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Post by PG on Mar 23, 2017 14:32:55 GMT
Those bollards could work but I think the costs across the UK of doing that would be prohibitive. What would also work is making far m ore high population areas traffic free, with serious bollards to prevent vehicle access. That's a better long term solution to these sort of attacks. Parliament Square and Westminster Bridge are so full of pedestrians and chocked beyond bursting at peak tourist times, that having traffic there at all has always seemed silly in the extreme.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 23, 2017 14:50:03 GMT
Fine John, I'll just drive through a red light when people are crossing, or are you going to have bollards pop up in the road as well? This could work in some places, and as Michel says most wide open "people spaces" are already bollarded, but it will just move the problem elsewhere. Oh and everyone will bump into them while looking at their phones!
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Post by johnc on Mar 23, 2017 15:31:45 GMT
Fine John, I'll just drive through a red light when people are crossing, or are you going to have bollards pop up in the road as well? This could work in some places, and as Michel says most wide open "people spaces" are already bollarded, but it will just move the problem elsewhere. Oh and everyone will bump into them while looking at their phones! Did you have red meat for breakfast or something?
You can never have a solution which is going to stop everything. The point I was making is that Westminster Bridge is normally packed (I've walked across there myself in a sea of people). The wide pavements provide an opportunity for a terrorist and with a bit of strategic barrier placing you can cut off another avenue for the nutters. I'm not talking about putting them everywhere but there are certain streets and certain pavements in certain cities where these barriers would prevent such an attack.
If someone gives his crown jewels a pasting by walking into one of them whilst looking at his phone then that's his problem - that's why you can't use a mobile when you are driving.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 23, 2017 18:12:07 GMT
Fine John, I'll just drive through a red light when people are crossing, or are you going to have bollards pop up in the road as well? This could work in some places, and as Michel says most wide open "people spaces" are already bollarded, but it will just move the problem elsewhere. Oh and everyone will bump into them while looking at their phones! Did you have red meat for breakfast or something?
You can never have a solution which is going to stop everything. The point I was making is that Westminster Bridge is normally packed (I've walked across there myself in a sea of people). The wide pavements provide an opportunity for a terrorist and with a bit of strategic barrier placing you can cut off another avenue for the nutters. I'm not talking about putting them everywhere but there are certain streets and certain pavements in certain cities where these barriers would prevent such an attack.
If someone gives his crown jewels a pasting by walking into one of them whilst looking at his phone then that's his problem - that's why you can't use a mobile when you are driving.
Ha, no but I like the idea of that breakfast! I was responding to this "They will need to put bollards down the middle of pavements in exposed areas to stop this kind of attack again" . My point is you can't stop it, you will merely stop it on those pavements while leaving plenty of other opportunities. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2017 11:33:19 GMT
When I was saying the government should step up to the plate with the families of those who are terribly injured or killed in service I did not mean just the pension. Parents have a lot of impact when kids are trying to get in to university etc. There should be a mechanism to help in these more practical ways and I would like to see a priority in colleges and universities for these kids.
These families, let's not forget the wives, need support and not leaving it to charity. Morale must be a core and that comes from maintaining the family that develops around military and I hope emergency service families. I am pretty sure that serving personnel would have one thing less to worry about if they knew this kind of support was available for their family.
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Mar 24, 2017 13:23:14 GMT
Those bollards could work but I think the costs across the UK of doing that would be prohibitive. What would also work is making far m ore high population areas traffic free, with serious bollards to prevent vehicle access. That's a better long term solution to these sort of attacks. Parliament Square and Westminster Bridge are so full of pedestrians and chocked beyond bursting at peak tourist times, that having traffic there at all has always seemed silly in the extreme. The thing with bollards is that one generally isn't enough to stop a vehicle - even the heavy black square section bollards you see all over London. When we did Westminster and Central London we had to lift large areas of pavement and install galvanised steel framework that linked up to 6 bollards together underground. That way if you hit one you were trying to push over all the others and it was effective in stopping even large vehicles. It was disruptive, time consuming, and very expensive. Also you wouldn't believe the number of services that run under London streets, gas, electric, water, TV, etc. At one point I think we dealing with 11 different service providers, all with different records. We also found hidden generators that were designed to run Parliament in the event of war and no one would own up to them, until eventually someone did. I think whatever you did there would always be vulnerable areas so you'd just be constantly push the problem from one place to the next. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2018 1:23:00 GMT
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Apr 24, 2018 5:22:00 GMT
Rented van again. Maybe we need to have more checks when Muslims are hiring vans. |
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Post by Alex on Apr 24, 2018 7:41:19 GMT
Rented van again. Maybe we need to have more checks when Muslims are hiring vans. I didn’t see anything in that article that says the suspect was a Muslim? Try to remember also that a white Christian used a van to attack Muslims leaving prayer at Finsbury Park mosque last year. I know a lot of your posts are meant to be tongue-in-cheek but that’s quite a disappointing throwaway comment to see on here. I thought we were better than that. |
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Apr 24, 2018 8:26:50 GMT
Rented van again. Maybe we need to have more checks when Muslims are hiring vans. I didn’t see anything in that article that says the suspect was a Muslim? Try to remember also that a white Christian used a van to attack Muslims leaving prayer at Finsbury Park mosque last year. I know a lot of your posts are meant to be tongue-in-cheek but that’s quite a disappointing throwaway comment to see on here. I thought we were better than that. I don't know if the guy is a Muslim. His surname is Armenian, most Armenians are Christian so who knows? I suspect we'll find out what the motive was soon enough and I suspect I won't be surprised. My post was tongue in cheek but has a serious point. If we have a problem with radical Muslims renting vehicles and driving at pedestrians, and recent history suggest we have: edition.cnn.com/2017/05/03/world/terrorist-attacks-by-vehicle-fast-facts/index.htmlWhat do we propose doing about it? If you're the lad sitting in the Enterprise van rental desk in Hartlepool and two Muslim lads that you don't know come in to rent a van and their addresses aren't local, do you raise concerns with the police? Are you being racist in doing so? Hiding our heads in the sand out of political correctness will just end up in more tragedies and more people getting killed. It could be our loved ones walking down any street. |
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Post by Blarno on Apr 24, 2018 9:09:38 GMT
I'm with you on that Bob, but how do you know someone is a Muslim from just looking at them?
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Post by Tim on Apr 24, 2018 9:29:07 GMT
There's a van hire firm in Glenrothes that I've used a lot and the owners are Muslim.
Never had any problems and they've always been extremely helpful (and the vans always track in a straight line too!).
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Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2018 11:23:02 GMT
I'm with you on that Bob, but how do you know someone is a Muslim from just looking at them? The women are quite easy to spot! |
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Post by Roadsterstu on Apr 24, 2018 11:40:23 GMT
I didn’t see anything in that article that says the suspect was a Muslim? Try to remember also that a white Christian used a van to attack Muslims leaving prayer at Finsbury Park mosque last year. I know a lot of your posts are meant to be tongue-in-cheek but that’s quite a disappointing throwaway comment to see on here. I thought we were better than that. I don't know if the guy is a Muslim. His surname is Armenian, most Armenians are Christian so who knows? I suspect we'll find out what the motive was soon enough and I suspect I won't be surprised. My post was tongue in cheek but has a serious point. If we have a problem with radical Muslims renting vehicles and driving at pedestrians, and recent history suggest we have: edition.cnn.com/2017/05/03/world/terrorist-attacks-by-vehicle-fast-facts/index.htmlWhat do we propose doing about it? If you're the lad sitting in the Enterprise van rental desk in Hartlepool and two Muslim lads that you don't know come in to rent a van and their addresses aren't local, do you raise concerns with the police? Are you being racist in doing so? Hiding our heads in the sand out of political correctness will just end up in more tragedies and more people getting killed. It could be our loved ones walking down any street. I'm really not sure where to even start with that, Bob. Start racial profiling of van rental customers? Really? In order to hire a van from one of the big companies you need your driving licence and a credit card as a minimum. There's your ID documents right there. Could they be fake or being used fraudulently? Of course they could but that could be the case where anyone needs those documents. That said, would verified ID documents prevent an attack? No, they wouldn't. But we can't predict the future. And what if a van is rented from a kess scrupulous firm? Purchased? Stolen? Does Dave, behind the rental desk at Enterprise ring the police? The police wouldn't do anything with that minimal information. Just because a man of broadly Muslim appearance (who might not be Muslim anyway, even less a radical Islamist) rents a van doesn't mean he is planning an atrocity rather than just helping his parents move house. Like Alex, I did wonder if that was an off the cuff comment or said as a serious comment. If the latter then I, too, find that rather distasteful. |
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Apr 24, 2018 12:17:03 GMT
I don't know if the guy is a Muslim. His surname is Armenian, most Armenians are Christian so who knows? I suspect we'll find out what the motive was soon enough and I suspect I won't be surprised. My post was tongue in cheek but has a serious point. If we have a problem with radical Muslims renting vehicles and driving at pedestrians, and recent history suggest we have: edition.cnn.com/2017/05/03/world/terrorist-attacks-by-vehicle-fast-facts/index.htmlWhat do we propose doing about it? If you're the lad sitting in the Enterprise van rental desk in Hartlepool and two Muslim lads that you don't know come in to rent a van and their addresses aren't local, do you raise concerns with the police? Are you being racist in doing so? Hiding our heads in the sand out of political correctness will just end up in more tragedies and more people getting killed. It could be our loved ones walking down any street. I'm really not sure where to even start with that, Bob. Start racial profiling of van rental customers? Really? In order to hire a van from one of the big companies you need your driving licence and a credit card as a minimum. There's your ID documents right there. Could they be fake or being used fraudulently? Of course they could but that could be the case where anyone needs those documents. That said, would verified ID documents prevent an attack? No, they wouldn't. But we can't predict the future. And what if a van is rented from a kess scrupulous firm? Purchased? Stolen? Does Dave, behind the rental desk at Enterprise ring the police? The police wouldn't do anything with that minimal information. Just because a man of broadly Muslim appearance (who might not be Muslim anyway, even less a radical Islamist) rents a van doesn't mean he is planning an atrocity rather than just helping his parents move house. Like Alex, I did wonder if that was an off the cuff comment or said as a serious comment. If the latter then I, too, find that rather distasteful. You're missing the point. Racial profiling is used all the time, by the police and other bodies - they say they don't but they do, either consciously or sub-consciously. And the documents thing is a red herring as if you're going to commit a suicide act then you're not worried about being caught afterwards. But I digress, if you read my post I said that maybe we need more checks on Muslim's hiring vans. I didn't say stop them hiring vans but since the rental van/truck driving into pedestrians is becoming a modus operandi, particularly in countries without easy access to firearms, perhaps it's something that needs to be looked at. How you tackle this problem is difficult. Very often, when atrocities like this are committed it turns out the offender was on a watch list but nothing was done - do you put a marker on their passport and license details so that it is flagged up when they try to hire a vehicle, do you instigate a waiting period while checks are carried out? All I know is we've tackled far less serious problems with knock on impacts for all of us, both Muslim and non-Muslim. |
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