Public transport and the crime scene.
 

The creation of a crime scene, in which the road (carriageway and
footway) is taped off, and no pedestrians or vehicles are allowed to
proceed, is becoming a common occurrence. Where I live, I commonly see
the main road towards London sealed off, and traffic being diverted.
I've no idea whether buses are allowed to follow diversions, but in this
instance, the usual diversion route involves a railway bridge impassable
for double decker buses, and it is usual to see all the buses lined up
in the main road.

The eternal problem that anyone waiting for a bus needs to solve is that
if the service is supposedly every X minutes and the peson has been
waiting X x 3 minutes, does it mean that a bus is going to come at any
moment or does it mean that a disaster or event has occurred and the bus
is not coming at all.

The headlines of the Evening Standard last night was "POLICE FAILED TO
STOP DEATH RAVE" and follows with a story about how a boy died from
drinking beer laced with ketamine after attending an illegal rave. The
police are under scrutiny for not attempting to stop the rave which
apparently started on Saturday night going on to early hours of Sunday
Morning. What the police did do was to tape out a crime scene at 08:15
on Sunday Morning outside East Croydon railway station which prevented
any trams or buses from moving. It didn't involve the railway service
but anyone disembarking from a train with the intention of continuing
journey by bus or tram would have been stuck.

The tram indicators were operating as normal, this destination x
minutes, that destination y minutes, and no indication that anything had
happened. I presume that must have been the same throughout the nework.

Public transport and the crime scene.
 

The problem the police have is that the government have cut their numbers so severely that they no longer have the manpower to conduct accident investigations in a reasonable time, stop illegal raves etc..

Neill

Public transport and the crime scene.
 

On 18/06/2014 14:42, wrote:
The problem the police have is that the government have cut their numbers so severely that they no longer have the manpower to conduct accident investigations in a reasonable time, stop illegal raves etc..

Neill


Raves like that have gone on for ages - the normal approach from the
plod is to just keep a lid on it.

Public transport and the crime scene.
 

On 18/06/2014 13:31, ken wrote:
The creation of a crime scene, in which the road (carriageway and
footway) is taped off, and no pedestrians or vehicles are allowed to
proceed, is becoming a common occurrence. Where I live, I commonly see
the main road towards London sealed off, and traffic being diverted.
I've no idea whether buses are allowed to follow diversions, but in this
instance, the usual diversion route involves a railway bridge impassable
for double decker buses, and it is usual to see all the buses lined up
in the main road.

The eternal problem that anyone waiting for a bus needs to solve is that
if the service is supposedly every X minutes and the peson has been
waiting X x 3 minutes, does it mean that a bus is going to come at any
moment or does it mean that a disaster or event has occurred and the bus
is not coming at all.

The fantastic TfL Countdown service normally gives a pretty good
estimate of the arrival time of the next bus, if you're in that situation.


The headlines of the Evening Standard last night was "POLICE FAILED TO
STOP DEATH RAVE" and follows with a story about how a boy died from
drinking beer laced with ketamine after attending an illegal rave. The
police are under scrutiny for not attempting to stop the rave which
apparently started on Saturday night going on to early hours of Sunday
Morning. What the police did do was to tape out a crime scene at 08:15
on Sunday Morning outside East Croydon railway station which prevented
any trams or buses from moving. It didn't involve the railway service
but anyone disembarking from a train with the intention of continuing
journey by bus or tram would have been stuck.

The tram indicators were operating as normal, this destination x
minutes, that destination y minutes, and no indication that anything had
happened. I presume that must have been the same throughout the nework.


I'd strongly suggest a complaint to TfL about this. (My gut feeling is
that the Tramlink tram stop indicators are a bit antiquated when it
comes to displaying 'out of the ordinary' information, but pending an
eventual replacement, I'm sure something could be lashed together.)

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/contact

(A section of the website that still features the old design, FWIW.)

Public transport and the crime scene.
 

On 18/06/2014 13:31, ken wrote:

The headlines of the Evening Standard last night was "POLICE FAILED TO
STOP DEATH RAVE" and follows with a story about how a boy died from
drinking beer laced with ketamine after attending an illegal rave. The
police are under scrutiny for not attempting to stop the rave which
apparently started on Saturday night going on to early hours of Sunday
Morning. What the police did do was to tape out a crime scene at 08:15
on Sunday Morning outside East Croydon railway station which prevented
any trams or buses from moving. It didn't involve the railway service
but anyone disembarking from a train with the intention of continuing
journey by bus or tram would have been stuck.

The tram indicators were operating as normal, this destination x
minutes, that destination y minutes, and no indication that anything had
happened. I presume that must have been the same throughout the nework.

By about 11:15 the PIDs were showing things were in a mess. And at East
Croydon, the countless policemen, Tramlink staff and people having a
look to see what was happening made it pretty clear things were broken.

It wasn't superficially obvious why trams weren't running past the
scene. Surely a CR4000 can cope with some broken glass on the track, and
even so, the swept path could be swept - would there be "evidence" as
such on the tramway?


--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

Public transport and the crime scene.
 

On 18/06/2014 15:34, Mizter T wrote:

On 18/06/2014 14:42, wrote:
The problem the police have is that the government have cut their
numbers so severely that they no longer have the manpower to conduct
accident investigations in a reasonable time, stop illegal raves etc..

Neill


Raves like that have gone on for ages - the normal approach from the
plod is to just keep a lid on it.

Perhaps the idea of the police (being perceived to be-) standing back
and letting yoofs get on with whatever they are doing, is not now be as
popular with the man on the Croydon omnibus as it could have been just a
few years ago.

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

Public transport and the crime scene.
 

I really think the Police have to be far more brutal in dealing with things like this. Does anyone remember when a few years ago there was an illegal demonstration by some Sri Lankans about God-know-what in Parliament Square? It went on for days, despite being illegal, and no buses were allowed through Parliament Square at all. I never did find out what the demo was about.

When some drunken bum runs over a stupid yutz in the high street, why not have officers take a couple of hundred photographs from all directions in 5 minutes, then put the body in a bag and take the car to the pound. The whole thing could be cleared in half an hour, possibly less.

Public transport and the crime scene.
 

Offramp wrote:
I really think the Police have to be far more brutal in dealing with things like this. Does anyone remember when a few years ago there was an illegal demonstration by some Sri Lankans about God-know-what in Parliament Square? It went on for days, despite being illegal, and no buses were allowed through Parliament Square at all. I never did find out what the demo was about.

When some drunken bum runs over a stupid yutz in the high street, why not have officers take a couple of hundred photographs from all directions in 5 minutes, then put the body in a bag and take the car to the pound. The whole thing could be cleared in half an hour, possibly less.

Yes I do remember it, and the cost of policing it must have been
enormous, every police station in the London area was having to send
people to help police it.

Anyway, so boy dies, family and friends say police should have stopped
it. Police say they didn't stop it because no crime was committed and if
a boy wishes to drink beer laced with ketamine it's up to him. Next day
whole bus and tram interchange is taped off as a crime scene.

Public transport and the crime scene.
 

Mizter T wrote:

On 18/06/2014 13:31, ken wrote:
The creation of a crime scene, in which the road (carriageway and
footway) is taped off, and no pedestrians or vehicles are allowed to
proceed, is becoming a common occurrence. Where I live, I commonly see
the main road towards London sealed off, and traffic being diverted.
I've no idea whether buses are allowed to follow diversions, but in this
instance, the usual diversion route involves a railway bridge impassable
for double decker buses, and it is usual to see all the buses lined up
in the main road.

The eternal problem that anyone waiting for a bus needs to solve is that
if the service is supposedly every X minutes and the peson has been
waiting X x 3 minutes, does it mean that a bus is going to come at any
moment or does it mean that a disaster or event has occurred and the bus
is not coming at all.

The fantastic TfL Countdown service normally gives a pretty good
estimate of the arrival time of the next bus, if you're in that situation.


Despite East Croydon being a major bus interchange there is no countdown
service operating there.


The headlines of the Evening Standard last night was "POLICE FAILED TO
STOP DEATH RAVE" and follows with a story about how a boy died from
drinking beer laced with ketamine after attending an illegal rave. The
police are under scrutiny for not attempting to stop the rave which
apparently started on Saturday night going on to early hours of Sunday
Morning. What the police did do was to tape out a crime scene at 08:15
on Sunday Morning outside East Croydon railway station which prevented
any trams or buses from moving. It didn't involve the railway service
but anyone disembarking from a train with the intention of continuing
journey by bus or tram would have been stuck.

The tram indicators were operating as normal, this destination x
minutes, that destination y minutes, and no indication that anything had
happened. I presume that must have been the same throughout the nework.


I'd strongly suggest a complaint to TfL about this. (My gut feeling is
that the Tramlink tram stop indicators are a bit antiquated when it
comes to displaying 'out of the ordinary' information, but pending an
eventual replacement, I'm sure something could be lashed together.)

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/contact

(A section of the website that still features the old design, FWIW.)

Public transport and the crime scene.
 

Arthur Figgis wrote:
On 18/06/2014 13:31, ken wrote:

The headlines of the Evening Standard last night was "POLICE FAILED TO
STOP DEATH RAVE" and follows with a story about how a boy died from
drinking beer laced with ketamine after attending an illegal rave. The
police are under scrutiny for not attempting to stop the rave which
apparently started on Saturday night going on to early hours of Sunday
Morning. What the police did do was to tape out a crime scene at 08:15
on Sunday Morning outside East Croydon railway station which prevented
any trams or buses from moving. It didn't involve the railway service
but anyone disembarking from a train with the intention of continuing
journey by bus or tram would have been stuck.

The tram indicators were operating as normal, this destination x
minutes, that destination y minutes, and no indication that anything had
happened. I presume that must have been the same throughout the nework.

By about 11:15 the PIDs were showing things were in a mess. And at East
Croydon, the countless policemen, Tramlink staff and people having a
look to see what was happening made it pretty clear things were broken.

Yes I know it was obvious that things were broken. But it wouldn't have
been so obvious for someone waiting at, say, Sandilands. Do you happen
to know when the scene was untaped and buses and trams were alloed to
continue?

It wasn't superficially obvious why trams weren't running past the
scene. Surely a CR4000 can cope with some broken glass on the track, and
even so, the swept path could be swept - would there be "evidence" as
such on the tramway?