
I suppose the council are between a rock and a hard place.
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 …
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>
"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?
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".
"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.
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)
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.
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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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.
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
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.
"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) .
"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.
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".)
>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.)
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
Are these yokels insane? It's a massive rock in the middle of a road. It shouldn't be there. A reasonably foresightful person could perceive the hazard it causes to road traffic, especially during snowy weather or poor visibility. I'd argue it should be smashed to pieces, but moving it so anyone who wants to can still dance around/rub against/worship it is an acceptable compromise. Typical bloody minded Little Englander mentality that the councillor won't even consider that.
That's a bit strong.
It caused no injury. Given its location, no car should be travelling fast enough to injure the occupants of the vehicle should they hit it. If people didn't have ridiculous, expensive colour-matched bumpers on their cars, the cost of repair would be far lower too.
Being purely pragmatic, it would be cheaper to paint the tarmac - or even fit solar LED road studs - around the boulder than it would to move it.
Because if they move it, nobody will know about how Old Soulburys villagers bravely fought Lucifer 250 million years before the village was formed (and over 249 million years before mankind existed). And then what do they have to be proud of? The whole village will descend into depression, alcoholism, and drug use to hide their shame, and before you know it there'll be a Nova SR on every driveway.
Because if they move it, nobody will know about how Old Soulburys villagers bravely fought Lucifer 250 million years before the village was formed
To paraphrase Pratchett - if we stopped traditions just because we forgot how they started, we'd be no better than foreigners.
Very many junctions have a plastic thingy with a keep-left logo on it in the place where this rock is sitting. Often the plastic thingy is on a raised island with kerbstones and a brick or concrete interior. Some are in the middle of busy A-roads. So why is this rock an obstruction, when millions of traffic islands are not?
I'd suggest painting an area of white cross-hatching around the rock thereby making it officially part of a traffic island. Any motorist who hits it after that will have been contravening the highway code and not giving due attention to the road markings, and can be told to FOAD. I'd also suggest that at the same time, painting a give-way line at the actual junction would improve the road for all of its users.
"I'd suggest painting an area of white cross-hatching around the rock"
Definitely not.
Just look at the at the state of that road surface on the BBC pic.
Traditional British at its best. This rock needs proper traditional marking. There's a clear need for a veritable Erection of Penises at this junction!
Bet that'd satisfy all the villagers. They could make a fortune out of the postcards.
Experience tends to suggest that people drive more carefully and considerately in this sort of setting with as few traffic signs and road markings as possible. It's only the extreme idiots like the one in the story who need lines to keep inside (although they tend not to manage even that - what is it with all these drivers who can't stop before the stop line at junctions, or keep inside the lane markings on bends?)
As well as being a joyless anonymous coward, unable to see how these oddities of life add to the fun of it all, I'd suggest that you've missed the obvious solution.
We don't need to smash this stone up. Moving it is in fact very easy. Simply ring the church bells at midnight, and it'll move of it's own accord.
Of course the article doesn't state where it'll move to, or stop - so some research may need to be carried out first. After all, we don't want even more claims from people whose parked cars have been whacked.
Or I guess we could just ask satan to come and reclaim it. I assume if we asked his representatives on Earth Piers Morgan or Simon Cowell nicely, they could have a word with their boss, and see what he says...
"I don't remember there being much snowy weather in Bucks when I lived there."
Was down that area a few years back having driven through some awful snow on the way, especially on the M1 passing Sheffield. It was nice when we got there. But that night it started snowing and there was a foot of the damned stuff in the morning. I too thought they never got snow in Bucks.
I can only assume it was freezing over because someone was thinking about moving that bloody rock :-)
"Surround it with a traffic island"
That was the first thing that occurred to me. Streetview does indeed make it clear that it's a bit of a hazard - though presumably the locals know it well enough to avoid it. But in Health & Safety terms it's no good to say "X millions of motorists have avoided it ok" - with more cars on the road it does need a bit of highlighting.
And we Brits don't move historic items. Bad for the tourist trade...
>Surround it with a traffic island, with the usual high-visibility signage. Job done.
That was my first thought, but modern street furniture is fairly ugly. The contrast twixt rock n road could be increased in a more attractive way - by painting the surrounding tarmac perhaps.
I like the look of small French towns. Instead of using yellow lines to denote where your can't park, they simply use cobbled areas to mark where you can park. Motoruists are credited with the common sense. The result is so much more attractive, and restful (your eyes aren't constantly taking in a "Oi, No!" signal).
Yeah, despite the Outraged of Tunbridge Wells comments here (many of whom seem to think the rock is white???), that grey boulder on grey tarmac is asking for a collision. Begging for one.
Sure, leave it there, but, yes, put white hatch marks around it,or another lamp-post in front! FFS.
"isn't particularly visible (grey rock on grey background)"
To be fair to the rock, it's not really changed in millions of years whereas man has come along and made a brown soil/mud dirt track around it instead of the nicely contrasting grass the rock originally picked for it's spot. Then later some twonk came along and tarmacced over the reasonably contrasting brown dirt track with what? Grey bloody tarmac of all things!
You can't really blame the rock for settling down in a nice, highly visible spot and then some bloody humans come along and camouflage it and THEN blame to poor rock.
Ehhh, no need to think small. Let's have the rest of the Devil built up over it in the same rough rocky style - like a modern mini Colossus of Rhodes - and have the traffic in one direction pass straight under it. Instant tourist attraction level-up, great visibility, win-win etc. (until a lorry driver bamboozled by his satnav ignores the height restriction and ploughs through the whole thing, obviously).
Fascinating. I'd never heard of the Royston cave. And when I searched for images of the cave, I found this. Which isn't actually of the cave itself, but of another rock in the middle of the road, a mere stone's throw from the cave. (Sorry, couldn't resist).
http://www.megalithic.co.uk/a558/a312/gallery/England/Hertfordshire/Image003.jpg
So there is precedent for turning a rock into a (remarkably tasteful) traffic island.
"Then why can't Tintwistle have one?"
the plan was for the M67 to have bypassed you years ago but there were too many complaints from the nimbys in your local villages so all the money went on the M62
anyway, if you believe the press releases you're due for a Manchester-Sheffield tunnel in around 20 years
I'm not convinced it wasn't more likely to be a Mott the Hoople reference:-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roll_Away_the_Stone
Also realised that when you said "Leon Russell" I was thinking of Leon Redbone...
Disclosure: I live in Bucks
This county has an incredibly disproportionate number of residents who cannot do the speed limit, tell how much room then need when opposing traffic is coming, don't know how big their cars are along streets with cars parked as but a few examples of the abject stupidity regularly on display.
Add in a large number of Jazz and Picasso owners to the Micra crowd and there are days, like Thursdays (Pensioner Hell on the Roads day) and you're better off staying indoors safe.
Shit, this reminds me I have to go to Aylesbury today....
"(Pensioner Hell on the Roads day)"
Yesterday I noticed a middle-aged woman helping a very frail old lady across the pavement to their car. It looked like a typical case of senile dementia. The middle-aged woman got in the car - and her fragile companion managed to negotiate her door with some difficultly. The realisation that the old lady was the driver sent a shiver down my spine.
PS You forgot to mention Mobility Scooter drivers which show the same lack of spatial and speed awareness on pedestrian paths.
Isn't America the place where they build roads through trees?
"Let's bear in mind this is about one person who's crashed into this stone in over 11,000 years"
You can't fault the guy for the accurate risk assessment, although I note that in earlier days it had a lamppost nearby. Maybe it's worth re-establishing that one, that would also provide power for a huge sign with a massive arrow pointing at the stone, just to make it clear to other minimally talented drivers.
That ought to suffice for another 11,000 years.
Just for referencing one of my favourite tales out of the Readers Digest book "Strange Stories, Amazing Facts" which was the first book I read that really got me to open my mind and think critically about things, and contained reports about that phenomenon.
Got me into a proper interest in the paranormal, UFOs, myths, and the explanations thereof - great stuff for a young mind to stretch into.
As a result of all that, I also know far more than is healthy about the occult and the paranormal. Always great for polite conversations.
So upvote for bringing back some fun memories! And if you see that book in a charity shop/on eBay, snap it up.
Steven "doesn't believe in ghosts and things, but they are fun to think about" R
PS: Put a bloody traffic island around the rock, this shit isn't difficult, unless you work for the fucking council, where breathing and walking at the same time is considered the height of personal achievement.
Motorists crash into lamp posts, illuminated keep left signs (other types of illuminated street signage equally vulnerable) bridges, each other, pedestrians, cyclists (I know, I've weakened my case)
We could paint everything yellow and erect barriers around it but that still wouldn't solve the problem that 99% of motorists think they are above average drivers
"We could paint everything yellow and erect barriers around it but that still wouldn't solve the problem that 99% of motorists think they are above average drivers "
And ... more than half of them are right (assuming that the 1% who don't think they are better-than-average drivers are probably all correct)
A friend of mine used to live in Namibia. His work used to involve driving across a bit of the Kalahari desert that was so flat and empty that there was no road - you just took a compass bearing and set off.
In all those kilometers of emptiness there was one tree - a baobab. It was such a distinctive feature that it was marked on maps. Then one day someone drove a truck into it, irrecoverably damaging the thing.
If that tree got hit, then a rock in the middle of a highway stands no chance. Sooner or later some idiot will always come along.
('Stop' sign, obviously)
You do all realise that the "Devil" connections will date from pre-Christian pagan religious rituals, and that the stone may well have been a sacrificial altar, with young maidens having their throats cut while being held down on it.
Personally I think the tradition should be revived, so that anyone who damages the sacred stone gets sacrificed to the old religion. That should solve the problem of drunk women driving into it
It's not an "obstruction". It's a "traffic calming measure". It's been there for fucking centuries, and because some gormless, inattentive twat ran into it they're going to move it?
The guy who ran into it should be charged for any scratches to this irreplaceable historical relic!
(Just noticed this: In total, your posts have been upvoted $FOO times and downvoted $FOO/6.7 times. Must try to be less agreeable.)