A Guarded Response

To this story.

A train company has been fined £1 million for breaching health and safety duties after a passenger was killed leaning out of a window on a Gatwick Express train.

Train enthusiast Simon Brown, 24, was hit by a gantry while he leaned out the window as the train approached Wandsworth Common station on August 7, 2016.

Govia Thameslink Railway, which runs the service, pleaded guilty to a health and safety breach at a previous hearing in May over Mr Brown’s death.

It was found there had been no guard on the train to monitor the use of the window, which had been left unlocked.

Okay. A significant part of the suburban network is driver only, so has no guard. There are still HSTs running about (although dwindling) with door windows that slide open. The point being, that if someone really wants to stick their head out of the window, it’s pretty much impossible to stop them.

What this case has done is send a strong message that we don’t do personal responsibility in this country. That adults need to be cosseted and nannied because they are too stupid to exercise some common sense and personal responsibility. This was a tragedy, but to blame the train operator is wrong. There was no tort here. There was no negligence. The dangers inherent in sticking one’s head out of the window of a moving train are obvious. If I was sufficiently heartless, I’d say that it was Darwin in action.

What we see here is a corruption of English Common Law and it is a sad reflection of the state of our society that this even came to court.

Expect even more nannying and petty health and safety rules as a consequence, as organisations try to protect themselves from the impossible – the infinite capability of the general public to find a hitherto unexpected method of self-dispatch as a consequence of rampant stupidity.

12 Comments

  1. Waiting to read that M&S have been fined by H&S because someone shat themselves wearing a pair of their pants. Just wait. It will no doubt happen.

  2. I understand that the deceased had an active interest in railways…
    Just how dumb do you have to be these days? Even if the safety notice was allegedly “obscured”, if you travel regularly surely you will have noticed that the signs are pretty commonplace as are large, heavy pieces of steel. A potential Darwin Award nominee however? The Tree of Life is self-pruning.

  3. A truly silly decision.
    As you say, he was an adult and responsible for his actions.

    Obvious response to decision: fix all train windows shut.
    Next train crash: trapped passengers being incinerated. Or smoked.
    “Why could the windows not be opened to allow them to escape? Something must be done!”

  4. “…the infinite capability of the general public to find a hitherto unexpected method of self-dispatch as a consequence of rampant stupidity.”
    Sheer Poetry.

  5. “What we see here is a corruption of English Common Law and it is a sad reflection of the state of our society that this even came to court.”

    Nail/head interface there.

  6. See also:

    https://www.metro.news/e-scooter-death-pal-calls-for-total-ban/1639642/

    “The 35-year-old told Metro: ‘Emily was one of my best friends, we grew up together. She was a very expressive, kind and caring person. It’s just so very sad. This is a tragedy but some good should come from it. Clearly e-scooters are not safe. Why allow the sale of something that is not safe? The existing ban should be enforced and extended to cover their sale.’”

    Or to translate from DimBulb: “My pal did something stupid and illegal with something legal to use in the correct way, so the obvious answer is to make it illegal to have one at all.”

    • I propose a new verdict be used: “Death by Fuckwittery”.
      There’s a lot of it about these days.

  7. ‘Train enthusiast Simon Brown, 24, was hit by a gantry…’

    No he wasn’t. The gantry was not moving. He hit it.

    It’s like saying a car served off the road and was hit by a tree.

    • Along these lines why was Govia Whatsit charged when it was Railtrack (or whatever they are called this week) who left the gantry close to a train?

  8. Put the price of tickets up to cover the cost of having all windows fixed shut and a guard at each, just in case somebody smashes a window and leans out.

  9. I think the impact on Britains’s heritage steam railways is going to be significant – adding central locking to historic carriages is going to cost big time.

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