34 replies to this topic

[itsademo]

Unfortunately today on the Jim Clark rally in Scotland two crashes resulted in 6 people being injured (one seriously) and three fatalities.

Of course the rally was immediately stopped after the second accident (in which all the fatalities occurred)

thoughts go out to the families of the bereaved and the best wishes for a speedy recovery to the seriously injured spectator.

[undersquare]

That's terrible

[hollowstar]

Oh my!  This is tragic!   I don't know what's going on with security at rally and exhibition events lately... but I hope the FIA will wake up! 

[scheivlak]

A report: http://www.theguardi...lly-in-scotland

 

Terrible news. And a terrible thing to have witnessed.

[SR388]

Dreadful news! Prayers with al those involved.

[chunder27]

Think its about time closed rallying was done in the mainland, I am sure there have been issues on this event in the past.

 

As we are not used to staging these colsed road events in the UK, it seems incidents happen.

 

Not sure there are as many incidents in Ireland?  They have closed road events there dont they?

 

Very bad news all round, and it making headline news on the BBC does rallying no favours sadly. Or motorsport in general as with rallying usually the only time it is in headline news is when people die

[Powersteer]

   very very sad, hope those will recover from their injury and condolences to those who lost their loved ones, R.I.P

[Myrvold]

Think its about time closed rallying was done in the mainland, I am sure there have been issues on this event in the past.

 

You can't ever stop stupidity though. And from the quote over at the 'Rallying 2014' - thread. It looks like another case of spectators being told to move, but instead of doing it, ends up getting killed. It's harsh, but they do take the risk themselves when they decide to stay in a dangerous place.

[JacnGille]

Sad news

[Seano]

Dreadful business.

 

Its very hard to marshal these kind of events and when a car gets airbourne over a bridge, its pretty well imposible to be sure of its trajectory as it lands. Sadly this makes for spectacular and highly dangerous close-up viewing.

 

Condolences to those that have lost loved ones, the competitors and marshals - they will all be equally devasted at what has happened.

 

Seano

[Jackmancer]

Urhg =/ often the bystanders, the fans, who are in most risk of an accident =/

 

Terrible

[Vitesse2]

Think its about time closed rallying was done in the mainland, I am sure there have been issues on this event in the past.

 

As we are not used to staging these colsed road events in the UK, it seems incidents happen.

 

Not sure there are as many incidents in Ireland?  They have closed road events there dont they?

 

Very bad news all round, and it making headline news on the BBC does rallying no favours sadly. Or motorsport in general as with rallying usually the only time it is in headline news is when people die

The BBC's reporting is very measured this morning. I suspect they've been privately informed - by the organisers and/or the police - that the spectators had been ignoring orders from marshals and/or were in a place they shouldn't have been. But can't report it until investigations are complete.

You can't ever stop stupidity though. And from the quote over at the 'Rallying 2014' - thread. It looks like another case of spectators being told to move, but instead of doing it, ends up getting killed. It's harsh, but they do take the risk themselves when they decide to stay in a dangerous place.

Indeed. This has of course been true since the earliest days of the sport: some of the drivers in the early city-to-city races describe driving into what was essentially a crowd which parted like the Biblical Red Sea and then closed again behind them. Same on the Mille Miglia and Targa Florio. During practice for the 1937 Donington GP the drivers from the German teams complained about amateur photographers standing - or even lying down - right on the track edge and when The Autocar published a selection of readers' photos of the event a couple of weeks later it was obvious that several of them had been taken from suicidally dangerous positions.

 

To be honest, the most surprising thing for me about rallying is that there aren't many more spectator injuries and fatalities - some of the in-car footage is terrifying.

[Slackbladder]

Awful news, thoughts go out to family.

But yeah, one can't jump to conclusions, but it's dangerous. And people are clearly often in a place where if accidents happen they are at risk. On courses like this there's no way of making it safe.

It's like F1 if crowds were allowed right up to the track.

[Mandzipop]

Shocking and sad news. My condolences to the families and I hope the injured recover from their injuries.

[LORDBYRON]

Heard about it on the news yesterday, tragic news.

[BullHead]

Bad news. Rallying and motorsport in general doesn't need this. Measures need to be put in place. Sad, because that will make events a lot harder to put on.

[Currahee]

Sad news.

 

http://www.scotcars....olice-statement

[Longtimefan]

Terrible indeed

RIP to those killed, hope the others recover soon.

Edited by Longtimefan, 01 June 2014 - 16:17.

[spacekid]

This is incredibly sad.

I think there's a real conversation to be had about spectator safety at rally's. This probably isn't the thread for it, but sadly I'm not surprised when it happens.

[Lotus53B]

It is tragic, and my heart goes out to the bereaved.

I used to go to the night time Kielder stage in the Lombard Rally, and was always amazed there were few incidents - but back then (early 80s) there were more such special stages, and maybe folk had more experience marshalling them?

[jestaudio]

While my heart goes out to those who have lost loved ones this needs to be a wake up call, all to often spectators ignore the marshalls to get close to the action, not saying this is the case this time but i have seen it time and time again, time for strict crowd control, motorsport does not need fatalities full stop

[275 GTB-4]

While my heart goes out to those who have lost loved ones this needs to be a wake up call, all to often spectators ignore the marshalls to get close to the action, not saying this is the case this time but i have seen it time and time again, time for strict crowd control, motorsport does not need fatalities full stop

Unfortunate but yes...the female Marshal interviewed said as much...very sad though, especially if it leads to the closure of a 44 year old event.

[Seano]

You can do quite a bit to prevent spectators from niavely doing stupid things like going to obviously highly dangerous areas. Certainly you can cordon off area's with tape and tell people to keep out of them. The stage commander can threaten to cancel the stage too on PA - if they consider the risk posed by daft specators as being too high. Normally their peers cajole them back in to line after this threat.

 

I guess modern communications make life at little easier now - I remember halving to get an RAC Rally stage stopped after a nasty incident in the eighties via the Polish service.crew on the end of their car's radio after their car had gone into the crowd - it was the only means of communication back to the stage start I could think of. Quite a worrying few minutes trying to slow down following competitors and find and deal with the injured in the dark down a bank.

 

But its way too early to say what happened here.

 

I must admit that I am curious as to how they appear to have managed to get round the RTA to in effect run a competitive rally stage on public roads on the UK mainland.

 

Seano

[tifosiMac]

Sad news, and sadly not uncommon in rallying. I hold my breath with the Isle of Man TT each year as if something goes wrong, it can do so in a big way. The accident on Bray Hill last year could have been a lot worse. Condolences to those who lost loved ones up in Scotland. 

[Lee Nicolle]

Google Rally Crashes. you will get dozens of near misses and some spectators being hit too.

Here in South Oz rallying is getting near impossible in the Adelaide Hills. Though look at any of those videos and you can understand why. How they get liability insurance has me stuffed!

In my youth I did  few car club rallys, both navigation and some speed. It was kind of fun but meeting some clown going the wrong way twice in one night cured me. One was a local and the other a car in the event who was very lost. I have done road closure on a couple of occasions and it was actually quite hard work with dills who want to go on a closed road plus trying to tell idiot spectators do not go there. One night we shooed some off and the next car went straight on where they had been.

I will stick with track type motorsport though I have seen some wrecked cars at some public  road course hillclimbs I have competed at. The last one that happened here actually had a photographer seriously injured,, after being told to move.

Yesterday at Mallala a Mk1 Cortina ended up in the 'no mans land' over the wall but inside the catch fencing. Noone was injured inc the driver. Car is stuffed! 

[Vitesse2]

I must admit that I am curious as to how they appear to have managed to get round the RTA to in effect run a competitive rally stage on public roads on the UK mainland.

 

Seano

Tarmac rallies in Scotland - although they come under MSA control - are authorised by legislation from Holyrood. It's similar to the laws in Northern Ireland. In practice there are - I believe - only two per year, the other being on Mull.

[BRG]

I must admit that I am curious as to how they appear to have managed to get round the RTA to in effect run a competitive rally stage on public roads on the UK mainland.

 

Seano

 

Tarmac rallies in Scotland - although they come under MSA control - are authorised by legislation from Holyrood. It's similar to the laws in Northern Ireland. In practice there are - I believe - only two per year, the other being on Mull.

Not so.  Closed road rallies on Mull & in the Borders Region predate Holyrood by many years.  Both are mandated by Acts of (Westminster) Parliament - a specific act for Mull and as part of a act covering the Borders Region local government more generally for the Jim Clark.  Similarly, an act covered the Birmingham Superprix race.  

 

But this sort of thing isn't going to encourage the recent move and petition towards allowing RTA suspension on closed roads.  I wait to hear more details, but I fear it will, as so often, prove to have been due to spectators standing in the wrong place.  Unfortunately many people simply do not understand the risks or believe that it will never happen.

[TimRTC]

But this sort of thing isn't going to encourage the recent move and petition towards allowing RTA suspension on closed roads.  I wait to hear more details, but I fear it will, as so often, prove to have been due to spectators standing in the wrong place.  Unfortunately many people simply do not understand the risks or believe that it will never happen.

 

Afterall there is no reason an accident like this could not have happened on a forest or private road event, the use of closed roads is not particularly relevant, although no doubt it will seriously hamper these suggestions.

 

Unfortunately if it turns out the spectators were in an unapproved area, it will do the rally no favours as they are still responsible for ensuring the safety of spectators.

[garagetinkerer]

Heartfelt condolences to the close and loved ones... unpleasant business this for all concerned.

[taylov]

Scottish Justice Minister has ordered a review of safety at all motorsport venues in Scotland as a result of the deaths and injuries at the weekend.

 

See  http://www.bbc.co.uk...otland-27678234

 

 

[275 GTB-4]

Scottish Justice Minister has ordered a review of safety at all motorsport venues in Scotland as a result of the deaths and injuries at the weekend.
 
See  http://www.bbc.co.uk...otland-27678234

Typical "get tough" and name-in-the-papers over-reaction...a normal coronial enquiry could have made the recommendations necessary for safety improvements...

[Seano]

It is a bit of an anonmaly - a large part of me says leave the event alone, its traditional. But a small voice conscience and experience says that it can never really be marshalled as well as it might be, simply due to the competitive route length through a public space.

 

Could it be turned into a normal muti venue special stage rally without loosing its character and popularity with the fans and drivers?

 

I don't know, but I do know there were incidents before this horrible accident and I am certain that there will be ones in the future if something isn't done.

 

I'd prefer that this was sorted out by the orgainsing clubs and the RAC MSA rather than getting plod and the politicians involved - they have a very different agenda.

 

Once last thought, Jim Clark probably understood more about risk and speed than most and I don't think he would have an issue about changing the format of his event.

 

Seano 

[Myrvold]

But when looking at the video on BBC, you would need marshalls in every single braking zone. That's just not possible in a rally.

[Lee Nicolle]

Afterall there is no reason an accident like this could not have happened on a forest or private road event, the use of closed roads is not particularly relevant, although no doubt it will seriously hamper these suggestions.

 

Unfortunately if it turns out the spectators were in an unapproved area, it will do the rally no favours as they are still responsible for ensuring the safety of spectators.

There is the rub. See my above comments. Spectators, yet alone photographers seem to go out of their way to get in the stupidest places. This even with people who should know better.

Sometimes too the drivers can take some blame as they really do some stupid things to crash in the most unobvious places, like the middle of a straight road. Overdriving is a lot of that, back off and go faster.

[275 GTB-4]

It is a bit of an anonmaly - a large part of me says leave the event alone, its traditional. But a small voice conscience and experience says that it can never really be marshalled as well as it might be, simply due to the competitive route length through a public space.
 
Could it be turned into a normal muti venue special stage rally without loosing its character and popularity with the fans and drivers?
 
I don't know, but I do know there were incidents before this horrible accident and I am certain that there will be ones in the future if something isn't done.
 
I'd prefer that this was sorted out by the orgainsing clubs and the RAC MSA rather than getting plod and the politicians involved - they have a very different agenda.
 
Once last thought, Jim Clark probably understood more about risk and speed than most and I don't think he would have an issue about changing the format of his event.
 
Seano

Its easy! just bring in Hermann Tilke to design rally stages and issue the fans with binoculars to use in their WW2 era concrete bunkers...Oi Vey!