I suppose the council are between a rock and a hard place.
Furious English villagers force council climbdown over Satan's stone booty
Outraged villagers in Bucks have forced the local council to ditch plans to shift a millennia-old boulder they believe was originally part of the Devil’s foot. The Soulbury Boot is believed to have been cut off from Satan’s lower quarters in an ancient fight between Lucifer and the locals in Chapel Hill, Soulbury. It is also …
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Thursday 31st March 2016 08:39 GMT xj650t
The compensation culture at work!
I didn't see the 2ft high boulder in the middle of the street and smashed my car into it, now somebody else take the blame and pay for fixing my car already.
Holy Frack, if you can't see a boulder in the middle of the road, then what flipping chance do pedestrians and cyclists have.
Please post your car keys to I'm to stupid to drive, c/o Iwoz txting at the time.
</rant>
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Thursday 31st March 2016 08:50 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: The compensation culture at work!
"I didn't see the 2ft high boulder in the middle of the street and smashed my car into it, now somebody else take the blame and pay for fixing my car already."
Similer incident in Frome, Somerset, where there is a small stream running down the middle of a pedestrian street in the town centre. Some woman stepped in it.
She immediately demanded via the media that it be closed over so that she couldn't step into it again.
Fortunately as with Soulbury common sense prevailed. But yes, shouldn't someone be sending the motorist the bill for cleaning the rock, just in case Lucifer gets annoyed about it?
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Thursday 31st March 2016 08:57 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: The compensation culture at work!
While I agree that the compensation culture is far from desirable and that people need to use their eyes...... a two foot bolder in the dark is hardly the same as a pedestrian or a cyclist. Of course I haven't looked for any photos so there may be other reasons why driving into it was stupid.
... I tired hard (well a little bit anyway) but it did remind me of the old insurance claim:
"I drove into the wrong drive and hit a tree I haven't got".
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Thursday 31st March 2016 09:03 GMT Doctor Syntax
Re: The compensation culture at work!
"a two foot bolder in the dark is hardly the same as a pedestrian or a cyclist"
From the pictures on the Beeb it appears to be either chalk or to be painted white so it's a good deal more visible than the standard dark-clothed pedestrian or unlit cyclist.
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Thursday 31st March 2016 09:23 GMT Dave 126
Re: The compensation culture at work!
The boulder is grey, the tarmac around it is grey... simple solution would be to paint (or apply that high grip coloured epoxy finish to) the surrounding tarmac, in order to enhance contrast. No need to paint the boulder, or to erect a fence.
For sure, the motorist erred, but one should design systems with human fallibility in mind.
I haven't found mention of what time of day or in what weather conditions the motorist hit it. There are a good number of motorists who don't use their daylight running lamps (use them in anything less than perfect visibility, and that includes on sunny days when in the shade of trees etc), or are late in turning on their headlamps towards dusk.
(Picture is on the BBC link in the article)
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Thursday 31st March 2016 09:15 GMT Sir Sham Cad
Re: Of course I haven't looked for any photos
A cursory Giggle brought up another article on this story. The stone, which appears to have been transported there during the last Ice Age, is in the middle of the road with ample room for a car either side. The road was built around the stone leaving a carriageway to either side in much the same way as a normal traffic island. Granted, in the dark they tend to have lit bollards denoting their location but there's no indication this accident happened in the dark.
No, this person managed to be special enough to be the first person to drive into this rock in 11,000 years and wants to get paid for their specialness.
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Thursday 31st March 2016 09:39 GMT Anonymous Custard
Re: Of course I haven't looked for any photos
In the Beeb article there is an older pic of the stone, and it had a street lamp just behind it. Oddly said lamp doesn't seem to currently be in place, but that strikes me as a sensible thing to have close to it, to both illuminate it and also to give less visually aware motorists something a bit bigger and taller to spot and avoid perhaps?
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Thursday 31st March 2016 08:42 GMT ChunkyMonkey
Technically the stone is an obstruction in the public highway
Let's face it idiots crash into things all of the time. It's in a village, on a corner and a junction. All of these are reason to go slow and be observant!
If we have to start taking stuff down because some idiot bumps into it, we will all be in fields.
I'd take the license and keys from the muppet that hit it and not give them back until they learn how to drive.
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Thursday 31st March 2016 15:42 GMT Shadow Systems
nijam, re speed bumps.
Speed bumps are only good for one thing & that's catching air time off of when you hit one at high speed & become momentarily airbourne.
We know we're SUPPOSED to slow down for the damned things, but whom can resist the urge to hit the gas & give a delighted whoop of glee at the sudden feeling of seeming weightlessness?
And then the idiots in power wonder why nobody wants to walk in the zebra crossing on the other side?
*Cackle*
I'll get my coat, it's the one with the crash test manniquin in the pockets. =-)p
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Friday 1st April 2016 21:38 GMT David 132
Re: nijam, re speed bumps.
We know we're SUPPOSED to slow down for the damned things, but whom can resist the urge to hit the gas & give a delighted whoop of glee at the sudden feeling of seeming weightlessness?
This post is sponsored by the Society of Shock-Absorber Manufacturers, Coil-Spring Suppliers and Sump Guard Fabricators.
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Thursday 31st March 2016 12:00 GMT John McCallum
Re: Technically the stone is an obstruction in the public highway
"Stick a couple of keep left arrows on it and officially deem it a bollard."
This wont work Last time I rode from Huddersfield to Wakefield some numpty had managed to hit one of the roundabouts ( this is about a metre + high made out of black and white blocks in chevron pattern as per regs) .
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Thursday 31st March 2016 22:49 GMT Doctor Syntax
Re: Technically the stone is an obstruction in the public highway
"Stick a couple of keep left arrows on it and officially deem it a bollard."
Way back I used to drive between Belfast & the in-laws in Carrick passing the entrance to what was then Jordanstown Poly. Opposite the entrance there was one of those islands with plastic bollards illuminated from below. Almost every time I passed the bollards were squashed flat; I doubt that when they were replaced they ever lasted more than a couple of weeks & usually less.
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Thursday 31st March 2016 08:44 GMT TeeCee
Spot the problem.
Is it:-
a) The fact that there's been a massive and obvious lump of rock in such and such a place since forever?
b) The fact that some myopic fucktard drove into it and is being well paid for doing so.?
(If it helps any, the solution to (a) is "move the rock" and the solution to (b) is "make being a claims lawyer an offence punishable by burning at the stake".)
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Friday 1st April 2016 17:36 GMT Spamfast
Re: Spot the problem. "c) move the claims lawyer to the rock and burn them there! :)"
>Chain him to the rock and leave him there.
If chained to a rock, we have to include having a regenerating liver daily ripped out and eaten by an eagle don't we? (Although dignifying the pond life with the same punishment as Prometheus is probably setting the wrong precedent. Maybe chained to a rock at the bottom of the sea with two hundred colleagues as per the classic is more like it after all.)
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Thursday 31st March 2016 10:18 GMT joeW
Re: Size 14
My old home town has a similarly-sized lump of rock in the middle of a junction (something to do with the foundation of the town, I forget the story/legend). Simple solution, throw some bollards and a bit of kerbing around it.
Like so - https://www.google.ie/maps/@51.6229216,-8.8879659,3a,41y,314.74h,70.21t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s_AkvmT_lVh71mw_ZDUPG8A!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
