A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

OK - let's look closely at these photos. They were taken today on the public street of a sign for an established educational establishment in Cork - St. John's Central College. Now, if I were going to pay money, any amount of money, to someone or some group to provide me with a service, any service, especially education, I would want them to be able to handle basic constructions in their native tongue without falling at the first hurdle. A college of St. John is written St. John's College, not St. Johns. The random absence of apostrophes in their signage is lamentable and sloppy.

But the real, gobsmacking and, frankly, insulting mess here is that they either a) cannot spell or b) don't care enough to cast even a cursury spell-checking glance over their publications. You see, when this sign went up, they proudly displayed that they are 'St. Johns Central Collage". Putting aside the total lack of the necessary apostrophe, a house of learning, which cannot spell the word 'college', is one to which I do not wish to entrust my education. And one, which, when they eventually realise their error, do not bother to re-do the sign but simply scrape off the offending 'a' and turn it upsidedown, is one indicating an absolute lack of care and pride in their product.

Have a look for yourself and make up your own mind.

By the way, grammar is very important. To borrow from and paraphrase the great Lawrence Durrell, there is a great difference between the following two sentences.

"Lady Chalmsbury has cast off clothes of all descriptions and is inviting inspection."

"Lady Chalmsbury has cast-off clothes of all descriptions and is inviting inspection."

ID

Crossing the Rubicon, Part 3

Here’s an update on the pedestrian crossing situation.

After getting no response or as good as no response from the City Council, I went and contacted the local City Councillors. Here are the responses so far:

21/8/’08 Cllr. Mary Shields: “Dear Anna Marie, I will consult with my colleague-Councillor Terry Shannon in relation to this problem. He is the ward Councillor for the area in question and I know he will be very anxious to make sure this problem is addressed. We have a meeting of Roads Cimmittee on September 1st and I believe this is an ideal opportunity to bring up the problem and discuss it with Cork City Council Officials.”

22/8/0’08 Cllr. Mary Shields #2: “Dear Anna-Marie, I promise I will revert back to you after our meeting of Roads Committee on the evening of Sept 1st and I agree with your sentements but must hear the reasoning behind the move to obliterate the audio sounds at pedesrtian crossings from the officials.”

26/8/’08 Cllr. Mick Barry: “Dear Anne-Marie, Keep the pressure on the local councillors for your ward. There are Council elections next summer and you will find them all eager to please at this stage in the electoral cycle. If there is no change by mid-September it might be no harm to get the Disability Federation of Ireland to contact the Council and remind them of what happened in Dublin. Good luck.”

I have still not had a response from the NCBI so this must be chased but in addition the idea about contacting the Disability Federation of Ireland is good and will be followed up.

29/8/’08 Cllr. Lorraine Kingston: “Dear Ann-Marie, in response to your query I contacted Paddy O’ Neill in the traffic dept. he was aware of the situation and remembered your phone call. Unfortunately they only replaced like with like in other words audio tones weren’t put in.
Now he suggested if you contact Ian Winning he is the Senior Executive Engineer in The Traffic dept. and make a request for High Street to be installed with audio-visual there shouldn’t be a problem.
I will then follow that request up to be sure it happens.”

The problem here is that this is a nonsense. I have no idea what lights Mr O’Neill thinks he is talking about but the lights in question were originally audio-visual so they are patently not replacing like with like. So the options are that either this is an example of confusion or simply that it is a fob-off, to not mince words.

In addition, Mr Winning has been made aware of this by email on the 2nd, 14th & 28th July and has made no response or even acknowledgement of the correspondence yet.

I will keep you posted.

Crossing the Rubicon, Part 2

Well, after giving up on the written word, I contacted the City Council by phone and got a return message from a Mary on Thurs 31 July in the Traffic division who had asked Aidan the engineer who said that the audio signals would be installed once all the visual signals are in place, in a couple/few weeks time.

Now, that means that, since I first noticed the signals being changed and asked about them on the 28th June, and it is now August, and there will be an undefined number of weeks yet before audio signals are added, a busy road (Douglas Road) is virtually impassible by those of us with impaired/no eyesight and many points along the route.

Q: Is this fine and dandy?
Q: Could the original audio signals have not been left in place until the new audio signals were installed?
Q: Could audio-visual signals not have been installed in the first place?

?

Crossing the Rubicon

The City Council are making improvements, or simply changes, to the locality, which are including the replacement of pedestrian crossing signals - new for old. Now this would be all well and good (assuming that the old signals were on their last legs and it's not just spending for the sake of it) except for the small but at the same time huge fact that the old signals were both audio-visual while these new ones are completely silent. And the problem is? Well, try knowing when to safely cross the road at a silent pedestrian crossing with your eyes closed.

According to the National Council for the Blind in Ireland (NCBI), there is best practice for pedestrian crossings. See point #2 below in particular.

*Pedestrian Crossings
1. Crossings should always be at right angles to the street.
2. NCBI Policy states: “Where a green man crossing signal is provided for pedestrians, it should be accompanied by an audible signal for the benefit of blind and vision impaired people” Modern Push Button Units (PBU’s) all come equipped with tactile as well as audible signals. People with hearing loss as well as sight loss can use the tactile signal to verify that it is safe to cross. Push buttons should be consistently located at a level of 900mm - 1,100mm above ground level.
3. At traffic light controlled crossroads, and all major junctions, provision should be made for a safe time period and safe crossing points for pedestrians. If this is not possible, pedestrian crossings should be provided at safe but convenient distances from the junction.
4. Textured surfaces should be provided on the footpath to indicate where crossing points are. If possible, a textured surface should be laid across the road to help the person with vision impairment to maintain a straight line of travel while crossing. (Ref. Guidance on the use of Tactile Paving Surfaces).
5. Where road crossing entails negotiating a central island, this should be clearly identifiable by means of a raised section of pavement with barriers. Separate, readily distinguishable signals for both crossings must be provided.
*Source:
http://www.ncbi.ie/information-for/architects-engineers/guidelines-for-accessibility-of-the-built-environment

I have written to the Cork City Council on two occasions in the last few weeks but have recieved no clarification, just an acknowledgement of receipt of query. So they can hear me knocking but...

Hopefully the NCBI will be able to clarify further.

See also:
http://www.ncbi.ie/news/press-releases/2007-04-03_dublin-city-council-settles-equality-case-on-audible-pedestrian-crossing-signals

http://www.pwdi.ie/news_events/newsletter/cumhacht9h.htm

http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:_tvfya1v9GcJ:www.equality.ie/getFile.asp%3FFC_ID%3D392%26docID%3D690+pedestrian+crossings+law+audible&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=7&gl=ie

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog!

I've decided to put one together to vent all of those little things that can really, really get you wondering and, if not off-loaded in a safe & controlled environment, can lose you your friends through boredom and cries of 'will you just shut up and stop going on about it??!?'. Altogether now.........aaaahhh!

So, like it says on the tin, it's probably going to be lecturing, hectoring invective and mostly about Cork & Ireland but, you never know, it may even entertain & inform. We can but see.

ID