Shipping Minister Keith Hill is a Moron

[Gunfleet]

Re: Well if our \"partners\" in Europe

Steve,
Exactly right. I lived in France as a self employed person for some time and if you had broken a law (easy to do in their tax system) people would say 'this is irregular' and give you a little fine or negotiate their way round it. In England things are so black and white that's impossible. Easy enough under our old under regulated system... but once you get to the over-regulated European legal system, an administration which is obsessed with enforcing every last detail is suffocating.

 

[Guest]

Re: Well if our "partners" in Europe

There was a major consultation exercise on this proposal some time ago, and I am sure that I can remember being told that the decision to include leisure sailors had been made by Prescot personally. Aparently the original proposal, formulated in response to the Marchioness accident as much as anything, had not included leisure sailors.

I never drink and sail since an embarrasing minor accident after a lunchtime 3 pints very early in my sailing career. Nevertheless, I am uneasy about the potential for a zealot to apply rules agressively in situations like coming back from the pub in an Avon, or re-setting anchor in the middle of the night etc. I guess that , in practise, this is only likely to happen if you have an accident and plod appears.

And as for

"(e) There is no intention to introduce random testing, an officer can only stop you with reason. If you are stopped, as with a car, you can ask why, and if they do not have an immediate answer, then it is the copper who has committed the offence and you can ask him to arrest himself".

This earth or Fullers?

 

[Twister_Ken]

Re: Hyde Park cycling

It's allowed on designated cycle paths, which are marked as such. They pretty much encircle the park, inside the carriage drives. Elsewhere it's banned in case all that lycra frightens the ducks.

 

[halcyon]

Re: Well if our "partners" in Europe

Are we getting it to complicated,

SOLAS applies to leaving harbour,

Drinking etc applies to underway, normally entering or leaving harbour, or within the harbour confines,

Speeding etc comes under the harbour authorites, so why not add the other two items to there remit, after all it costs no money, needs no more staff and is self financing.

With SOLAS and all the local byelaws, the harbour master has a reason to stop most boats entering or leaving, if only to check for a passage plan.

Brian

 

[steve_cronin]

If only it were that simple

Well of course it is. The only problem is that it has gotten into the hands of a jumped up politician who wants to jump up some more and targetting "Toffs in yachts" will go down Premier Cru with the brothers.

Steve Cronin

 

[steve_cronin]

Well sir, I would suggest....

that:-

"...the proposed statutory limits will apply to off duty crew members only when they have a safety critical function in the event of an emergency." might apply to ANY member of the ship's company including ( as YOU imply)* your "dipso" engineering officer.

*No we shouldn't argue amongst ourselves but I ask you to rest your concern, I was not implying anything about "...the consumption of alcohol in HM Ships at sea." other than it takes place,which you have confirmed.

I would suggest that "just to be on the safe side" creeping regulation might soon bring you to find yourself very soon serving on totally "dry" ships.

Steve Cronin

 

[Shanty]

Re: Well sir, I would suggest....

If this matter is of such importance, surely the relevent legislation must be scrutinised by MPs in full command of their faculties (such as they are). To that end, should MPs speaking or voting on this bill be breathalysed? Should the houses of parliament be "dry"?

 

[steve_cronin]

If this were to go ahead.....

then I would suggest that there is another form of low speed transport (4 -8mph) that should also be regulated for I suspect that it causes far more accidents, even fatalities than innocent sailboat folk.

THE PEDESTRIAN.

Breathalise them at random. Potential for causing accidents by stepping out into or running across the road without looking and causing all sorts of accidents is huge and probably, even very likely, substantial.

Mr Hill has with this action, as someone else has stated, picked up Prescott's torch but now intends to run with it for self glory and if it turns the self reliant environment of the sea into yet another embodiment of the regulated modern world, he will consider it a job well done.

Steve Cronin

 

[FlyingSpud]

Re: If this were to go ahead.....

Steve, can I just clarify you position? Are you saying that there should be no regulation prohibiting drunks being in charge of boats/ships of any types and in any conditions?

If you are not, then where do you think the line should be drawn?

 

[Twister_Ken]

So what if he\'s a Mormon

Just because he believes that a bewhiskered polygamist named Smith had a non-drug-induced vision in the middle of the Utah desert doesn't automatically make him a bad man. Religious tolerance is a fundamental freedom which ...

...oh sorry.

 

[bigmart]

Re: So what if he\'s a Mormon

Casting my mind back 20 years, or more, weren't they the lot that tied you up & forced you to have sex with them. Sounds OK in my book.

Martin

 

[FlyingSpud]

Re: Well if our "partners" in Europe

Well, possibly not, it seems all this was recommended in a report back in 1992, so Two Jags may have put his prints on it at some point but he certainly wasn’t the originator

 

[Observer]

\"Premier Cru\"/\"politician\"..

= oxymoron?

 

[pandroid]

Just be thankful you dont live in the US:

This year's favorite to win the Stella award (named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonalds) could easily be Mr. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Mr. Grazinski purchased a brand new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On his first trip home, having driven onto the freeway, he set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the drivers seat to go into the back and make himself a cup of coffee. Not surprisingly, the R.V. left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mr. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising him in the owner's manual that he couldn't actually do this. The jury awarded him $1,750,000 plus a new motor home. The company actually changed their manuals on the basis of this suit, just in case there were any other complete morons buying their recreation vehicles.

Mind you, in the UK this nanny government would have introduced a law....

 

[Caronia]

I do not know which is sadder, the people who make up these "Stella Awards" or the people who believe them

 

[steve_cronin]

Status Quo?......nm

..

 

[steve_cronin]

Re: \"Premier Cru\"/\"politician\"..

Jeeze!

Oh I must send my O level English cert back. You just proved that I didn't deserved it!

Steve Cronin

 

[Observer]

Re: "Premier Cru"/"politician"..

That's all I've got, Steve. But I read dictionaries for fun!

 

[FlyingSpud]

Re: Status Quo?......nm

So you do accept some controls?

The 1995 Act made it illegal to be drunk in charge of a commercial vessel but then forgot to set out any procedure about how to prove this. That's the status quo, is it reasonable to introduce the breathalyser there?

And what about the anomaly of having a Foreign Boat in British waters with a drunk on board, he is committing an offence punishable in his home country, but not here, how do you deal with that?

Are you really happy with the idea of a drunk charging around on some high-powered RIB, provided he is outside of a harbour bye-law area?

 

[steve_cronin]

Re: Status Quo?......nm

First paragraph. Yes certainly for commercial vessels.

2nd paragraph: When in Rome? Perhaps we should make criticism of Robert Mugabe punishable by necklacing here too because it's a crime in another country or force our women to wear burkahs*?

3rd paragraph: Yes, if the alternative is a rigid regulatory structure as exists in the rest of our lives and in most cases has a poor "success" rate.

There is the potential for all sorts of happenings in all sorts of fields of human activity.

Is your philosophy to try to regulate every possible conceivable harm attached to human activity out of existance?

Well if it is, first, it'll take you for ever to compile your list.

Second, who would want to live in such a world

Third, in most cases you would destroy the human capacity for reason and self determination - what moronic regulators like Keith Hill want anyway.

Can you not see that when an organisation like the RNLI who go out to sort out sad cases of injury and distress don't believe that we have a problem needing a solution, they are right? If not I just don't know what more to say to you.

Steve Cronin

* may be wrong spelling but since I have no interest in backward philosophies I don't give a damn.