Public safety, liability and great big 'oles

Badlad

Administrator
Staff member
I visited Gaping Gill a few days ago to drop the main shaft with a few friends.  The pitch was spectacularly wet and quite awesome.  However, something else caught my interest too.

It was freezing cold with a covering of snow all around the edge of the shaft.  The stream was partially frozen, with icicles everywhere and all static water solid.  In short it was fairly lethal.  What surprised me was the amount of footprints in the snow right up to the very edge ? literally trampled flat all around.  GG is close to a main footpath after all and is visited by hundreds of people some days.  Even when there is no ice there are obvious and not so obvious dangers.

In other threads [on insurance, liability, mines, etc] public safety has been suggested as a reason to lock, gate or otherwise secure access to prevent the public hurting themselves.  But not here apparently ? not even a fence, right on the edge of a slippery 98m drop.  Why is that?

There has been at least one fatality here in the past and an attempt to sue the owners.  It is not that the owners don?t care ? they do, they are both caring and responsible.  These are not the only popular places which present a potential danger to the public.  Rowten Pot is right next to a green lane and the grassy banks around Hull Pot are frequented by picnickers in the summer months.

So why do the public need protecting from some caves but not others?  Makes no sense.
 

Maj

Active member
This is probably due to how it was formed, whether man made or a natural feature.
Another interesting question might be:- Where is the divide between natural and man made in relation to digs? If it's open, like GG, it's natural. But is it still natural if only infill spoil is removed?

Maj.
 

martinm

New member
I would say they should all have fences round them if they are near green lanes or public footpaths, obv. with a stile for cavers. If a person goes through the stile they then take responsibility for their actions.

It should be down to the landowner to do this to protect the casual public, but it's good public relations I would suggest for cavers / regional councils to do this sort of thing pro-actively.

In my area of the Peak I have to do this as a matter of course as a lot of the cave entrances are within metres of a public track. I don't want to be liable for someone falling down a shaft.

I think just making a 'reasonable effort' to safeguard the public against mishap is all that's necessary. Hope that helps.
 

Lazarus

New member
FFS! Do climbers run around erecting fences along the tops of crags/cliffs etc to protect the public?
 

Les W

Active member
Why should the public need protecting from themselves?
Dangerous stuff is all around us, both natural and man made.
It will be a very sanitised world if we have to protect people from every danger... :-\
 

robjones

New member
There are thousands of kilometers of officially sanctioned cliff path in the UK; very little of that length is fenced on the seaward side.
 

ALEXW

Member
If the public associate a fence with a dangerous place, the absence of a fence could imply a lack of danger. Better to let them make their own choices. Warning notices could help.
 

Les W

Active member
If the public don't associate a bloody great drop down a hole or over a cliff as a danger then it would be better that Charles Darwin intervened to remove their genes from the gene pool...
 

graham

New member
OK, lets see how this pre-moderation guff works when you wish to disagree with the site owner.

Nobody has ever suggested that GG Main Shaft be gated or fenced off so this is one giant (gaping?) straw man.

Sites that need dealing with in this way are sites like Coral Cave on Mendip. Here, a shaft of sufficient depth to be dangerous opens directly alongside a public footpath and is sufficiently close to nearby houses to be well-within the walking range of a, say, 2 or 3 year old. It is also on CRoW land.

Yet again, we see an example drawn from the Yorkshire Dales used to declare what must be the case throughout the whole of the country. I do, really, wish people would broaden their perspective just a bit.
 

Rhys

Moderator
Aren't those houses also within 2 year old crawling distance of a busy road? You need to keep toddlers under control at all times. Caves or no caves.
 

Peter Burgess

New member
Beachy Head sees hundreds of times more visitors than Gaping Gill. There are no fences there, and nor should there be. The length of the drop is irrelevant. You can kill yourself dropping 5 metres. In some ways it is more dangerous at Beachy Head since the ground is liable to fall away through erosion on any day 365 days a year, whereas I doubt the edge of GG is icy all year round.
 

Blakethwaite

New member
Are Graham's posts being vetted?  That stinks. Seems to me he contributes constructively to a wider range of topics than most on here. Certainly than many of those who fight on the right side of the party line.

I suspect that  Badlad  is trolling & he knows fine well the answer to his own question but there are plainly all sorts of good reasons why some holes may need to be fenced or gated. Location, livestock, culture, getting permission to open it in the first place etc...

He's also being slightly weasely in choosing not to mention that there is indeed a fence around GG when approached from the side that presents the greatest danger to the unaware or incautious.
 

skippy

Active member
There is now a nice new sign at the 'access steps' to GG warning of potential hazards....
10504927_10152305347255994_5640690377326465666_o.jpg
 

Pete K

Well-known member
Blakethwaite said:
Are Graham's posts being vetted?  That stinks. Seems to me he contributes constructively to a wider range of topics than most on here. Certainly than many of those who fight on the right side of the party line.

I suspect that  Badlad  is trolling & he knows fine well the answer to his own question but there are plainly all sorts of good reasons why some holes may need to be fenced or gated. Location, livestock, culture, getting permission to open it in the first place etc...

He's also being slightly weasely in choosing not to mention that there is indeed a fence around GG when approached from the side that presents the greatest danger to the unaware or incautious.

From the tone of his 'input' it is once again Graham that appears to be trolling this thread. He has a valid point but one that could be made without the aggressive manner in which it has been delivered. I would be far more tempted to contribute on UKCaving were it not for the aggressive replies of some of the members.
 

Pete K

Well-known member
No I was simply highlighting the absurdity of calling a perfectly reasonably put question 'trolling' without remarking on the aggressive tone of one of the more obviously 'trolling' responses.
 

Blakethwaite

New member
Apologies Pete, please read it as mischievous rather than trolling if you prefer but I still believe that the OP could answer his own question easily enough.

As for Graham, I don't think his post was particularly aggressive, certainly no more than others in the thread that have passed without comment. Exasperated maybe, but that's not the same.
 
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