Child Pillions - Important legislation

Originally Posted by embee

Hi Jabba

nothing personal here.

Never is with anyone on here

Originally Posted by embee

How do you go about measuring the clearance between a child's head and the helmet it's wearing, and what sort of precision are we talking here? How do you determine 3.9cm (legal) or 4.1cm (illegal)?

Point taken - I dunno Someone will come up with a solution, no doubt. Conversely, how do you assess "properly fitted"?

Originally Posted by embee

Can't see the manufacturers being over the moon with designing footrests "so as to enable them to be reached by the feet of a person aged 10 of average height for that age". I don't think that dimension fits with ISO standards myself, and try sending a drawing with that on it down to the machine shop.

I does sound a bit daft.

I want to know if there is an employment opportunity here for average sized 10 year olds, They could spend their Sundays sat in a police car waiting for a biker to pass and then be used as a measuring device.

In fact at majopr bike meets there could be 1 10 year old to every 2 police,

Do the right thing and vote out this bunch of morons in May, Use your vote well.

Originally Posted by Carsick

Wait a minute, we're not allowed to take children under 17 without parental permission but we have to have bikes that will fit them just in case we decide to?
If that is literally how they've decided for it to be, then it may well be the biggest pile of sh*t this government has come up with.

You may be their parent, so you can "consent" to taking them on the back....

.

[Sid Squid]

Originally Posted by Jabba-the-Hutt

With great respect, I disagree.

Speaking as a law enforcement officer, it is far easier to enforce something specific, i.e. something that can be measured or objectively assessed, rather than something more subjective like "properly fitted" which becomes a matter of opinion or needs case law to define it (at which point we're back in the realms of the specific anyway).

Is what you're saying is the law musn't be appropriate to the circumstance, for example "properly fitting" because the law enforcement operatives aren't sufficiently trained to correctly enforce it?

And before anyone says that the police, quite understandably, can't be intimately aware of all the vaguaries of legal specifics, what we're discussing is something that officers administering traffic law, particularly traffic officers as presumably they would be those officers most called upon to do so, really ought to know, it's as basic as knowing how much tread should be on a tyre, I'm sure that every officer could quote that without the necessity of radioing the station.

[embee]

To go back to basics on the child helmet thing, there are 2 separate issues here.

1 - having a specified measurement is of no use if the methodology of determining that measurement is not practical, which would be my argument in this case. OK, this bit is really somewhat academic.

2 - far more fundamental and important, the reg says the helmet is
"to be worn without there being a gap of more than four centrimetres between the top or sides of the person’s head and the inside of the helmet.”

(note - centrimetres )

Well this is a bizarre description of a helmet "fit", indeed I would say that not only is this not a "fit" in any sense of the word, not even a "**** in a shirt sleeve" fit, it would constitute an extremely dangerous condition.

No-one with an ounce of knowledge about the subject would countenance a helmet on anyone, let alone a child, with a 4cm gap all round. Just think what this means, you could have a childs head on one side of the helmet and an 8cm gap to the other side. That will kill them in an accident.

This bit of nonsense has obviously been drafted by someone with absolutely no knowledge of the subject, and is a total disgrace. Why are these imbeciles allowed to waste OUR resources in such a manner?

I feel a missive to my MP coming on once I can build up enough bile and spleen to vent!

[Sid Squid]

You can borrow some of mine if you want.

the saying . . if it aint broken , dont fix it.

im not gonna get carried away with all the statistics here.


bikers have common sense, as do most people,
they wouldnt allow a child on the back with an ill fitting helmet anyway,

and those that would . . . wouldnt pay attention to the legislation anyway, and would get away with it due to their being not enough police on the roads to enforce it.


so why make the silly laws? havent they got anything bettter to do ?

Originally Posted by embee

Why are these imbeciles allowed to waste OUR resources in such a manner?

Because some malicious and ill-informed member of the public with a single-issue axe to grind convinces an MP of the logic of doing so. Then some equally ill-informed member of the Civil service is charged with drafting equally illogical regulations with the aim of:

1. Getting them through the system unnoticed
2. Trying to upset the least number of vested interests and
3. without having to consult with those directly affected



I still maintain that its easier to enforce a specific measurement (e.g. does this petrol pump dispense in litres +/- a small but clearly defined tollerance factor) rather than a subjective one (e.g. does the petrol pump dispense what to the inspector looks approximately like a litre).

But thats semantics. The draft regs are ill advised, poorly worded and abiguous (even though they probably meant to try to be specific ).

[northwind]

Originally Posted by embee

Hi Jabba
How do you go about measuring the clearance between a child's head and the helmet it's wearing

Plastigauge...

[Sid Squid]

What's the torque setting for the lid?

If it's not tweaked up right you'll get a false reading.

Oh, just checked, my Plastigauge gauge don't go as far as 40mill.