ryan air not cheap!! read this don't get stung!

Sam_Bee

peterbaker wrote: »

My needs are to receive patently safe transportation if I pay someone to provide it. I am not interested in spin that says well compared to this or that it isn't too bad is it? I know all about the assessment of risk and contractual risk transferance. If I buy a ticket, I no longer carry the risk myself. I am paying someone to manage the risk well so that I can close my eyes.

So in your illustration, Sam Bee, you are overlooking one very important thing ... most of us don't buy tickets to travel on the roads. And even if we do buy a bus ticket, we might end up on a Terravision bus that weaves down the road like a motorbike out of London at four thirty on a Friday afternoon, or something else which ends up on its side at Heathrow at midnight.

There is a huge difference between paying for safety in an assumed safe public transport system, and taking your own risk in or on your own vehicle alongside others doing their own thing too.

Peterbaker. You said

"it (trains) is an incredibly unsafe method of travel in the UK."

Which is a complete fabrication. It is incredibly safe, and getting safer. I stated that the risk of dying in a train accident in 1 in 11.5 BILLION. Or if you travel to work every day by train, it would take, on average 43 million years before you were snuffed out by a train accident.

Is that 'incredibly unsafe'?.

I don't like people using big phrases like 'incredibly unsafe' to back up their unsound arguments using unsound and 'incredibly unsafe' statements.

Using trains is INCREDIBLY SAFE. Just like flying.

budgetflyer

In Peters world full of conspiracies, 1 in 11 billion is an unacceptable stat just as any company turning a profit is.The same attitude to risk management as Peter would mean the planes wouldnt fly and the trains and buses would grind to a halt. The world isnt perfect, most of us just get on with it.

peterbaker

First let me answer scoopers question, because none of you appear to have answered it concisely preferring instead to promulgate my thread drift!!

Scooper, I can't find Salue? Do you mean Salve near Bari? Pardon my ignorance of the destination, but I assume you definitely are using Ryanair, anyway?

First you automatically can carry one 10kg bag for each person through security for no charge and take it into the plane with you. You two adults can carry two each through security of course if the kids aren't big enough to carry them far as long as they have a seat booked. So that's one way of getting 40 kg to where you are going without paying a penny extra!

And remember you can buy as much extra stuff as you like when you get past security and into the "duty free" area. If you are strong and daft enough your 40kg could be doubled by the time you get on to the aircraft!
No one will stop you unless it looks like a hot drink!

Now then, what about bags that you want to check-in rather than lug onto the plane yourself? These cost £10 each for a return flight at the moment if you book them when you buy your ticket. They cost £10 for a SINGLE flight if you pay at the airport. None of these bags must weigh more than 15kg or you will risk paying horrendous penalty charges.

That's it in a nutshell!

And I would agree that for common or garden family hols, I find that big soft but strong holdalls are useful. They don't weigh much themselves and as long as you pack them sensibly (triple wrap your suncremes shampoos and lotions in sealed polythene bags and suck out the air and then try to knot them to avoid the inevitable pressure leaks - trust me - one polythene supermarket bag is not foolproof!), then you should be ok. Don't put any valuables at all in them. Carry all valuables as hand baggage. I will say no more about that one but just don't let them out of your sight. Then don't worry too much about whether you put a lock on the holdalls, just use a wire twist or some other not so easily accidentally undone method to prevent the zips getting caught on something and accidentally spilling during baggage handling. Consider putting everything inside a bin liner and then put that inside the holdall (holdalls often won't withstand a downpour when the baggage is sitting outside waiting to be loaded on the plane).

OK? happy holidays, scooper!



Now then, back to the serious thread drift:

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

Yes, but anyone who assumes that any form of public transport is 100% safe is a muppet.

I think that was a bit unwarranted, Marky! I think you probably know me better than that.

The original dig at rail safety was entirely unwarranted for the reasons that Sam has posted. Your comments don't undermine that.

That's your assertion, but I still think my point about the invalidity of apparently positive safety comparisons between purchased, ticketed transport and self-transport is a correct one. And you might imagine my personal dismay when I learned that my own perhaps feeble attempt at raising safety concerns at Railtrack HO about the appalling trackside disorder at Potters Bar and elsewhere along the Hitchin Kings Cross section that I could see out of the window every day may have fallen upon deaf ears, (I can't remember the exact date) but it was definitely before Potters Bar and maybe even before Hatfield.

I am not trying to be clever with hindsight, but you will perhaps allow that my tiny bit of foresight about the inadvisability of allowing so much trackside debris to build up, if broadened, might have indicated to Railtrack a general lack of care by the contractors. Most people wouldn't have bothered to talk to Railtrack. Railtrack admitted to me then at least one of their rules had been broken (regarding the minimum permitted length of unattended offcuts of rail). I saw no improvement afterward and I feel a certain amount of guilt that I did not make a much bigger fuss.

I hate to see the toothlessness of safety regulators - they have to work so extremely hard to ever bring detractors before the court and when they finally do, it is ineffectual. We need a different public transport safety culture that cuts across flags of convenience and the rights of shareholders. All these public transport companies act under license one way or another and breach of terms of license should be much more rigorously prosecuted than it is.

I used "incredibly unsafe" as a turn of someone else's phrase (one extreme deserves another), but I do think that it is incredible that in the UK we have had so many similar types of rail accident in recent years. I am sure if you spoke to the Chief Executive of Railtrack after Hatfield and immediately before Potters Bar that he would have agreed that an imminent further disaster involving p*ss poor rail maintenance was an incredible suggestion. And then after both those two, we still get the Oxenholme disaster. That truly is an incredible record of (un)safety.

I am not interested in how many 'successful' journeys occur without injury. How many of those 11 billion 'successful', 'safe' journeys include a surprising lurch at some part of the journey which threatens to unseat the passengers? How many include unpublished and even unreported breach of safety procedures? Riding public transport is not supposed to be an adventure. It is supposed to be routine.

I have an above-average understanding of statistics thanks, but I count myself wise enough to see the bigger picture. Evenso, I don't overly worry about anything. I just exercise my right to shout loud and point when I think those that get paid to worry aren't worrying enough. That's the only reason I comment on such matters. Yes I am judgemental.

GlennTheBaker

I bet you're a right hoot at parties.

peterbaker

GlennTheBaker wrote: »

I bet you're a right hoot at parties.

Why are you also resorting to personal sleight, Mr Baker? That's not what this board is about.

GlennTheBaker

Just an observation.

blindman

peterbaker wrote: »

Why are you also resorting to personal sleight, Mr Baker? That's not what this board is about.

Neither is it a board about personal beliefs (however insane) about the safety or otherwise of the Great British Transport. :rolleyes:

If you want to rant about how unsafe travel is then please do it in the appropriate forum (or whatever planet you came from )

peterbaker

Why oh why blindman? This is the place where MSE'rs come for comments about value for money-saving travel - I am merely highlighting some of the pitfalls as i see them. And your raison d'etre would be?

Sam_Bee

peterbaker wrote: »

Why oh why blindman? This is the place where MSE'rs come for comments about value for money-saving travel - I am merely highlighting some of the pitfalls as i see them. And your raison d'etre would be?

I'm sorry but your scaremongering does not belong here.

You think that if you assert something strongly enough it will be taken as fact. Even if it is blatently wrong. In the face of facts.

Your statements concerning rail travel are as wrong as they possibly could be.

I catch 4 trains a day on busy lines, and I have shown that rail travel has never been safer. FACT. Please don't defend your comments anymore.

peterbaker

Sam Bee

You have no right to use insults to make your point. You call someone a scaremonger and you are insulting them. I have a completely open mind and have absolutely no axe to grind and am not too proud to say yes you have shown me that my view is wrong as and when I think you have. If you want to try to persuade me to your point of view then you are more than welcome but to attempt to trash my arguments by insult is just childish.

I am not advising people that rail travel or air travel is so unsafe that you should not use it. I use both myself. I am merely pointing out that our society is vulnerable to commercial interests getting in the way of safety far too often so we shouldnt just close our eyes and minds until we are directly affected.

Using the term scaremongering is just a lazy or otherwise exasperated way of saying you don't have the capacity to listen either because your mind is made up and closed thanks or because you are genuinely confused and your you dont want your own trust shattered in your preferred modes of transport.

Now if it is the former, then I suggest you leave the debate not me, and if it is the latter, I apologise for being insensitive to the point of provoking a reaction, but respectfully suggest you change channels and watch something less troubling.