Comments on: Swimming in the Royal Victoria Dock really is dangerous!

By: mike

mike — Thu, 12 May 2011 09:32:17 +0000

Does anyone ever fact-check these claims about the number of swimmers having died in a particular stretch of water in a given year, or does everyone simply assume the claim is true?

By: tom

tom — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 18:06:48 +0000

The docks are the venue for the swim leg of the london triathlon.

They are not dangerous but as their are not many places to practice open water swimming in london I would imagine a large number of those swimmers are participators.

By: Classical liberal

Classical liberal — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 13:23:56 +0000

I have actually swum in R. Victoria Dock, naked and under the influence, in flagrant disregard of the signs, and lived to tell the tale. Probably wouldn’t do it again, though; in the cold light of day it looked deep, dark, cold and dirty…

By: Robert

Robert — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 08:36:24 +0000

In a libertarian society, there’d still be plenty of no fishing signs. Being able to control who can fish in your waters falls under property rights. The signs work like fences, making clear the boundaries of the area where the landowner allows free fishing.

The other type of ‘no fishing’ sign I see quite often is cables overhead, which is a justifiable warning. It’d be easy for fishermen to fail to look up, and get their line tangled in the cables, which could get expensive.

No swimming, on the other hand – well the legal theory is that without the sign, you’re liable for people who decide to take a swim. That’s a matter of civil law, so could hold even in the absence of a state, but probably wouldn’t.

By: jsallison

jsallison — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 00:51:17 +0000

But you do know that according to the horse bolts, door slams theory of life, the universe and most everything else that ‘Do Not Sleep on the Train Tracks’ didn’t go up until after the remains were cleaned up, at least once?

I mean, what well dug-in safety bureaucrat would incur the expense of signage prior to the event? Can’t have that sort of expensive forward thinking round these parts.

By: Tom Dickson-Hunt

Tom Dickson-Hunt — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 00:03:31 +0000

I compulsively read everything around me, so I always end up reading those sorts of signs. Most of them warn about things that are, intuitively, either so stupidly and obviously dangerous that they’re unnecessary (“do not sleep on train tracks”, which I think I actually saw once) or not really dangerous, but inconvenient or otherwise forbidden (“no smoking”, “no fishing”). It’s a rare occurrence indeed that one seems to actually be warning you about a nontrivial and nonobvious danger.

By: llamas

llamas — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 23:49:41 +0000

Time was when you didn’t have to worry too much about people swimming in the docks – the vapour pressure of the stench emanating from the water was enough to push back even the most drunken fool. Glad to hear that the water quality has improved.

I can rember watching the last hydraulic mains from the London Hydraulic Power Company being torn out at St Katherine’s Dock, together with the footings for Bramah’s hydraulic devils. I’ll bet they regret doing that now. I hope that the revival of Docklands doesn’t get too entirely chi-chi, and that they can keep some of the industrial history.

llater,

llamas

By: Boy on a bike

Boy on a bike — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 23:06:27 +0000

How many of those drownings involved drunken idiots?

By: Alisa

Alisa — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 22:02:02 +0000

I always told my son that if he ever drowns, I’ll never let him swim again. It worked so far.

By: Jay Thomas

Jay Thomas — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 21:21:20 +0000

I think a sign calling your attention to the existence of signs (such as the one Brian admired for its sincerity)essentially does is some seriously next level shit in the world of paternalistic signage however noble the intent may have been.

By: Kim du Toit

Kim du Toit — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 18:31:18 +0000

And of course, someone died whilst swimming in the Thames “to cool off” only last week… wonder if there were any warning signs where he went into the water.

By: US

US — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 17:04:47 +0000

Here’s another post on the same subject which your post reminded me of:

http://meteuphoric.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/dont-warn-vaguely/

I tend to think that the net-effect of non-specific warning signs is ambiguous and might actually be counterproductive in some cases because the people who’re most likely to do whatever it is you’d like to stop people from doing are if anything more – not less – likely to do the stupid thing if there’s a sign saying they’re not allowed to do it (and everybody else just ignore the signs anyway). Warning signs sometimes expand the choice set of the target group by drawing attention to actions which they’d not otherwise have thought about doing. One example: i) couple of drunk guys walk by sign: ‘Swimming not allowed here’, ii) they hadn’t thought about it but after reading the sign they figure, hey, why not take a swim here? iii) One of the drunk guys drowns. Another version is the combination of children and pictures of actions you’re advised not to do.