| sadly they still live among us 23:59 - Jul 12 with 3777 views | Woolfenthen |
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| sadly they still live among us on 10:23 - Jul 13 with 930 views | MattinLondon |
| sadly they still live among us on 09:27 - Jul 13 by homer_123 |
Ronnie Pickering? |
WHO? |  | | |
| sadly they still live among us on 10:26 - Jul 13 with 903 views | Kievthegreat |
| sadly they still live among us on 10:23 - Jul 13 by MattinLondon |
WHO? |
RONNIE PICKERING! |  | | |
| sadly they still live among us on 10:27 - Jul 13 with 884 views | Cheltenham_Blue |
| sadly they still live among us on 10:26 - Jul 13 by Kievthegreat |
RONNIE PICKERING! |
Who's he then? |  |
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| sadly they still live among us on 10:33 - Jul 13 with 852 views | Guthrum |
| sadly they still live among us on 09:24 - Jul 13 by ThatMuhrenCross |
It will easily be in the tens of thousands. All the businesses that use the Port of Felixstowe, all the roads throughout Ipswich that become gridlocked, yes, all the people that will be late to work.
What about someone who urgently needs to get to the hospital, a pregnant woman going into labour? What about the person who has a make or break meeting scheduled for their business, and now ends up losing everything? What about families with neurodiverse children in the back seat who could really struggle with the situation? The list goes on.
Click the down arrow all you like and say I'm not compassionate, but I'm deeply compassionate - compassionate for the many, many people that suffer when a situation like this happens. |
Sure, but all those situations are rectifiable (emergency vehicles can be allowed through, the businessperson can make phone calls to explain the delay, the parents of neurodiverse children usually already have strategies for boredom situations) or simply inconveniences. None of it is good or pleasant for those caught up in it.
But once someone is dead, that's it, there's no retrieval.
In any case, you are making a far more reasonable argument than the original quoted tweet, which was merely moaning that their journey took a bit longer than normal. |  |
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| sadly they still live among us on 10:39 - Jul 13 with 819 views | ThatMuhrenCross |
| sadly they still live among us on 10:10 - Jul 13 by bsw72 |
I was not going to comment, but having been "on the way to that bridge" 15 years ago before intervention, I cannot let this go.
I get why people are frustrated, and you’re right that closures can ripple out and make a lot of people’s day genuinely hard. But if you’re going to call this “thinking more deeply and critically”, it’s worth being a bit more consistent about how you’re weighing things.
A lot of what you list (labour, someone missing urgent hospital care, a business collapsing, neurodiverse kids melting down) is possible and some of it has mitigations (ambulance routes, police traffic management, diversions). The person on the bridge isn’t hypothetical; it’s a real, known individual in immediate danger. If we’re doing “not black and white”, we should be careful not to stack one side with worst‑case anecdotes while brushing off the other as “just one person”.
Also, saying “tens of thousands are affected just to help one” isn’t a neutral observation, it quietly turns into a moral claim: that a life becomes negotiable once enough people are delayed. If that’s your view, fine, but then you should be willing to own the awkward follow-on questions:
- What’s the threshold?
- How many delayed journeys makes a preventable death acceptable?
-Who gets to decide that, and by what rule?
And “compassion for the many” can be real but it gets shaky if it depends on treating the one person as an acceptable write-off because they’re disruptive. Most people stuck in traffic are stressed, late and inconvenienced; the person on the bridge may be minutes from dying. Those aren’t the same kind of “harm”, even if both matter.
On the “more should be done to stop people getting up there” point I agree fully. Better prevention is a good argument (barriers, design, patrols, mental health support). But it doesn’t really answer what we do in the future when someone’s up there now.
Lastly, the “you’re not capable” / “be kind” stuff just sounds like trying to win the argument by putting down and not by backing your position. If your view is as deeply thought as you say, it should stand up without the personal digs.
Genuinely curious: do you actually believe there are times we should not close the road / intervene because the disruption is “too big”? If yes, where’s that line and how do you stop it being used mainly against the most inconvenient or stigmatised people? |
Apologies for the personal digs, but I felt the "get on the div list" as well as the individual's tone turned it personal, so I retaliated. I should do better. I thought my original comment was well thought out and carefully worded. It's a sensitive subject and unfortunately, as soon as you take a position on it, someone is going to get offended.
Now, to answer your questions.
What is the threshold? Very difficult to answer because if we save this individual, but the result is two other people end up losing their own lives, then surely the net result is that we're worse off? You'd be right to say that's all hypothetical, but it's certainly not beyond the realms of possibility when you're talking about thousands of people being affected, especially in the immediate vicinity of a hospital.
How many delayed journeys makes a preventable death acceptable? That seems to be the previous question, just re-worded. Again though, it's not about the delayed journeys - it's the potential consequences of those delayed journeys. Clearly, I'm not talking about people who are 15 minutes late to the pub, by the way.
Who gets to decide that? Well, who gets to decide any rules for roads around Ipswich? The police? The council? The fact of the matter is that the Orwell Bridge closes and the entire town grinds to a halt. What we're doing right now is not working. Someone in authority needs to make a decision. It can't go on. |  |
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| sadly they still live among us on 10:46 - Jul 13 with 816 views | Swansea_Blue |
| sadly they still live among us on 06:57 - Jul 13 by ThatMuhrenCross |
I think the frustration people have is that closing the road affects tens of thousands of people (if not more), just to help one person. Personally I don’t think enough is done to stop people going up there in the first place. It seems to be happening a lot more often these days. |
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| sadly they still live among us on 11:02 - Jul 13 with 768 views | Guthrum |
| sadly they still live among us on 10:22 - Jul 13 by Benters |
A similar thing happened on the A12 earlier in the year loads of people missed Hospital appointments etc.
I know they have to do something to help the poor person in question,but why not keep the traffic moving at say 10-20 mph ? |
They probably don't want car loads of people rubber-necking at what's going on. Especially as that itself often causes accidents, which would complicate the situation and block the road anyway. | |
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| sadly they still live among us on 11:03 - Jul 13 with 764 views | Axeldalai_lama |
| sadly they still live among us on 10:39 - Jul 13 by ThatMuhrenCross |
Apologies for the personal digs, but I felt the "get on the div list" as well as the individual's tone turned it personal, so I retaliated. I should do better. I thought my original comment was well thought out and carefully worded. It's a sensitive subject and unfortunately, as soon as you take a position on it, someone is going to get offended.
Now, to answer your questions.
What is the threshold? Very difficult to answer because if we save this individual, but the result is two other people end up losing their own lives, then surely the net result is that we're worse off? You'd be right to say that's all hypothetical, but it's certainly not beyond the realms of possibility when you're talking about thousands of people being affected, especially in the immediate vicinity of a hospital.
How many delayed journeys makes a preventable death acceptable? That seems to be the previous question, just re-worded. Again though, it's not about the delayed journeys - it's the potential consequences of those delayed journeys. Clearly, I'm not talking about people who are 15 minutes late to the pub, by the way.
Who gets to decide that? Well, who gets to decide any rules for roads around Ipswich? The police? The council? The fact of the matter is that the Orwell Bridge closes and the entire town grinds to a halt. What we're doing right now is not working. Someone in authority needs to make a decision. It can't go on. |
'Not beyond the realms of possibility' with huge ability to mitigate and deal with vs real actual clear ongoing crisis and absolute present risk to life.
What about a car crash or lorry fire or whatever closing a motorway? Should they not take care and time to extracte passengers etc etc? Closing it for crash investigators etc. Air ambulance landing. All of that potentially leads to the delays you speak of. But there is active and ongoing immediate priority of risk to life. As there is with am individual on a bridge.
No one is denying it *can* have knock on consequences, but listing a huge load of hypothetical scenarios vs one real doesn't hold much water at all. It's a convenient addition to frustration IMO. |  | | |
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| sadly they still live among us on 11:09 - Jul 13 with 748 views | The_Flashing_Smile |
| sadly they still live among us on 10:39 - Jul 13 by ThatMuhrenCross |
Apologies for the personal digs, but I felt the "get on the div list" as well as the individual's tone turned it personal, so I retaliated. I should do better. I thought my original comment was well thought out and carefully worded. It's a sensitive subject and unfortunately, as soon as you take a position on it, someone is going to get offended.
Now, to answer your questions.
What is the threshold? Very difficult to answer because if we save this individual, but the result is two other people end up losing their own lives, then surely the net result is that we're worse off? You'd be right to say that's all hypothetical, but it's certainly not beyond the realms of possibility when you're talking about thousands of people being affected, especially in the immediate vicinity of a hospital.
How many delayed journeys makes a preventable death acceptable? That seems to be the previous question, just re-worded. Again though, it's not about the delayed journeys - it's the potential consequences of those delayed journeys. Clearly, I'm not talking about people who are 15 minutes late to the pub, by the way.
Who gets to decide that? Well, who gets to decide any rules for roads around Ipswich? The police? The council? The fact of the matter is that the Orwell Bridge closes and the entire town grinds to a halt. What we're doing right now is not working. Someone in authority needs to make a decision. It can't go on. |
If you're using very extreme possibilities/hypotheticals to prop up your argument, then you're probably on shakey ground.
The suggestion that a traffic jam results in two other people end up losing their own lives is just ridiculous. Even as you type that you must know that's ridiculous.
If a business is going to fail because someone's stuck in traffic then that's terrible planning by the business owner because all sorts of issues could happen on a journey from a to b.
We can only deal with what we know. If you planned for every extreme consequence you'd never leave your house. |  |
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| sadly they still live among us on 11:15 - Jul 13 with 724 views | eireblue |
| sadly they still live among us on 10:39 - Jul 13 by ThatMuhrenCross |
Apologies for the personal digs, but I felt the "get on the div list" as well as the individual's tone turned it personal, so I retaliated. I should do better. I thought my original comment was well thought out and carefully worded. It's a sensitive subject and unfortunately, as soon as you take a position on it, someone is going to get offended.
Now, to answer your questions.
What is the threshold? Very difficult to answer because if we save this individual, but the result is two other people end up losing their own lives, then surely the net result is that we're worse off? You'd be right to say that's all hypothetical, but it's certainly not beyond the realms of possibility when you're talking about thousands of people being affected, especially in the immediate vicinity of a hospital.
How many delayed journeys makes a preventable death acceptable? That seems to be the previous question, just re-worded. Again though, it's not about the delayed journeys - it's the potential consequences of those delayed journeys. Clearly, I'm not talking about people who are 15 minutes late to the pub, by the way.
Who gets to decide that? Well, who gets to decide any rules for roads around Ipswich? The police? The council? The fact of the matter is that the Orwell Bridge closes and the entire town grinds to a halt. What we're doing right now is not working. Someone in authority needs to make a decision. It can't go on. |
“ - compassionate for the many, many people that suffer when a situation like this happens”
“ Maybe the person who loses everything is the next to jump. Does his life not matter?”
How long do you think the road would be closed if she had of jumped.
More would be effected not fewer.
“ it's an ability to think more deeply and more critically”
Try doing that. |  | | |
| sadly they still live among us on 11:25 - Jul 13 with 693 views | eireblue |
| sadly they still live among us on 11:02 - Jul 13 by Guthrum |
They probably don't want car loads of people rubber-necking at what's going on. Especially as that itself often causes accidents, which would complicate the situation and block the road anyway. |
Also, at 20 mph, the stopping time is not sufficient if someone jumped off a bridge. | | | |
| sadly they still live among us on 11:35 - Jul 13 with 666 views | NthQldITFC |
| sadly they still live among us on 09:27 - Jul 13 by homer_123 |
Ronnie Pickering? |
Who'd win in a fight between Ronnie Pickering and the Wealdstone Raider?
Or would it just be a stand off? |  |
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| sadly they still live among us on 12:56 - Jul 13 with 570 views | EdwardStone |
| sadly they still live among us on 11:35 - Jul 13 by NthQldITFC |
Who'd win in a fight between Ronnie Pickering and the Wealdstone Raider?
Or would it just be a stand off? |
I think we should introduce them to each other.... it would be fight of the decade |  | | |
| sadly they still live among us on 13:20 - Jul 13 with 526 views | FrimleyBlue |
| sadly they still live among us on 10:39 - Jul 13 by ThatMuhrenCross |
Apologies for the personal digs, but I felt the "get on the div list" as well as the individual's tone turned it personal, so I retaliated. I should do better. I thought my original comment was well thought out and carefully worded. It's a sensitive subject and unfortunately, as soon as you take a position on it, someone is going to get offended.
Now, to answer your questions.
What is the threshold? Very difficult to answer because if we save this individual, but the result is two other people end up losing their own lives, then surely the net result is that we're worse off? You'd be right to say that's all hypothetical, but it's certainly not beyond the realms of possibility when you're talking about thousands of people being affected, especially in the immediate vicinity of a hospital.
How many delayed journeys makes a preventable death acceptable? That seems to be the previous question, just re-worded. Again though, it's not about the delayed journeys - it's the potential consequences of those delayed journeys. Clearly, I'm not talking about people who are 15 minutes late to the pub, by the way.
Who gets to decide that? Well, who gets to decide any rules for roads around Ipswich? The police? The council? The fact of the matter is that the Orwell Bridge closes and the entire town grinds to a halt. What we're doing right now is not working. Someone in authority needs to make a decision. It can't go on. |
As someone who's felt what that person has, I really don't agree with how you have phrased things on this thread
BUT, I would open the thought of could they possibly do something with the motorway so that if/when this sitution happens, one side of the bridge could be used for vehicles whilst the other is closed off.
I've seen bridges do that abroad in this situation. |  |
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| sadly they still live among us on 13:28 - Jul 13 with 502 views | Zx1988 |
| sadly they still live among us on 11:02 - Jul 13 by Guthrum |
They probably don't want car loads of people rubber-necking at what's going on. Especially as that itself often causes accidents, which would complicate the situation and block the road anyway. |
Or, as this thread seems to have shown, run the risk of some berk rolling their window down and having a good old shout at the vulnerable person because they're now 20mins late for a meeting. |  |
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| sadly they still live among us on 13:35 - Jul 13 with 479 views | Cheltenham_Blue |
| sadly they still live among us on 13:20 - Jul 13 by FrimleyBlue |
As someone who's felt what that person has, I really don't agree with how you have phrased things on this thread
BUT, I would open the thought of could they possibly do something with the motorway so that if/when this sitution happens, one side of the bridge could be used for vehicles whilst the other is closed off.
I've seen bridges do that abroad in this situation. |
Wouldn't work here Frimmers, nor would I want it too.
I've lost someone close to me in this manner in the past. The idea that people should carry on like nothing is happening in case they are late for something or it costs a couple of hundred quid in delayed haulage whilst emergency services try to talk someone back from the brink, I find personally disgusting. And I'm sure they would prefer to do that without people driving past and gawping from their windows too.
Not a pop at you, at all by the way. | |
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| sadly they still live among us on 14:06 - Jul 13 with 435 views | baxterbasics |
This feels a bit like a smaller scale version of the freedom Vs safety debate we had during covid restrictions. How much is it ok to curtail freedom of others for the sake of saving a life/lives? Easy to say obviously life is more important, but we make these trade-off decisions all the time. For example could save loads of lives by setting the national speed limit at 40mph but we do not. Banning all alcohol or added sugar consumption another example. There are limits. But it's impossible to quantify how much restriction / control is worth it to save a life, which is the problem isn't it? |  |
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| sadly they still live among us on 14:13 - Jul 13 with 426 views | FrimleyBlue |
| sadly they still live among us on 14:06 - Jul 13 by baxterbasics |
This feels a bit like a smaller scale version of the freedom Vs safety debate we had during covid restrictions. How much is it ok to curtail freedom of others for the sake of saving a life/lives? Easy to say obviously life is more important, but we make these trade-off decisions all the time. For example could save loads of lives by setting the national speed limit at 40mph but we do not. Banning all alcohol or added sugar consumption another example. There are limits. But it's impossible to quantify how much restriction / control is worth it to save a life, which is the problem isn't it? |
Genuine question on that
Why do we allow road cars to go above 60?
I get the freedom thing, but then we do have our limits anyway, but why weren't they made lower and therefore cars also restricted with their speed abilities.
Always found it baffling that we allow people to roam around in blocks of metal that can kill others but let them go as fast as the driver wants. | |
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| sadly they still live among us on 14:15 - Jul 13 with 409 views | Cheltenham_Blue |
| sadly they still live among us on 14:13 - Jul 13 by FrimleyBlue |
Genuine question on that
Why do we allow road cars to go above 60?
I get the freedom thing, but then we do have our limits anyway, but why weren't they made lower and therefore cars also restricted with their speed abilities.
Always found it baffling that we allow people to roam around in blocks of metal that can kill others but let them go as fast as the driver wants. |
Not as baffling as I find it that at the age of 17 you can pass your test and then, with no experience, immediately start driving a car capable of 150mph the does 0-60 in under 6 seconds. | |
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| sadly they still live among us on 14:19 - Jul 13 with 394 views | baxterbasics |
| sadly they still live among us on 14:13 - Jul 13 by FrimleyBlue |
Genuine question on that
Why do we allow road cars to go above 60?
I get the freedom thing, but then we do have our limits anyway, but why weren't they made lower and therefore cars also restricted with their speed abilities.
Always found it baffling that we allow people to roam around in blocks of metal that can kill others but let them go as fast as the driver wants. |
On the cars thing, I'm not going to go digging for stats or anything (everyone else feel free to confirm or deny) but..
I have a feeling most traffic related death and injury isn't the result of people legally doing 70 on the dual or motorway. Modern cars are designed that you can get in a prang in those conditions and still have a good chance of walking away. It's reckless driving in residential, sub-urban and country roads that does more damage. Drivers who are already ignoring the rules we have in place. | |
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| sadly they still live among us on 14:32 - Jul 13 with 368 views | DropCliffsNotBombs |
| sadly they still live among us on 14:19 - Jul 13 by baxterbasics |
On the cars thing, I'm not going to go digging for stats or anything (everyone else feel free to confirm or deny) but..
I have a feeling most traffic related death and injury isn't the result of people legally doing 70 on the dual or motorway. Modern cars are designed that you can get in a prang in those conditions and still have a good chance of walking away. It's reckless driving in residential, sub-urban and country roads that does more damage. Drivers who are already ignoring the rules we have in place. |
I did the driving awareness course a while back, and I'm sure the deaths percentage was something like
5% urban areas
30% dual carriageways/motorways
65% single carriageway 60mph roads |  | | |
| sadly they still live among us on 14:55 - Jul 13 with 334 views | grow_our_own |
| sadly they still live among us on 09:24 - Jul 13 by ThatMuhrenCross |
It will easily be in the tens of thousands. All the businesses that use the Port of Felixstowe, all the roads throughout Ipswich that become gridlocked, yes, all the people that will be late to work.
What about someone who urgently needs to get to the hospital, a pregnant woman going into labour? What about the person who has a make or break meeting scheduled for their business, and now ends up losing everything? What about families with neurodiverse children in the back seat who could really struggle with the situation? The list goes on.
Click the down arrow all you like and say I'm not compassionate, but I'm deeply compassionate - compassionate for the many, many people that suffer when a situation like this happens. |
I haven't done the analysis in this sad case, but the notion that you "can't put a price on a human life" ignores that civil servants must decide that price all the time. If it were true, we'd have layers of tyres/padding alongside every road in the UK. Undoubtedly it would save lives. We don't, because it would be cripplingly expensive, and there are better opportunities to save lives and improve welfare with that money. It's not callous to say this, it's kind. [Post edited 13 Jul 14:56]
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| sadly they still live among us on 15:05 - Jul 13 with 310 views | SuffolkITFC |
For clarity I live on the same road as this character and she is universally despised in the village. A foul woman who thinks nothing of screaming at kids playing, blaring TalkTV/GBNews from her lounge and generally being obnoxious. Luckily for the rest of us she is planning on moving away to deepest darkest Yorkshire very soon, at which point we are planning a street party. | | | |
| sadly they still live among us on 15:52 - Jul 13 with 267 views | GeoffSentence |
| sadly they still live among us on 09:24 - Jul 13 by ThatMuhrenCross |
It will easily be in the tens of thousands. All the businesses that use the Port of Felixstowe, all the roads throughout Ipswich that become gridlocked, yes, all the people that will be late to work.
What about someone who urgently needs to get to the hospital, a pregnant woman going into labour? What about the person who has a make or break meeting scheduled for their business, and now ends up losing everything? What about families with neurodiverse children in the back seat who could really struggle with the situation? The list goes on.
Click the down arrow all you like and say I'm not compassionate, but I'm deeply compassionate - compassionate for the many, many people that suffer when a situation like this happens. |
The difficulty with that argument is that those are all hypotheticals. Which is not to say that I dismiss it, but those in a position of authority are faced with making decisions based on a certain crisis against the possibility of those theoretical ones that you have mentioned. I think it is right that they deal with the known one. If other issues arise because of the one they are dealing with then they can also be reported to the police. I have confidence that they would take such problems into account when dealing with both. |  |
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