto moor or mountain. It would be too difficult to monitor!

Guick Dotto I looked at the 101 thread and posted. As regards to fellrunning events I referred to Amatuer Radio clubs to monitor the route (as they do in other outdoor events) thus the mobile phone would not be needed to be compulsory. I have no idea if fellrunning events are organised this way. My husband is a licensed amateur radio man and is regularly called to events during the Spring, Summer and Autumn. It's nice when there are no incidents but they can get help promptly when there are!

I hate the compensation culture but when the chips are down it's difficult not to join it. The same goes for radio waves and technology...we'd be lost without it. We are communicating through the internet when 15 years ago it wasn't possible in the UK yet you (general) accept it! I'd love to return to the days when there were no pignetting/barbed wire fences and walls and have real freedom to roam...sadly those days are gone too.

[Guick Dotto]

Fair enough.
I've absolutely no problem with organisers using radios and so on. I'm grateful for people who give up their time and expertise to make a race safe. It's the inevitable destruction of the wilderness and wildness in people that saddens me when compulsion comes in. Also I might want to take a beacon myself if I was racing across the Greenland icecap (I can hear Grouse going "Wimp!") but it's not THAT wild in this country is it? Be honest. And with all this safety paraphernalia the illusion of adventure becomes more and more fragile.

[Stolly]

There's agreat line in a book (I can't for the moment remember the name of ) talking of buccaneers crossing from the Carribean to the Pacific through the Panama jungle in the 1600's 'with nothing more than a cutlass and a stick of salt to lick on'. Can you imagine the vast array of technology that any self respecting (sponsorship seeking) expedition would carry nowadays?

Quick Dotto has hit the nail on the head in mentioning the spirit of adventure; well to me he has. Next thing they'll be fitting an handrail on Striding Edge or... building a..a.. train station on top of Snowden