Harringay online

Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Picture via Twitter from @buecherkeksi.

As the photographer said, "I don't know how he did it, but......"

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Agreed.  I like street furniture that fights back.

According to Rob from Tao Sports, some poor soul was innocently sitting and eating their takeaway on the granite when it was hit...

Granite planters, Michael?  Well, now, how about that.

I know you're probably going to poke fun at my "holiday snaps..."  But it did occur to me that other places seem to manage to have some lovely street planters. So why not here?

Place De Brouckère - planters

Certainly not poking fun Alan but I did hear the conversation with Zena in my head where she is saying "Alan, it's a bike rack. Can we go and look at the Mannequin Pis instead please"

Worse than that. I wanted to see a poorer area near the canal.  Zena fancied a tram ride to the end of the line at the city boundary.

We did both; equally interesting. Zena chatted to some African political refugees. And to a seventy year old Belgian woman who'd fallen off an Alp.  We also saw a rock being used as a street bollard. Passively safe it was not.

agree

Ha! So it is a trough in more ways than one!

Thanks for this link, Tris.  I've read through the Guidelines, and these seem to raise more questions. Personally I'd have preferred to ask whether highway engineers were  closely involved in the scheme and whether or not "passively safe" street furniture was properly considered and used, before implying that this was not the case. 

But good on you for raising this important issue!  It should give us food for thought. Is this by any chance something you deal with in your own professional life?

Having said all this, the fact remains that powerful hard-bodied vehicles are moving at speed along a busy road where lots of unprotected soft bodies are walking, shopping, standing, cycling, and - increasingly - sitting at pavement tables.

P.S. Tris, quick Googling seems to suggest there are European standards of "passively safe" street furniture which would apply - especially to publicly funded projects.  Presumably in the capital of the EU they would have taken care to comply with this.  Can you - or anyone else shed light?

Aaah, but there is no link between Brussels as a region of Belgium & Brussels as the 'capital' of the EU.

The Brussels region of Belgium is occupied with its own role as the buffer zone between the Flemish North & the Walloon (French speaking) south of Belgium & really doesn't notice the EU & NATO institutions in the city.

Anyone who watched the 12 part Belgian (Flemish) thriller Salamander recently might have noticed that the EU & its buildings weren't mentioned once....

Michaelw, I'm happy to accept your expertise. However, I was under the impression that the city of Brussels is part of the European Union and is not exempt from EU regulations. Including, if any exist, about the issue raised by Tris, of street furniture being "passively safe" as a way to avoid unnecessary injuries and death to car drivers and passengers.

Perhaps we could agree on the possibility that there might even be a few Eurocrats or lawyers around the city's streets who might be familiar with any such regulations should their or other people's cars hit street furniture.

Brussels is probably not the place where this sort of thing is likely to be strictly applied. Health and Safety is not a hot subject - I knew someone who lived in a 25 storey tower block with no fire alarms & my office on the 5th floor also had no alarms in the building!

It's a common misconception in the UK that Brussels the city is somehow linked to the EU institutions. It's true that people who work at the EU live in Brussels or in Flanders or Wallonia, but these people have little impact on Brussels itself. It's also not possible to enforce EU laws directly within a country if the country (or region) has not put them into their own laws. In this case you just have to report the country to the Commission, who may then take infringement proceedings (as is happening with London's air quality now).

Belgian politics is very complex, with each part of the political spectrum having parties on each side of the language divide - French speaking left, liberal, right, green; Flemish speaking left, liberal, right, green & various others. At Federal level this leads to the need to create coalitions between the Flemish Liberal/Right & French speaking left, which is why forming a government is very hard work & can take months. However, so much power is devolved to the regions the country still operates without a federal government.

Would it not be ironic if the driver was distracted by the incredibly bright 'Accidental Claims' signs on the Ersan & co office? If so, maybe he has a claim against them ;)

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