Interesting that they reference "accessibility to artwork". Road crossings are not artwork. They are pragmatic safety measures, just like sex segragated toilets and changing rooms are. They exist to serve basic public needs for practical purposes. They are not blank canvases for "artwork" ie propaganda. In totalitarian systems, everything is politicised. And when disabled people, women and girls can't participate in society safely then we are not included in society. That appears to be the very purpose of "inclusivity".
I think some letters to London Councils might help. I am sick of this 'but the local community want it and it's democracy' nonsense. Who are these elected officials who do what they like against all evidence? It's destroying the legacy of road safety campaigns that cost millions.
There is also fundamental damage to the free running of a transport system when some are being distracted by ideological game playing. Vulnerable road users don't count TfL?
Hiya, If writing, I've posted upthread the relevant UK Gov and DfT Guidance that these crossings contravenes. A Google search easily identifies the whole set of documents if you want to check.
Civil Engineer (now retired), we had to fully comply with all Guidance.
I know those documents and have contributed to some and their reviews. Most members of the public aren't aware, and don't need to be aware, of the nuances of the discretely different types of crossings or road safety measures or design and it's often a balance and up to the local highway authority to interpret. Backed up with evidence one would hope.
I wonder if they care that people ignore many signs anyway, and this may encourage people to filter out at random what signs, lines, or notices they pay attention to. Oh it's a 20 limit here - oh no it's just another celebrating donkeys day paint job - I'll ignore it.
It's viewed as minimal or incidental cost and somehow deemed to be allowed under the auspices of other metrics. The value of promotion of Stonewall equality clearly has greater weighting. Yes, troubling and almost the exact same thought crossed my mind!
When your ideology is happy to send the vulnerable into moving traffic, yet regards using correctly sexed pronouns as "literal violence" it's time to have a word with yourself.
Amongst all the great news, this one has just really made me angry.This story just epitomises everything that is wrong with LGBTQERTY activism.
"Happy to meet you there to be shown first hand'. Fucker. Arrogant, passive-aggressive little fucker. I don't know how much longer people can ignore the contempt shown for anyone who isn't a transidentifying man.
Thank you so much. And yes I agree. That wee gobshite needs to remember he's a public servant and his appalling response is entirely inappropriate. (Though it speaks volumes about what sort of person he must be.)
He wants to see partially blind people struggling to cross a road they previously could. What a vile psycho. Of course putting people into pink and blue sexist boxes is more important to him than enabling the disabled to get from point a to point b safely.
Absolutely bloody appalling. The 3 on the left - all blokes I presume. Smug autogynephiles? And why wouldn't they be smug? Local council on their knees before them.....I could make reference to the ol' girl-D but my comment might be deleted. Actually it might be anyway (I won't hold a grudge) but I'm bloody raging!
Truly ,truly shocking to be wilfully ignoring the dangers to vulnerable groups of people especially blind ,elderly and disabled people ,all to placate and assist a minority to impose their dangerous and deeply flawed ideology on everyone else. What on EARTH is this council thinking of.??Council tax payers should be TOTALLY enraged by this. Hope they take action 🙏🙏
Why do they have to attack first, think later? This didn't need to be a fight, at all. Say the council had done it with a rainbow flag or BLM or a charity logo or something. If then people had gone "It's a hazard for the blind" I'm certain they'd have gone "Oops, okay. We wanted to show support and we'll continue to do so, just in different ways"
But TRAs, anything below total fucking subservience and the screeching begins.
Why have they got to push this ideology through urban infrastructure anyway? Like the 'male with stroke male and female sign (transgender sign) replacing ordinary symbols on traffic lights. No other group does this. That is a huge red flag that this is an ideology of cultists, that aims to pervad the whole of society.
My thoughts exactly. Totally inappropriate to use public highways and street signage etc in this way. As I say in the piece, I think it's the enforcement of a totalitarian belief system on the public.
And if you can get the public to believe this, you can get them to believe anything. I get depressed all too often by seeing how limited people's skepticism is.
Councils have done it with rainbow flags and have been criticised for it. It is remarkable that this has now happened despite that feedback. They can't pretend they are not aware of the objections and why. They are steamrollering their way through.
If I ever encounter any of these crossings, be they rainbows/trans/blm/whatever, I shall refuse to walk on them, absolutely refuse! The rainbow/trans/blm path in Taunton cost c£8,000!!! £8,000 to indulge the most demanding section of society I've EVER come across who constantly whine about being persecuted, left out, etc. Councillors should be made to pay back the public money themselves....every penny of it. Honestly, it is the most ridiculous idea I've ever come across...and...being a person with 'mole-vision', I know that without my contact lenses in, I'd be confused too, as my eyes would be searching for black and white crossings, or just ordinary road colour, if by traffic lights...as I'm +10 now so everything 'disappears' if my contact lenses should ever disappear up into the top of my eyes, which, they sometimes do, not often, and normally only one, but I have both do this at the same time, occasionally. ALWAYS it's about Self Indulgent, Egotistical Transworld, who are determined to force all of us to accept their 'colours' everywhere. #NoThankYou!
That's the first thing I said too - I would cross further away from there just to NOT use it. Talk about forcing people to support trans ideology just by wanting to cross the road.
This is part of why this type of intervention annoys me. The unintended consequences or populations not considered or overlooked. What people do to use or avoid infrastructure. There has been a focus on ‘desire lines’ or preference paths for many decades – i.e. we use the route we find easiest or shortest to use. I’ve sat in many presentations with photos of people hurdling safety barriers – those railings that are put in nominally to protect pedestrians, often at crossing points, yet often have made those not in vehicles go out of their way, to essentially accommodate vehicular movements. Those walking and cycling are often an afterthought, or we are retrospectively thinking about those users after the roads are planned and built in a car-centric society. Barriers have been removed or their use reduced in recent years. Most things are a balance and best practice changes over time. Often you get roads bisecting, and separating places, areas or communities, with no way to cross and making the act of walking unpleasant as you’re fighting the built environment, not built with you in mind.
Walking a few metres out of your way, being directed down a different path to the one you would like to go in, from A to B, means you might need to go from A to F to H to C to B. Which is annoying and time-consuming for someone able-bodied but can be a real additional barrier if you have a disability or mobility issue, are encumbered, with a pushchair or shopping, find wayfinding difficult or are unfamiliar with an area. This is me stretching the point, but wandering around lost, maybe at night, with random signs or interventions, on your own isn't such a good idea is it? Or is it?
And all those saying this increases trans 'visibility' seems so ironic when much of road safety is the true meaning of that word visibility - seeing, being seen, seeing the road ahead, seeing other road users and them seeing you, having reduced or no visibility and still being safe. That's JL's point - it's just virtue signalling.
The EIA was strange. Age. They only seemed to consider dementia. No impact on children? None? Can no one involved in filling that form or signing it off think of how painting the road to look different to other roads, like a fun playground might be a bit confusing to younger children? Not contradictory at all? This is an environment where you need to concentrate and pay attention and we do teach children to do this for a reason. Stop, look left and right. Don't dilly-dally. Close roads and have 'play' zones sure, try to reduce or divert traffic, but let's not confuse this.
London is known to be a different environment to be or drive in than many other UK cities or towns as parts of it are known for people randomly and without thinking just wandering into the road. Lost. Sightseeing. Drunk or drugged. Having a good night out. Rushing. Busy. Crowded. Now staring into phone screens or cut off listening to music doesn't help. Riding a bike at the same time, with only one hand on the handlebars, weaving through traffic, relying on the vehicles around you not to hit you. I love London, but many of us need every sense we can to negotiate these environments even if some take that for granted.
I love Bloomsbury and know it well. This puts me off visiting.
The only thing that matters is that men in dresses don't have any reason to cry. Let's keep them happy. Never mind about the blind, the neurodiverse or anyone else, in fact.
Indeed. The photo at the top of the article seems to show a surfeit of Y-chromosomes. It seems that only the mayor is a woman (I'm not sure about the lycra-clad one).
Yes, it must be very confusing for animals. I posted a Youtube video earlier, filmed a while ago, of two police horses avoiding a rainbow crossing. And to think, all these councils are usually so hot on 'health and safety'. Transport For All, except the blind, the elderly, the disabled, and people with learning difficulties or dementia. How very inclusive!
This comment indicates some of the confusion. It's NOT a zebra crossing, despite being being inspired by the stripes of one. It's a light-controlled crossing.
One clear danger of these signs is that pedestrians may not realise they're actually light-controlled, and expect traffic to give way.
(And if you've seen the video of the horses baulking at a rainbow crossing, that one appeared to be no sort of real crossing at all).
This "progress flag" crossing in York is described by a local news website as a "zebra crossing", and by the University of York's website as an "informal pedestrian crossing point on a road owned by the University".
Who owns the road is interesting here. There is sometimes a little discord with multiple stakeholders, partners or those who manage highways or land - and areas that count as highways that members of the public may not realise or consider as 'highway'. There is sometimes dispute over whether a highway is adopted or not.
You don't have to use everything in the toolkit all at once. Which way are they sending people exactly? Over? Across? Diagonally? Are the outside parts for cyclists? Horses? Consistency is key, so that people are familiar or can reasonably be expected to know what to do in a given environment. I have to be gay, lesbian and trans all at once on that one I see.
And the person who wrote that article may find other crossings unremarkable, but there are many working very hard every day so they barely notice the vital critical national infrastructure that they likely rely on every day of their life and that is keeping them safe.
I agree that it was a light controlled crossing (pelican) which generally don't require a painted surface at all. However why deviate from the Guidance at all? Having made the unnecessary decision to paint it, there is at least an argument that the Council should really comply with the markings for zebra crossings and they should be made to justify why they've simply made it all up.
I believe the intent is that light-controlled crossings deliberately have no stripes because there is no requirement for traffic to give way. Putting the stripes in would suggest that traffic should give way (regardless of lights).
At least this only /implies/ a contradiction. They're presumably not counting the extra paint as having any signage meaning. (Sigh).
Hence the whole 'negotiation' aspect of 'sharing' spaces that has sunk the powers that be on more than one occasion. And why the 'shared spaces' work hit a few obstacles.
It all seems like a disconnect from the physical, natural world:
- "Can a guide dog negotiate this properly" should have been the first thought in the council's heads. How is it even possible to never have been around a person with a guide dog? We all know that we have audible crosswalk guides, properly maintained crossings, clearly demarcated bus stops...specifically so the visually impaired + dog can navigate them. The dog has to be able to recognise these things as the same barriers it went to school to learn about.
- raising guide dog puppies (before the puppies go to training) is common for 4-H kids here. Not sure how the UK does it, but we should all know someone who had a litter rolling around the house. The basics of guide dog school should be kinda general knowledge. How are these decision makers so disconnected from the process of how we care for this puzzle piece in society?
- of course police horses are going to fuss. Those stripes look like a cattle grid. We paint stripes like that on rural roads to fool stray cattle into not crossing...
And there's your fat, idiotic Scottish actor pretending it's not a big deal: it may surprise him to learn that no one wants to be kicked in the head by crowd control.
There's a running thread of bizarre and immature lack of broad, real world experience that seems intertwined with being a TRA.
Unfortunately, we have a lot of crossing here in the UK that don't have audible signals. The needs of people with visual impairment are regularly ignored here for the benefit of others.
Mind you, there's one on a road near me, Jeremy, which has changed the audible signal as you cross, it now being very high pitched and very fast. Freaks my poor dog out everytime it goes off....
Whilst a step in the right direction, high frequencies are problematic. As you say, dogs hear them very well, but humans tend to lose high-frequency response with age. People on the autistic spectrum also tend to dislike them. I know there is no answer that will suit everyone, but wouldn't it be nice if there were real consultations with everyone that is likely to be affected?
Another example of the complete disregard, by TRAs, for the safety and wellbeing of others. They know that their policies are harmful but still consider them to be a worthwhile pursuit. The more they persevere with their dangerous ideas, the more obvious it is to the public at large. It will end eventually but how many people will have been harmed in the meantime.
I hope there will be no accidents but one accident happens then the victim will be able to sue. There are plenty of people who will contribute to crowdfunding their lawyers.
It's odd how Mrs Stonewall often compares trans women to black women (grrrrr) and also those who are disabled. It's like we all have our box to sit in and be judged by, with trans women - aka men - coming out top yet again. Women, black people, lesbians, disabled people, we're all just 'other' to them, those at the top of the pyramid (Stonewall equality index), those most oppressed. How have they been getting away with centring themselves, and othering us yet again? I see this as theft of my hard won rights.
Trans activists have already shown they have no concern for the safety of women and children, now seemingly they're including other groups in that too, all of whom are vulnerable. These people are bullying, dangerous arseholes. Perhaps an awareness week, month, year, etc, focusing on that would be more appropriate.
Yes, and from people who talk in terms of inclusivity, love, kindness and fucking rainbows. They don't want people to be kind, they want them to be submissive and silent and stay that way. And when that doesn't happen they seem to get a bit annoyed and want even the mildest objectors sacked, humiliated, arrested or extinguished. What would a bunch of misogynistic, malignant narcissists do with kindness anyway?
Interesting that they reference "accessibility to artwork". Road crossings are not artwork. They are pragmatic safety measures, just like sex segragated toilets and changing rooms are. They exist to serve basic public needs for practical purposes. They are not blank canvases for "artwork" ie propaganda. In totalitarian systems, everything is politicised. And when disabled people, women and girls can't participate in society safely then we are not included in society. That appears to be the very purpose of "inclusivity".
Exactly this. Well said, Bee Cat.
I think some letters to London Councils might help. I am sick of this 'but the local community want it and it's democracy' nonsense. Who are these elected officials who do what they like against all evidence? It's destroying the legacy of road safety campaigns that cost millions.
There is also fundamental damage to the free running of a transport system when some are being distracted by ideological game playing. Vulnerable road users don't count TfL?
Hiya, If writing, I've posted upthread the relevant UK Gov and DfT Guidance that these crossings contravenes. A Google search easily identifies the whole set of documents if you want to check.
Civil Engineer (now retired), we had to fully comply with all Guidance.
Thanks Rhona, good to see the links - this is my profession too and there's only a limited amout I can do seeing as they're ignoring us :-)
I know those documents and have contributed to some and their reviews. Most members of the public aren't aware, and don't need to be aware, of the nuances of the discretely different types of crossings or road safety measures or design and it's often a balance and up to the local highway authority to interpret. Backed up with evidence one would hope.
I wonder if they care that people ignore many signs anyway, and this may encourage people to filter out at random what signs, lines, or notices they pay attention to. Oh it's a 20 limit here - oh no it's just another celebrating donkeys day paint job - I'll ignore it.
Their get outs are always 'applying' guidance in local 'contexts' or 'conditions' and if they've documented their decisions.
It's troubling that the RNIB did raise concerns at an early stage and were largely ignored. As much as anything how do they justify the cost?
Love to see a few tins of purple, green and white paint 'accidentally' dropped on these crossings!!!!!!
It's viewed as minimal or incidental cost and somehow deemed to be allowed under the auspices of other metrics. The value of promotion of Stonewall equality clearly has greater weighting. Yes, troubling and almost the exact same thought crossed my mind!
Well said, Bee...
My 21st-century dictionary definition of inclusive: straight men, gay men, men in dresses, sexual offenders.
When your ideology is happy to send the vulnerable into moving traffic, yet regards using correctly sexed pronouns as "literal violence" it's time to have a word with yourself.
Great piece JL. Thank you.
Amongst all the great news, this one has just really made me angry.This story just epitomises everything that is wrong with LGBTQERTY activism.
"Happy to meet you there to be shown first hand'. Fucker. Arrogant, passive-aggressive little fucker. I don't know how much longer people can ignore the contempt shown for anyone who isn't a transidentifying man.
Thank you so much. And yes I agree. That wee gobshite needs to remember he's a public servant and his appalling response is entirely inappropriate. (Though it speaks volumes about what sort of person he must be.)
He wants to see partially blind people struggling to cross a road they previously could. What a vile psycho. Of course putting people into pink and blue sexist boxes is more important to him than enabling the disabled to get from point a to point b safely.
Absolutely bloody appalling. The 3 on the left - all blokes I presume. Smug autogynephiles? And why wouldn't they be smug? Local council on their knees before them.....I could make reference to the ol' girl-D but my comment might be deleted. Actually it might be anyway (I won't hold a grudge) but I'm bloody raging!
Trans is the ultimate trump card. Women and children we know about all to well, but the disabled & partially sighted must also genuflect.
They whole TRA movement does indeed represent the most oppressive minority in our society.
Truly ,truly shocking to be wilfully ignoring the dangers to vulnerable groups of people especially blind ,elderly and disabled people ,all to placate and assist a minority to impose their dangerous and deeply flawed ideology on everyone else. What on EARTH is this council thinking of.??Council tax payers should be TOTALLY enraged by this. Hope they take action 🙏🙏
Why do they have to attack first, think later? This didn't need to be a fight, at all. Say the council had done it with a rainbow flag or BLM or a charity logo or something. If then people had gone "It's a hazard for the blind" I'm certain they'd have gone "Oops, okay. We wanted to show support and we'll continue to do so, just in different ways"
But TRAs, anything below total fucking subservience and the screeching begins.
Why have they got to push this ideology through urban infrastructure anyway? Like the 'male with stroke male and female sign (transgender sign) replacing ordinary symbols on traffic lights. No other group does this. That is a huge red flag that this is an ideology of cultists, that aims to pervad the whole of society.
My thoughts exactly. Totally inappropriate to use public highways and street signage etc in this way. As I say in the piece, I think it's the enforcement of a totalitarian belief system on the public.
And if you can get the public to believe this, you can get them to believe anything. I get depressed all too often by seeing how limited people's skepticism is.
Councils have done it with rainbow flags and have been criticised for it. It is remarkable that this has now happened despite that feedback. They can't pretend they are not aware of the objections and why. They are steamrollering their way through.
*pervade not pervad
If I ever encounter any of these crossings, be they rainbows/trans/blm/whatever, I shall refuse to walk on them, absolutely refuse! The rainbow/trans/blm path in Taunton cost c£8,000!!! £8,000 to indulge the most demanding section of society I've EVER come across who constantly whine about being persecuted, left out, etc. Councillors should be made to pay back the public money themselves....every penny of it. Honestly, it is the most ridiculous idea I've ever come across...and...being a person with 'mole-vision', I know that without my contact lenses in, I'd be confused too, as my eyes would be searching for black and white crossings, or just ordinary road colour, if by traffic lights...as I'm +10 now so everything 'disappears' if my contact lenses should ever disappear up into the top of my eyes, which, they sometimes do, not often, and normally only one, but I have both do this at the same time, occasionally. ALWAYS it's about Self Indulgent, Egotistical Transworld, who are determined to force all of us to accept their 'colours' everywhere. #NoThankYou!
That's the first thing I said too - I would cross further away from there just to NOT use it. Talk about forcing people to support trans ideology just by wanting to cross the road.
This is part of why this type of intervention annoys me. The unintended consequences or populations not considered or overlooked. What people do to use or avoid infrastructure. There has been a focus on ‘desire lines’ or preference paths for many decades – i.e. we use the route we find easiest or shortest to use. I’ve sat in many presentations with photos of people hurdling safety barriers – those railings that are put in nominally to protect pedestrians, often at crossing points, yet often have made those not in vehicles go out of their way, to essentially accommodate vehicular movements. Those walking and cycling are often an afterthought, or we are retrospectively thinking about those users after the roads are planned and built in a car-centric society. Barriers have been removed or their use reduced in recent years. Most things are a balance and best practice changes over time. Often you get roads bisecting, and separating places, areas or communities, with no way to cross and making the act of walking unpleasant as you’re fighting the built environment, not built with you in mind.
Walking a few metres out of your way, being directed down a different path to the one you would like to go in, from A to B, means you might need to go from A to F to H to C to B. Which is annoying and time-consuming for someone able-bodied but can be a real additional barrier if you have a disability or mobility issue, are encumbered, with a pushchair or shopping, find wayfinding difficult or are unfamiliar with an area. This is me stretching the point, but wandering around lost, maybe at night, with random signs or interventions, on your own isn't such a good idea is it? Or is it?
And all those saying this increases trans 'visibility' seems so ironic when much of road safety is the true meaning of that word visibility - seeing, being seen, seeing the road ahead, seeing other road users and them seeing you, having reduced or no visibility and still being safe. That's JL's point - it's just virtue signalling.
The EIA was strange. Age. They only seemed to consider dementia. No impact on children? None? Can no one involved in filling that form or signing it off think of how painting the road to look different to other roads, like a fun playground might be a bit confusing to younger children? Not contradictory at all? This is an environment where you need to concentrate and pay attention and we do teach children to do this for a reason. Stop, look left and right. Don't dilly-dally. Close roads and have 'play' zones sure, try to reduce or divert traffic, but let's not confuse this.
London is known to be a different environment to be or drive in than many other UK cities or towns as parts of it are known for people randomly and without thinking just wandering into the road. Lost. Sightseeing. Drunk or drugged. Having a good night out. Rushing. Busy. Crowded. Now staring into phone screens or cut off listening to music doesn't help. Riding a bike at the same time, with only one hand on the handlebars, weaving through traffic, relying on the vehicles around you not to hit you. I love London, but many of us need every sense we can to negotiate these environments even if some take that for granted.
I love Bloomsbury and know it well. This puts me off visiting.
The only thing that matters is that men in dresses don't have any reason to cry. Let's keep them happy. Never mind about the blind, the neurodiverse or anyone else, in fact.
Indeed. The photo at the top of the article seems to show a surfeit of Y-chromosomes. It seems that only the mayor is a woman (I'm not sure about the lycra-clad one).
Nothing gets in the way of gender ideology. It's an accident waiting to happen.
My godfather trains guide dogs and he’s genuinely worried about this for the younger dogs, in particular.
He just knows a potential risk assessment breach when he sees one.
Yes, it must be very confusing for animals. I posted a Youtube video earlier, filmed a while ago, of two police horses avoiding a rainbow crossing. And to think, all these councils are usually so hot on 'health and safety'. Transport For All, except the blind, the elderly, the disabled, and people with learning difficulties or dementia. How very inclusive!
Absolutely ridiculous and definitely dangerous.
This crossing directly contravenes Department of Transport Guidance.
UK Gov - Traffic Signs Manual, Chapter 6
Crossing layout to be as figure 16-2 and painted ( black and white) in accordance with cl.16-2-7
(page 126).
All road signage and markings are strictly in compliance with the set of Traffic Signs Manuals.
UK Gov and Dept for Transport Guidance applies to the UK as a whole.
This comment indicates some of the confusion. It's NOT a zebra crossing, despite being being inspired by the stripes of one. It's a light-controlled crossing.
One clear danger of these signs is that pedestrians may not realise they're actually light-controlled, and expect traffic to give way.
(And if you've seen the video of the horses baulking at a rainbow crossing, that one appeared to be no sort of real crossing at all).
This "progress flag" crossing in York is described by a local news website as a "zebra crossing", and by the University of York's website as an "informal pedestrian crossing point on a road owned by the University".
https://www.yorkvision.co.uk/lifestyle/why-im-proud-of-the-new-crossing/28/01/2021
https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2021/campus/inclusive-crossing-new/
Personally, I had assumed that all these painted crossings were in fact zebra crossings, so I'm surprised to learn that in fact they're not.
Who owns the road is interesting here. There is sometimes a little discord with multiple stakeholders, partners or those who manage highways or land - and areas that count as highways that members of the public may not realise or consider as 'highway'. There is sometimes dispute over whether a highway is adopted or not.
You don't have to use everything in the toolkit all at once. Which way are they sending people exactly? Over? Across? Diagonally? Are the outside parts for cyclists? Horses? Consistency is key, so that people are familiar or can reasonably be expected to know what to do in a given environment. I have to be gay, lesbian and trans all at once on that one I see.
And the person who wrote that article may find other crossings unremarkable, but there are many working very hard every day so they barely notice the vital critical national infrastructure that they likely rely on every day of their life and that is keeping them safe.
I agree that it was a light controlled crossing (pelican) which generally don't require a painted surface at all. However why deviate from the Guidance at all? Having made the unnecessary decision to paint it, there is at least an argument that the Council should really comply with the markings for zebra crossings and they should be made to justify why they've simply made it all up.
I believe the intent is that light-controlled crossings deliberately have no stripes because there is no requirement for traffic to give way. Putting the stripes in would suggest that traffic should give way (regardless of lights).
At least this only /implies/ a contradiction. They're presumably not counting the extra paint as having any signage meaning. (Sigh).
Hence the whole 'negotiation' aspect of 'sharing' spaces that has sunk the powers that be on more than one occasion. And why the 'shared spaces' work hit a few obstacles.
It all seems like a disconnect from the physical, natural world:
- "Can a guide dog negotiate this properly" should have been the first thought in the council's heads. How is it even possible to never have been around a person with a guide dog? We all know that we have audible crosswalk guides, properly maintained crossings, clearly demarcated bus stops...specifically so the visually impaired + dog can navigate them. The dog has to be able to recognise these things as the same barriers it went to school to learn about.
- raising guide dog puppies (before the puppies go to training) is common for 4-H kids here. Not sure how the UK does it, but we should all know someone who had a litter rolling around the house. The basics of guide dog school should be kinda general knowledge. How are these decision makers so disconnected from the process of how we care for this puzzle piece in society?
- of course police horses are going to fuss. Those stripes look like a cattle grid. We paint stripes like that on rural roads to fool stray cattle into not crossing...
And there's your fat, idiotic Scottish actor pretending it's not a big deal: it may surprise him to learn that no one wants to be kicked in the head by crowd control.
There's a running thread of bizarre and immature lack of broad, real world experience that seems intertwined with being a TRA.
Unfortunately, we have a lot of crossing here in the UK that don't have audible signals. The needs of people with visual impairment are regularly ignored here for the benefit of others.
There's a very blatant lack of wheelchair accommodation too. It still surprises me.
Mind you, there's one on a road near me, Jeremy, which has changed the audible signal as you cross, it now being very high pitched and very fast. Freaks my poor dog out everytime it goes off....
Whilst a step in the right direction, high frequencies are problematic. As you say, dogs hear them very well, but humans tend to lose high-frequency response with age. People on the autistic spectrum also tend to dislike them. I know there is no answer that will suit everyone, but wouldn't it be nice if there were real consultations with everyone that is likely to be affected?
Great post
Thank you, GAFHYB
Here are the horses being utterly spooked... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMyf6ewi7E8&feature=emb_logo
Omigod, you linked to an RT video. Are you a Russian agent? Do you work for whatever the KGB is called now? [utter sarcasm]
Seriously, thanks for this. Horses do not like unfamiliar anything and it is stupid to play around with painting the streets.
It’s fucking embarrassing watching people falling over themselves to defend this. It’s a stupid idea. Somebody is going to get hurt.
Another example of the complete disregard, by TRAs, for the safety and wellbeing of others. They know that their policies are harmful but still consider them to be a worthwhile pursuit. The more they persevere with their dangerous ideas, the more obvious it is to the public at large. It will end eventually but how many people will have been harmed in the meantime.
HOW DARE THEY ignore the instruction not to go ahead and install.
I hope there will be no accidents but one accident happens then the victim will be able to sue. There are plenty of people who will contribute to crowdfunding their lawyers.
It's odd how Mrs Stonewall often compares trans women to black women (grrrrr) and also those who are disabled. It's like we all have our box to sit in and be judged by, with trans women - aka men - coming out top yet again. Women, black people, lesbians, disabled people, we're all just 'other' to them, those at the top of the pyramid (Stonewall equality index), those most oppressed. How have they been getting away with centring themselves, and othering us yet again? I see this as theft of my hard won rights.
Trans activists have already shown they have no concern for the safety of women and children, now seemingly they're including other groups in that too, all of whom are vulnerable. These people are bullying, dangerous arseholes. Perhaps an awareness week, month, year, etc, focusing on that would be more appropriate.
They are selfish to the point of monomania, or even psychopathy.
Yes, and from people who talk in terms of inclusivity, love, kindness and fucking rainbows. They don't want people to be kind, they want them to be submissive and silent and stay that way. And when that doesn't happen they seem to get a bit annoyed and want even the mildest objectors sacked, humiliated, arrested or extinguished. What would a bunch of misogynistic, malignant narcissists do with kindness anyway?
They take kindness and twist it into something horrible and diseased.
Irony that the RNIB HQ is 5 minutes away as well. You would think they'd be more aware
Jeez - they should threaten legal action