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Posted by: stamfordman Mon, 2 Jul 2018 - 10:40
Post #1395354

Police are investigating claims that nails and screws are being glued upright in a road to stop parents on the school run parking in a quiet cul-de-sac.

It is claimed that car drivers who use a street in Somerset to park while they drop their children at a primary school are being targeted. Police say they are treating it as criminal damage.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jul/02/school-run-drivers-in-somerset-targeted-with-nails-in-road

Posted by: DancingDad Mon, 2 Jul 2018 - 11:08
Post #1395363

I had a puncture so want to blame someone !

Chances are a resident or tradesman spilt some and didn't pick them all up.
How do you glue a nail or screw upright on a road anyway ?

Posted by: Redivi Mon, 2 Jul 2018 - 11:25
Post #1395372

Placing a screw under the wheel - possibly - but not the brightest of ideas if you want to park there yourself afterward

Whenever I was asked to drop the children at school on my way to work, I walked them there and went to work late

Couldn't cope with the mothers using a version of the Highway Code that only they could understand

Posted by: The Rookie Mon, 2 Jul 2018 - 11:39
Post #1395378

So no real evidence at all, 2+2=25!

Posted by: stamfordman Mon, 2 Jul 2018 - 11:45
Post #1395381

Yes this does look unlikely. We've had at least five punctures from nails, screws and other debris in the past few years and I reckon most have been from stuff that collects near the curb as it's the nearside rear that was involved in four of these.

Posted by: Ocelot Mon, 2 Jul 2018 - 18:24
Post #1395531

“One of the mums was told that if she didn’t stop parking there, she was going to find nails in her tyres,” she added.

A coincidence possibly, but some people do such things.

However, to treat an isolated puncture as criminal damage is stretching it somewhat, I agree.

Posted by: cp8759 Mon, 2 Jul 2018 - 22:09
Post #1395604

Once I got a puncture due to a nail. sh!t happens, I got a new tyre. Never occurred to me to report it to anyone.

Posted by: notmeatloaf Thu, 5 Jul 2018 - 12:19
Post #1396259

Obviously not condoning nails but seeing people near my daughter's school who have had walls knocked over, pretty grass verges churned up, and all for no good reason as there is an actual car park 100yds away, I see why people get cheesed off.

Perhaps as well as investigating this they could send someone down for a day or two to ticket those parked obstructively. Then it shows sensitivity for both sides.

Posted by: glasgow_bhoy Sat, 7 Jul 2018 - 22:49
Post #1396762

I'd ban cars stopping within 300 yards of a school, UNLESS a proven physical disability dictates the child needs to be driven to the door.

School run parents cause more hassle than even taxi drivers. Some of the driving/parking I see around schools makes me wonder why nobody has called the social in for their kids, as the parents are often missing something upstairs.

Kids need to walk. Never mind sugar taxes and banning 2 for Tuesdays at Dominos. Lets go back to basics and make kids walk!

Posted by: The Rookie Sun, 8 Jul 2018 - 07:26
Post #1396771

A neighbour of ours used to drive her children to school, she lived less than 300yards from the school (her physique and that of her children I’ll leave you to guess at). We live 100 yards further away and never drove them (unless it was part of another journey).

Posted by: Slapdash Sun, 8 Jul 2018 - 07:38
Post #1396773

The particular school in question is local to me. The catchment area is actually quite large.

The village iself is spread out, over probably two miles.

Like quite a lot of rural somerset the roads are far from ideal for walking. Narrow two lanes and no pavements. The particular main street in the village also has a lot of vehicular parking making it very narrow.

Posted by: notmeatloaf Sun, 8 Jul 2018 - 14:17
Post #1396843

Really? From Google Streetview it looks like a pretty compact village with good pavements. The village I live in is mostly spread out along a busy road and yet we still manage the arduous walk to school from the far end of the village. When I was a kid we used to walk from the next village, again without incident.

It does look as if parents should be prevented from driving up the road to the school itself though, short narrow dead end road would be a nightmare. The parents at my daughters school still seem to be learning how to reverse without crashing over kerbs.

And you know what, if they actually do need to improve things, then the school, council and police should put their heads together and work out a plan. Go into a primary school and see how many fat kids there are. Go into a hospital medical ward and see how many middle aged adults are there barely able to walk because they are so fat. This is a big problem, not something we should be kicking down the road because once someone is fat, they generally stay fat, even if they are only 11 years old.

Posted by: Slapdash Sun, 8 Jul 2018 - 15:22
Post #1396856

In terms of distance 2 miles is probably a modest exaggeration.

If you approach east brent from brent knoll down the B3140 the distance from the first house in east brent to the A370 is probably 3/4 of a mile.

Then the other side of the A370 is old bristol road which runs to A38 Where it was blocked off about 20 years ago.

Regarding pavement these are very limited from the entrance to the village to the road the school is on. From the end of this road to the A370 they are fine.

The B3140 is also a bit of a rat run (though less so since it was blocked at the A38).

Posted by: notmeatloaf Sun, 8 Jul 2018 - 19:43
Post #1396913

Again I don't get why you wouldn't walk to school.

My daughters school is on a ratrun because it avoids the A34. Half the distance to my daughters school has no pavement, so she knows to listen out for cars and walk to the side of the road. The rest of the way half the time a considerate Mum has used the pavement as a private parking space, so she has been taught to look in both directions before passing in the road.

Again, as a kid we had to cross a busy road and then walk on a road with no pavement.

Unless you have murderous drivers desperate to mow down kids circling at 8.45am, or have to cross rolls of razor wire, or the only route to your child's school is down the M1, I have never seen how a walk or cycle along roads in what is a fairly civilised country could be dangerous other than the human inability to weigh up the small danger "something could happen" with the long term problem of having a fat, dependent kid.

But then my daughter doesn't sit in front of a TV eating crisps all day. We've just finished with a chainsaw (difficult with one hand in a cast) and nails building a stand for her slide so that she can have a high speed jump into her paddling pool. But then when I was a kid all the falling out of trees and messing around building our own motorised go kart (turned out to be bloody quick, and also because of the rudimentary clutch easy to flip over) was the best [part, despite all the cuts and bruises.

Posted by: southpaw82 Sun, 8 Jul 2018 - 19:50
Post #1396914

Bit of a leap to suggest all kids who don’t walk to school are fat, isn’t it?

Posted by: glasgow_bhoy Sun, 8 Jul 2018 - 21:20
Post #1396941

More likely to be fat though aren't they?

I walked pretty much all the time, and on the rare occasion I did get a lift, I was dropped streets away and made to walk- no matter the weather.

Pre-car ownership, I was never over 9 stone.

Post-car ownership, my weight rocketed to over 13 stone.

Now that I use the car only for commuting and work, I've managed to get back down to just over 10.

Cars cause laziness, and if a kid never learns to walk to where they need to be, they'll never appreciate how good it is for you.

Posted by: southpaw82 Sun, 8 Jul 2018 - 21:32
Post #1396945

Most probably. However, I find the undertone of sneering at “fatties” distasteful, and it’s not the first time.

Posted by: notmeatloaf Mon, 9 Jul 2018 - 10:50
Post #1397028

SP, it's not sneering. I work on adult acute wards and see first hand how obesity robs people of quality of life.

I still remember very clearly the first time I saw a morbidly obese 52 year old adult struggle to walk with zimmer frame. He ended up losing his toes on his left foot. Then another who was bedbound and incontinent and needed a ceiling hoist to move around. And another...

I appreciate that "fat shaming" is frowned upon. However, the simple fact is that as a society we are getting fatter. We also know that if you are fat when you are young you are more likely to be fat when you are old.

I really think people need to see what obesity can do to you. I still find it shocking that I am treating people who are seriously ill and in reality will die soon, who should be starting to lie back and enjoy decades of hard work.

Obesity has the same issue as smoking. You're not going to be ill next week, or next year. It's insidious but at some stage it will be too late to go back. Obviously it's more complex than smoking. But I think you have to start looking at societal shifts and start saying things like "Driving your child to school when they can walk is wrong, therefore we will provide money to create a safe path".

"Feeding your child microwave meals every night is wrong, so we will provide equipment and classes to teach you to cook from scratch."

If no-one is ever prepared to say that being fat is harmful and should be discouraged, there will never be any resources to help people change as there was/is with smoking.

If that counts as sneering so be it but it is out of genuine concern because I have seen the ending, and it isn't happy.

I saw my Dad throw away his life and drink himself to death. Again there there was an invisible tipping point. I will, privately, tell anyone they are drinking too much and need to sort their life out if I see the same signs, even if that is being a "kill joy".

Posted by: DancingDad Mon, 9 Jul 2018 - 11:14
Post #1397039

Apropos of nothing.
Dunno if it is common to my local hospital or all but I am always struck by the number of overweight staff, nurses, doctors, clerical.
Probably no different proportions to population in general but it strikes me as odd.
Fully agree with NML over the need for something to be done to break the fat kid-fat adult cycle though not convinced it is solely lack of exercise.
Mind you, exercise does help.
I do think that it is often the parents who need educating the most.
Thinking back to my kids at school and the classmates who were bigger then they should be, often the parents were as well and was the parents who would make excuses for the kids, send notes in to get them off sports days and normal PE and the like.

Posted by: henrik777 Mon, 9 Jul 2018 - 16:53
Post #1397197

Many people are not fully physically developed humans when the are passing driving tests at the minimum age. How many of your age group got heavier without passing a test ?

Posted by: notmeatloaf Mon, 9 Jul 2018 - 17:01
Post #1397203

BMI calculations are the same if someone is 7, 17 or 57.

It doesn't especially matter if you get heavier as you get older as long as your BMI remains within the healthy range. But I think the idea that people inevitably get heavier with age is false.

Posted by: Fredd Mon, 9 Jul 2018 - 17:16
Post #1397210

BMI is, to be generous, a rule of thumb. More candidly, it's potentially dangerous crap. I dieted like crazy when I was about 30 to try to get down from the "overweight" range to "healthy" - one of my colleagues later told me that they'd thought I'd got AIDS! It's a blunt instrument that takes no account of build and musculature.

Posted by: Ocelot Mon, 9 Jul 2018 - 18:39
Post #1397243

I used to have to walk to school over a mile alongside the A3 when I was at Junior School. At secondary school we had a school coach because the nearest school in the county was 5 miles away, but still walked back sometimes if we missed it.

We also used to have to get up at 3 in the morning and lick the road clean with our tongues, eat a handful of hot gravel, work 18 hours day in day out down mill for tuppence a month.. etc...

Posted by: henrik777 Mon, 9 Jul 2018 - 19:20
Post #1397266

Do you know anyone who went from 7 to 17 and didn't get heavier ?

Posted by: notmeatloaf Mon, 9 Jul 2018 - 20:17
Post #1397280

Ridiculous. BMI is of course a blunt tool, but it gives an simple to understand guide to where you are roughly. Otherwise how would you do it, just take a guess?

Of course there will be people it doesn't work for - but seeing as there aren't the resources to give everyone a medical body fat analysis every week it is something available to anyone with a calculator or chart and monitor their progress.

If being 25 BMI made you look malnourished you must be 2m tall and wrestle for a living. So I'm not going to argue any more.

If anyone is in extremes you can do what medics tend to do and calculate with an exponent of 2.5, which irons out BMI overreading if you are tall or underreading if you are short.

Posted by: DancingDad Mon, 9 Jul 2018 - 22:52
Post #1397321

We had one of those letters after a school medical check advising that my (at time) 12 year old daughter was overweight against her BMI.
Tossed it into bin.
At the time she was either dancing, gymnastics or trampolining virtually every night, not an ounce of fat on her.
Just plenty of muscle, was actually one of the heaviest kids in her class at school, by no means the tallest.

BMI is simply a quick check but anyone with a brain and reasonable vision could be just as accurate in spotting overweight people.

Posted by: notmeatloaf Tue, 10 Jul 2018 - 10:40
Post #1397406

BMI doesn't work if you are very fit. It is fairly stupid IMO to be sending out letters without double checking it with some sort of fat analysis or waist measurement.

But arguably it isn't really aimed at people who are very fit. It's aimed at people who aren't fit.

It's like the NHS recommendation to do 150 minutes of exercise a week. I do several times that, but I am astute enough to know that that number isn't really aimed at me and I shouldn't massively cut back on exercise.

Posted by: The Rookie Tue, 10 Jul 2018 - 10:50
Post #1397412

BMI is fatally flawed before you even start, it uses height squared when volume (and hence weight) would be related to height cubed. So you start with a massive cock up and then increase the errors with further assumptions from there. It was a good idea, shame they didn't employ anyone with any common sense when they started!

At every annual medical I'm told my BMI puts me in the overweight category, yet wearing 32" waist trousers at 5'9 1/2" makes a mockery of that, its muscle mass that puts me over.

150 minutes...I'd have to cut out the other 300 then!

Posted by: notmeatloaf Tue, 10 Jul 2018 - 13:18
Post #1397494

But again you are much more active than a normal person. We know muscle is heavier than fat, and therefore your BMI will always overread.

However, it would be impossible to create a measurement which fits people at every extreme. However, it provides a useful indication for most people, using measurements they can easily and accurately measure at home.

Saying it is unreliable is like eschewing the good because it's not perfect.

Posted by: The Rookie Tue, 10 Jul 2018 - 14:02
Post #1397526

I realise the caveats and agree, but at least don't start with the gross error of not understanding volume!

Posted by: Tartarus Tue, 10 Jul 2018 - 14:21
Post #1397537

Although to be fair, unless you are Queen Victoria, your third dimension Z (stomach protrudance) isn't going to be anywhere near your height...

Posted by: The Rookie Wed, 11 Jul 2018 - 11:29
Post #1397904

No, but it will likely be proportional, same as your width is, hence why height cubed was the sensible parameter.

Posted by: notmeatloaf Wed, 11 Jul 2018 - 12:28
Post #1397932

You can put whatever exponent in as long as you correct it. I think most people think around 2.5 is correct as you don't actually get a wider head if you are taller.

Mass ÷ Height ^ 2.5 x 1.3

Posted by: ManxRed Thu, 12 Jul 2018 - 15:50
Post #1398359

Unless you're Harry Maguire.

Posted by: 666 Thu, 12 Jul 2018 - 17:07
Post #1398401

Your GP probably has both, but does he ever have time to look away from his PC screen?

In the "old days" the doctor would walk to the waiting room door, summon the patient, and observe him/her getting up and walking/waddling/hobbling to the consulting room.

This is a practice still followed by many private GPs and consultants in my experience, where time pressures are less.

An example of unintended consequences of (apparently) improved efficiency.