The article that got the guy fired is [1] apparently. If you search for "Gareth Dennis" - honestly his criticisms seem pretty mild.
My experience is the UK rail network targets truly patronising levels of safety. Signs and announcements on the dangers of running. Announcements on the dangers of slippery floors in wet weather. Announcements and signs about the importance of holding the handrail on stairs. Special extra video screens and announcements about the dangers of taking luggage on escalators. Announcements and warning signs that a flight of stairs is particularly long and tiring. Announcements on the dangers of using your phone while walking. Announcements that it's good to carry a bottle of water in hot weather.
I'm surprised this guy got fired - in the rail network I know, they'd have addressed his concerns by adding even more posters and announcements.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20240414153709/https://www.indep...
I genuinely don't see the harm of these things – I often think the issue is that lots of measures improve safety at the margins (e.g. if someone is drunk and stumbling down the stairs this announcement might help them) rather than on average. That is: many safety features will produce limited tangible benefit to the average person most of the time, but they do reduce accidents which normally happen at the tail end of the distribution in more extreme circumstances.
Banner blindness. If 95% of safety signage is banal and useless to most people, then most people will simply stop paying attention to signage.
Putting up a sign is not a free action!
To be honest this is a general problem with the UK. Try driving on any major street and you'll realize it's plastered with mostly useless signs. A dozen warnings assault your senses at any one time, which makes it very difficult to pick out what is actually important. This is compounded by sometimes completely braindead implementation of rules. E.g. most bus lanes in London can be used by motorcyclists, but some cannot. There's no rhyme or reason, the entire thing is decided by a small blue sign at the start of a particular stretch which may or may not have an even smaller motorbike icon on it - among an icon for a bus, taxi and pushbike. Whoever thought this is a good idea is either a moron or deliberately wanted to extract fines from motorcyclists who accidentally use the wrong bus lane.
Hotel lifts would appear to be another example of this. Automated "doors closing" / "doors opening" announcements seem to be present almost everywhere.
Presumably a significant number people suffer appaling crush injuries from lift doors in other countries ... or maybe they don't, and companies across the UK just let their Health and Safety conslutants get the upper hand.
...or visually impaired and thus use those announcements to understand what state the lift is in.
Blind person here, I find the "doors closing" / "doors opening" announcements pretty tiresome, and I don't think they provide any benefit to us.
They sometimes even make things worse. Especially on bilingual elevators (not that uncommon in European countries where English isn't an official language), there are so many announcements that the elevator just can't keep up when there's a lot of traffic. I've seen a few elevators that were always a few announcements behind during periods of high activity.
The "lift (elevator) going up / down" announcements, on the other hand, are quite helpful, and I vastly prefer the European system than the American mess of ADA-compliant beeps.
Why is the American system a mess? One chime for up, two for down. It's simple and doesn't bother anybody.
(speaking as a person who isn't blind) The biggest omission seems to be that there is nothing to tell you what floor you've arrived at. This is probably fine for an empty elevator but as soon as it gets busy and there are 10s of floors I'd imagine it gets hard to navigate.
...but only in lifts in the UK? No, that's not a credible hypothesis.
They’re not only in UK lifts and even if they were, that still wouldn’t change the intention of those announcements.
Lol yeah of all the examples to choose
Why are the pavements at crossings so bumpy?! It's political correctness gone mad!
This is not in line with my personal experience. Can you provide some examples of useless signs on typical roads in the UK?
The "tunnel ahead" sign always struck me as particularly pointless. Who needs that sign? Surely if you're driving towards a tunnel, the enormous tunnel itself is the indication you need that you're heading towards a tunnel?
Honourable mentions for "humps ahead".
I agree. Trying to track it all can be distracting.
I'm sorry, but UK is positively devoid of road signs compared to some other countries lol, I've been driving here for well over a decade and it's really nice how few signs are here and it mostly relies on common sense.
Compare to your average road in Poland:
https://motofakty.pl/co-5-metrow-znak/ar/c4-16143839
67 road signs on a 360 metre long stretch of road - and to me, what's shown in the picture is very typical, especially in big cities. There are soooo many signs it's close to impossible to read all of them and still look at the road.
Is it still not a free action if it replaced an ad?
That makes it literally not free - it was paid for with the opportunity cost of the ad.
At a society level, ads are paid for with the opportunity cost of other things that people could be thinking about, e.g. cancer-curing drugs. We can therefore say that ads cause cancer.
Both are at the cost of a generally more tranquil and quiet environment. I would take the most boring, crack-filled and grayest concrete wall over someone else’s messaging whether it is paid for or the agency’s own propaganda.
One of the reasons that people like many tourist destinations is that many tourist destinations forbid most outdoor advertising. It's subtle, probably many tourists don't even realize it, but it changes the entire feel of a place.
Additionally, the ones, whose ad-induced distraction would most benefit society, will not see these ads as they will likely not take the subway.
I saw myself doing this in realtime when visiting California for the first time. The initial shock of seeing signs that warned of cancer causing chemicals in buildings quickly faded when I realised they were on every building - soon becoming as blind to them as the locals.
You think stumbling drunk people are helped by signs and announcements?
Sometimes, probably yes? :)
I'd love to see the research that would substantiate that, from anecdotal evidence, stumbling drunks don't read or listen to anyone.
It would be good to see actual data backing up this hypothesis.
The cynic in me says another equally plausible hypothesis would be that this is entirely about the owner/operator/landlord avoiding any legal responsibility for accidents than actually reducing the number of accidents.
My mother had a job coming up with such warnings. She was a 'home safety technician' for the local council, advising people not to fall off ladders and the like. It seems to work like there are statistics that so many people end up in hospital after falling of a ladder or whatever and the council thinks we must fix this, we'll hire someone to educate the public. The odd poster probably doesn't make much difference to the number of people falling but it was quite an easy and entertaining job for my mum.
Behold, the last man.
it's not so much "harmful" as it is a symptom of and also reinforcing a society mentality of immature and infantile irresponsibility. but one might also argue it is harming visual and acoustic silence by constantly announcing something and hanging signs everywhere.
Euston is a special case. The lack of training/concern (depending on your level of cynicism) of ticket validity of the barrier staff isn’t unique (Paddington had this problem too), but the unique problem is the way the operator (network rail) do not announce platforms until the last minute leading to stampedes to the barriers.
The announcements are just there to sell more noise cancelling headphones in the on-station shops.
I think at Kings Cross also they have a tendency to not announce platforms until quite soon before departure.
Unlike Euston, Kings Cross was extensively renovated for the 2012 olympics, which by the standards of UK rail stations is a very recent upgrade.
They seem to have built it with enough capacity that they can announce platforms at the last minute and send everyone scurrying without causing any great danger.
Kings Cross is a mess of different systems, especially as the whole Kings Cross/ St Pancras complex rather than solely Kings Cross (which is only a dozen platforms). The low numbered Kings Cross platforms (zero through seven) are all accessed via a sideways entrance gate line, which is not good at all and you'd clearly never do that unless there's no economic alternative.
Oh absolutely. The underground bit is a total maze. Crossings on all the nearby roads are a nightmare. Nowhere near enough seating.
But that gate line you mention has loads of ticket barriers - there's zero crush risk.
10-15 minutes in my experience.
They delay platform announcements because they believe that a platform crammed full of waiting passengers will become a crush risk when the arriving passengers start to disembark.
When they announce the platform there is often enough time to stroll, but people rush because they want a seat.
It's a hard problem to solve in the short term.
I'm someone who used to frequently catch the last train north to Birmingham on a Saturday night (9:40pm), and it was usually full and so some people were without a seat. Of course we all rushed to try to get a seat. IMHO, it's foolishness to think people would do otherwise in that situation - after all who wants to stand for over an hour and a half when you've paid over £30 for the ticket?
Maybe they need reserved seating, haha.
Anyone in the know knows where to look to find out the platform before it's "sanctioned for the public to be informed about it".
And no, there isn't always time to stroll to the train, I've seen some really, really late announcements. Couple this with very large countdown timers that they actually added recently to each platform and you can see exactly why people feel stressed and rush.
The alternative is forcing them all to wait in the same cramped concourse area (with most space lost to retail units). During disruption, it gets genuinely difficult to move through this area. It has felt unpleasant in normal use for a while, but when there are cancellations and delays it feels positively dangerous. I am not exaggerating when I say that it feels very much like it's only a matter of time before something happens and someone gets crushed or trampled.
There's none of this nonsense at some other London termini, and Birmingham New Street manages to let people wait on the platforms. Why can't Euston?
This is a good—albeit shameless—business model. They could probably do the same thing in San Francisco’s MUNI stations.
I don't think there is a shred of evidence that being bombarded with neurotic fretting improves safety - here in the states this is usually recognized as limitation of liability. Juries will accept "we warned you," as a counterbalance to their universal tendency to want to side with the little guy against the giant corporation.
Well, it could be liability related.
But, falls are basically the only way people get injured at DC's Metro so it seems to make sense to have significant signage about that. I'd have to imagine there's nothing unique about DC so it's probably the same story for the UK.
"96% of the customer injuries were related to slips and falls within rail stations, and about 52% of those were on escalators." [1]. The stat for employees was 40% with being struck by an object in #2 at 25%.
[1]: https://wmata.com/about/calendar/events/upload/3A-Metro-s-Sa...
What's the connection between signage talking about falls and the rate of falls? I don't see any.
I work in transportation safety, primarily aviation but we also support WMATA. We usually define barriers which prevent, control, or mitigate an accident or undesired state [0]. Safety systems often require warning signage. Anecdotally, I find that regulators, companies, etc. use signage or safety bulletins than active barriers [0] because they are cheaper and quicker to implement. Even when they implement something like, say, abrasive floor treatments [1], that is only one barrier and likely imperceptible to the public.
Warning signage may be helpful, but I am skeptical of its effectiveness (especially as implemented). For example, "ice-warning signs do not have a statistically significant impact on the frequency or severity of vehicular accidents that involve ice." [2]
(Disclaimer: Opinions are my own.)
[0] https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/solutions/enablon/bowtie/ex...
[1] https://www.nata.aero/data/files/webinar_documents/preventin...
[2] https://doi.org/10.1016/S0001-4575(00)00020-8
I'm not sure being reminded not to slip would reduce my likelihood of slipping.
Seems like things like making sure floor transitions are mild, adequate drainage, textured floors would be more effective. (polished stone and concrete are a nightmare with some shoes that I own in wet weather).
The most egregious ones were ubiquitous signs on the London Underground stating that travellers should take care on the escalators; there were 111 accidents on the escalators last year, after all.
There are over 4 million tube journeys a day[1].
[1]: https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2023/novemb...
So the signs work!
Those accidents can be life changing, and often cause delays to services or dangerous levels of congestion during rush hour. I also suspect TfL are motivated to reduce liability - if they can show on CCTV somebody walking past a sign saying to take care, and then not taking care, TfL's coffers (i.e. the public's, it's not a private profit making entity), can be protected a little more from egregious legal claims.
What stuck out to me wasn't the signage, but "See it, say it. Sorted." Right along with "mind the gap!" that is going to be my enduring memory of UK rail.
"If you see something that doesn't look right, speak to staff or text British Transport Police on 61016. We'll sort it. See it, say it, sorted."
It haunts my dreams.
The UK rail network is in the unhappy position of getting sued whenever someone gets hurt, however stupid they're being. I think there was a case where some youths cut through the fencing around a depot, climbed on a train and got killed by the overhead wire - and then Network Rail got fined for not having a more vandal-proof fence or something like that.
This? https://www.orr.gov.uk/search-news/fine-for-network-rail-fol...
The posters and announcements won't make anything safer. They are CYA for the time the risk materializes.
Exactly. See Sidney Dekker's Field Guide to Understanding Human Error. The posters do (almost) nothing -- other than covering the backside of those who put them up, and doing safety theatre. Looks good, does nothing for safety.
The same author, Sidney Dekker, has a very good book about how to deal with someone like this whistleblower. It's called "Just Culture". Well worth a read. Spolier: It's not to silence them, not this way. You can silence the person by, you know, actually doing something useful. But that requires actual change, and more importantly, a change in attitude. And you need to convince the crowds that you are doing better by NOT putting up posters. You'll be surprised how many people really think the posters help.
Interesting, "the Office of Rail and Road ... issued Network Rail with an improvement notice"
For the benefit of readers not versed with UK regulation, an improvement notice is a formal instrument under the powers of the Health and Safety Executive. Whilst short of a prosecution notice, it definitely indicates that the powers that be are Officially Not Happy with, in this case, Network Rail.
Posters are just a charade.
Try to remove dangerous aggressive dog from transport, and see what happens.
But then trains highly overcrowded so in the case of another Greyrigg the death and injury toll would be far higher.
But affording to a train company there is "no upper limit on the number of passengers in a given train carriage". I did point out that the laws of physics, and basic human physiology would refute that assertion.
So, maybe safety theatre rather than patronising levels of safety.
>My experience is the UK rail network targets truly patronising levels of safety.
It's clearly working, because the British railway network is the safest large network in Europe, despite some pretty dilapidated infrastructure.
https://international-railway-safety-council.com/safety-stat...
I believe the purpose of these safety warnings is more about mitigating liability for accidents rather than any true concern for traveller's well being.
Everything wrong with the UK today can be summarized as society going from "Mind the gap" to this insanity.
those are just to limit their liability: we told them not to so it's not our fault. The real safety, the one that they should provide is somewhere else.
You're talking about railway lines and stations with ad-hoc upgrades that are as much as 200 years old (yes). Most of the network is comfortably over 100 years old and trains were slower, and frankly, people were less mollycoddled.
But, with regards to the article, he's 100% correct, Euston is dangerous. And it's currently one of the worst central London stations for things going wrong. It's pretty much every other week at the moment. London Bridge used to be as bad with overcrowding until they rebuilt most of it.
Then again, Euston was supposed to be redeveloped for HS2, and that's been kicked into the long grass, even though all the hard work has been done. I don't think there's anyone truly as stupid as the UK government.