Hi Russell. My comment was meant with a great deal of "tongue in cheek". (* Shock horror! You mean that Blazing Saddles wasn't a documentary? O:-)) The extension and retraction times for automatic bollards is quite leisurely to say the least. A quick Google search shows that the idea was considered, but rejected for the Bourke St. Mall, as the duty cycle to allow trams to pass was much too high. Timed with traffic lights would suffer from even higher duty cycles, and because these are either pneumatically, hydraulicly or motor driven, the operating and maintenance costs would be appreciable. It would be a bit like putting in railroad crossings at all of the intersections. Traffic would back up severely at these intersections, just as it does with railroad crossings in peak hour. And also like railroad crossings, there would be a those idiots that would find themselves atop the bollards when the lights changed. And let's face it, we are talking about the same political leaders that tell us that the revised NBN is fit for purpose and future proof? In an old "B.C." comic, Wiley's Dictionary described politics as: "A many handed game in which mud balls are trumps." I can't say I've ever found reason to disagree. Regards, Morrie. * Mel Brooks: Gentlemen. We need to protect our phoney baloney jobs! On 25/07/2018 7:44 PM, Russell Coker wrote:
Retractable bollards have been in wide spread use in many countries for over 20 years. I haven't heard reports of such problems. Many cars have been damaged by trying to sneak over a bollard but I am not aware of human injuries.
If you stand on a bollard while it's raising it doesn't cause any problems.
On 25 July 2018 4:47:35 pm AEST, Morrie Wyatt via luv-talk <luv-talk@luv.asn.au> wrote:
On 25/07/2018 4:18 PM, Russell Coker via luv-talk wrote:
On Tuesday, 24 July 2018 10:52:31 AM AEST Trent W. Buck via luv-talk wrote:
Russell Coker via luv-talk wrote:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Austin_suicide_attack […] driving a 4WD through a pedestrian area could kill more. I started trying to get creative using the fuel tanks for a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel-air_explosive …but you're right, why bother?
Kinetic strikes using an ordinary minivan are plenty good enough, and can be done by essentially unskilled labour on an ad-hoc basis, and tie up "the state" installing concrete bollards everywhere (sensible response) or for empire-building within the military-industrial complex (silly response). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_2017_Melbourne_car_attack
When you have millions of cars privately owned and lenient laws about driving without a license things like the above are pretty much impossible to prevent. One thing they could do is install bollards that raise from the ground when there's a red light. While it's not practical to try and install such bollards everywhere, if they were installed at the 20 intersections in the CBD with the most pedestrian traffic they could reduce the potential for harm. Until of course someone positions their baby's pram over the top of one
of the retractedbollard while waiting for the lights to change.
Cue Junior being launched on a ballistic arc in the general direction of the traffic stream.
Unfortunately there's no such thing as "Stupid proof". Someone always invents a betterstupid.
Regards, Morrie.
(Wot! Me cynical?)
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