Signs or common sense? | GTAMotorcycle.com

Signs or common sense?

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nobbie48

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A dozen years ago a half dozen workers fell from scaffolding on a high rise. I heard the news on the radio and my first thought was "Poor saps". My second thought was that there would be legislative changes and of course we now have far more strict Working at Heights regulations.

A month ago six young people died when the car they were in crashed into a poorly protected chasm. Yes they were breaking some rules but it shouldn't have been a mass death sentence. A few cuts and bruises and a wrecked car would have been enough of a lesson.

Do we need more laws with regards to signage and barriers?

Aside from the Barrie incident I see stupid and insufficient signage almost everywhere. Some allow unnecessary risks and many others contribute to traffic jams.

In our area it isn't surprising to see black or dark coloured dumpsters parked overnight on poorly lit streets with no reflective devices to warn drivers. There is traffic congestion where drivers are given insufficient warning about lane closures.

Given the variables in construction the laws could be insane to write and worse to teach, hence the need for common sense. Right now it seems that as long as someone puts out something it's OK. Any size, colour, shape, arrangement or quantity of barrier is acceptable. There seems to be no attempt to see the obstruction from the point of view of an approaching driver. (Or texting pedestrian)

With regards to the Barrie incident, it's only been a month. I don't know if any negligence repercussions will come up.
 
Signage and barriers are VERY well regulated by the MTO and MOL for any work happening on roads within the Province. And they crack down hard if your pilons aren't in the proper positions. Same with signage, they are very well designed and must be adhered to accordingly.

What you are describing is items being placed in the roadway that shouldn't be there, and that is a definite issue especially at night.

No amount of signage would have prevented the issue in Barrie IMO (without all the facts). These kids CHOSE to go onto a road that has been closed off for months prior to the incident. The pit that their car fell into was definitely not clearly marked, and not barricaded accordingly...but the roads were closed off, and they shouldn't have been there doing a stupid speed.

My last project in Toronto we had signage, barriers, and warnings...yet an idiot STILL managed to drive into the open pit and get injured.

Multiple times / year we have idiots that drive into the streetcar tunnel on Queens Quay, and that thing is marked with signs and lights.

Idiocy is the biggest issue with these types of incidents, not the signage. And unfortunately idiocy hurts sometimes, and other times it kills.
 
nobbie48 said:
A dozen years ago a half dozen workers fell from scaffolding on a high rise. I heard the news on the radio and my first thought was "Poor saps". My second thought was that there would be legislative changes and of course we now have far more strict Working at Heights regulations.

A month ago six young people died when the car they were in crashed into a poorly protected chasm. Yes they were breaking some rules but it shouldn't have been a mass death sentence. A few cuts and bruises and a wrecked car would have been enough of a lesson.

Do we need more laws with regards to signage and barriers?

Aside from the Barrie incident I see stupid and insufficient signage almost everywhere. Some allow unnecessary risks and many others contribute to traffic jams.

In our area it isn't surprising to see black or dark coloured dumpsters parked overnight on poorly lit streets with no reflective devices to warn drivers. There is traffic congestion where drivers are given insufficient warning about lane closures.

Given the variables in construction the laws could be insane to write and worse to teach, hence the need for common sense. Right now it seems that as long as someone puts out something it's OK. Any size, colour, shape, arrangement or quantity of barrier is acceptable. There seems to be no attempt to see the obstruction from the point of view of an approaching driver. (Or texting pedestrian)

With regards to the Barrie incident, it's only been a month. I don't know if any negligence repercussions will come up.
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Barrie is going to be interesting. Look at any downtown condo site and it is completely fenced with tons of signs for open excavation, danger, etc. Barrie site had a road closed sign but didn't appear to have much else. Railing around pit was a pipe railing to keep pedestrians from accidentally falling in (but very open so you could easily get through it). Seems strange that a deck with a potential 25" fall requires substantially more protection than a 60' hole. Condrain was doing the work so they should know what is required.

I suspect the lawsuits will be ugly and wouldn't be surprised if the smaller partners like Pratt don't survive the process (they appear to have used one of their main companies instead of a separate corp). There is likely a way to dodge most of the liability but optics would suck. Condrain was hired by a partnership. Partnership could transfer out any assets it has to a new entity and dissolve. Condrain blames non-existent partnership, their insurance pays out but not a big financial hit to condrain. No hit to developers (some paperwork and lawyering).

Not sure how the auto policy plays out as they were clearly on a closed road so letter of the law will be insurance void. Don't know if girl personally owned the car or her parents. If her parents, they could be the biggest losers in this as they lose everything (kid and all assets). There were apparently (I haven't seen them) videos of her driving 180 km/h not long before the accident. If true, no amount of signage can save you as you won't have enough reaction time. If they had blocked the pit with an excavator, they wouldn't have fallen in but all would have died in a fiery ball against an excavator.

It did make me reconsider what happens with potential kid vehicles in the future. They will be in the kids name.
 
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You can't fix stupid. Humans get in the way of really good technology.
In the skydiving world, incidents happen occasionally. Sometimes they are fatal. Every one of them was caused by the human doing something dumb.
That's life.
 
“The road is closed so don’t go down it. Well you can, but you’ll fall into a big pit and likely die. We can install a barrier at the pit but if we make it sturdy enough to stop a car you’ll hit it and die from the impact. So just don’t go down this road “.
 
That Barrie incident, at least in my opinion was just a very lapsed sense of judgement. Being that they all died, there is no way of knowing if they didn't see any signage are just ignored it. Sadly we live in a world where "Every life is precious" but our own actions to ourselves and those around us contradict this statement. Stupidity, ignorance, arrogance and violence are the leading causes of death in today's world with lack of accountability seeming to be the underlying cause.
 
Isn’t there a cross walk somewhere screaming for a crossing guard ? It’s a couple hours a day you can just relax . Or be super vigilant. Bug they will give you a sign .


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A kid died here years ago when the building was going up. Rest In Peace.
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He was using a swingstage and had a safety harness on, putting up drywall. The story I heard was that he fell from a plank, while trying to reach some drywall and landed on a terrazzo machine. Within a week the swingstages were gone, and the job was scaffolded all the way up.

They used to calculate that one person would die for every million dollars that a job cost.
 
Jampy00 said:
That Barrie incident, at least in my opinion was just a very lapsed sense of judgement. Being that they all died, there is no way of knowing if they didn't see any signage are just ignored it. Sadly we live in a world where "Every life is precious" but our own actions to ourselves and those around us contradict this statement. Stupidity, ignorance, arrogance and violence are the leading causes of death in today's world with lack of accountability seeming to be the underlying cause.
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The road's been closed for months; and the signage was very visible... The kids didn't miss the signs, they unfortunately ignored them; and paid the price. Word is they were headed to the casino at Georgian downs, and either blindly followed the GPS or (more likely, IMO) took a shortcut, since it was night and who cares if the road is closed? It's tragic, but also, sadly, classic 'death by misadventure'

Ghost is completely right, the lawsuits will be numerous, convoluted, and expensive for all involved - and no matter who 'wins' - only the lawyers will be satisfied by the money that changes hands.
 
Really liked Newfondland for this aspect. Lots of places where we could have fallen to our death or drowned. No fences blocking you out, just a sign warning of the danger. Newfoundlanders have a good handle on common sense I guess.
 
Baggsy said:
They used to calculate that one person would die for every million dollars that a job cost.
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A few years ago I was reading some of the Darlington NGS site planning documents from the 80's where it essentially said 1 or fewer deaths was the target for construction of the reactors. As far as I know no one did die, so that's good, but still it really surprised me as you'd never see a job now where any death was acceptable.
 
OntFF said:
The road's been closed for months; and the signage was very visible... The kids didn't miss the signs, they unfortunately ignored them; and paid the price. Word is they were headed to the casino at Georgian downs, and either blindly followed the GPS or (more likely, IMO) took a shortcut, since it was night and who cares if the road is closed? It's tragic, but also, sadly, classic 'death by misadventure'

Ghost is completely right, the lawsuits will be numerous, convoluted, and expensive for all involved - and no matter who 'wins' - only the lawyers will be satisfied by the money that changes hands.
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Only they really know and graves keep secrets.

We have to challenge things that are unreasonable but where does the knowledge come from to make those decisions.

What could go wrong?

Answer: Thousands of things and how do you put up signs for every risk?

In hindsight there should have been a sign saying "You will crash into a massive open chasm and die"
Baggsy said:
They used to calculate that one person would die for every million dollars that a job cost.
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Possibly ages ago when a million was a lot of construction money and death and injury were expected.
With millions of dollars of construction going on daily we don't see numerous deaths. It would mean a dead body for every single family house.

Go back to the dirty thirties when a million bought a million man hours and maybe.
 
I think the current estimate is 1 death per $100M or something along those lines.

We had 2 deaths on my last job, but both were older men having heart attacks during the course of the work. Saw my buddy at 8pm when I arrived at camp on my first day, and he was dead by midnight. He was in no way a healthy man, and going through a hard time as his wife of 40 years just passed a few months prior.

As for lawsuits, they will fly back and forth. They will name the contractor, engineer, inspectors, city, anyone and their mother will get notice. My wife knows if I die on a job site…sue them all. Every single entity involved.

Without knowing details, and this being Barrie, I have a feeling there’s a lot of good ol boy club up there.

‘Well Bob you should really have this cordoned off / signed better…but should be fine. Just do it soon’ type of attitude. I hope not. But it’s all ‘fine and dandy’ until it isn’t.

Unfortunately a lot of families were shattered that night, and ‘death by misadventure’ is no longer an easy conclusion….because no one is willing to accept liability for their, or their loved ones, actions.
 
What happened in Barrie?

As for signs. I think there are enough, but some areas need improvement. I believe there was a study years ago stating that drivers become overloaded due to the barrage of signs then end up tuing them out as they become visual distracting, even if they are important to their well being.
 
sburns said:
What happened in Barrie?

As for signs. I think there are enough, but some areas need improvement. I believe there was a study years ago stating that drivers become overloaded due to the barrage of signs then end up tuing them out as they become visual distracting, even if they are important to their well being.
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6 killed in Barrie, Ont., crash believed to be heading to casino: Police | Globalnews.ca

The new details from the Barrie Police Service are shedding more light on the fatal crash that devastated the city.
globalnews.ca globalnews.ca
 
nobbie48 said:
What could go wrong?

Answer: Thousands of things and how do you put up signs for every risk?

In hindsight there should have been a sign saying "You will crash into a massive open chasm and die"
Click to expand...

Then someone would come along and sue because the sign wasn't in all 234 languages spoken in Ontario... personally I feel if you die due to lack of common sense , lawsuits shouldn't be allowed.
 
Common sense is all too uncommon.

Re warning labels ... Information overload is a real thing. Too many warning labels means the important warning labels get ignored along with the plethora of trivial ones.

I drive past the end of one of the roads leading to that incident scene regularly. It's been blocked off "ROAD CLOSED" for months. That said, there are private residences along both roads, which means those people need to be able to get to their houses, and the construction workers themselves need to get to and from the construction site somehow. You can't completely block off the road with cement barriers so that nobody can get past.

Risk cannot be completely eliminated from any human activity.
 
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