Rules set by those who don’t understand them

I was in Rushton, Northamptonshire today.

The old town centre has a small car park, and the authorities want to limit parking to smaller vehicles. There is a limit of 1.5 tonnes.

Here in the UK, the weight limit signs apply to the MAM, or Maximum Authorised Mass of a vehicle, so it doesn’t matter whether a vehicle is loaded or not, if it’s MAM, as written on the identification plate, is over the limit, it isn’t allowed.

So how big does a car have to be to exceed 1.5 tonnes?

A Mini, as sold today, has an MAM of 1510 kg or more, depending on the model. So that’s banned from the car park in Rushton.  The name of the car is possibly a clue that it isn’t very big. Other cars, like a Nissan Micra, squeeze under the limit at 1475 kg while a Peugeot 107 is way under at 1190 kg. The smallest BMW or Audi in their current ranges is about 1800 kg MAM.

So they have this rule that means that some really small cars are the only ones allowed to park at that car park. And who would understand or enforce that rule? No one. Most people wouldn’t have a clue what the MAM of their car is. It’s only commercial vehicle drivers and owners that worry about it. And I am sure that few drivers would realise that the limit doesn’t apply to the weight of the vehicle as is. I guess that whoever put up the sign never intended to ban the vast majority of cars.

It is just another example of a rule put there for the sake of having rules.

 

Unfair Penalties

We were 10 days late paying our VAT bill. This was because we are short of money, unsurprisingly. The government has charged us 10% of the bill, or a bit over £400.

The same government that won’t let us charge people who owe us money more than the base rate + 8% per year, plus a £70 fee. We also have to go to court to enforce fees like that.  Late payment fees would have come to about £1 per day plus the £70 if the government stuck to its own rules.

Good Regulations

Sometime, just once in a blue moon, the rules have a big benefit, often indirectly.

Years ago, when unleaded fuel was being introduced to the UK, hardly any garages sold it. The tax on leaded fuel was increased to put the price the same. That made no difference, as most garages didn’t want to stop selling several grades of leaded fuel (91, 94 and 97 octane, sold as 2 star, 3 star and 4 star) so they had no tank space for unleaded, although few cars used anything other than 97 octane, and the price difference was small.

In a clever move, the government increased the tax on the lower octane fuels, to bring their prices above that of 97 octane. That meant that there was no point in selling the low octane fuels, and very quickly the garages stopped selling low octane fuels and used that tank space for unleaded.

A bit later, catalytic converters started to be required on all cars. There were a lot of complaints that cars with catalytic converters would be slower, thirstier and break down more often. However, for most cars the opposite is true. The catalytic converters are fussy, and if the cars are to pass the emissions tests when a few years old, the air/fuel mix has to be right all the time. That forced the manufactures to get the fuel systems right, giving reliable, economical cars. Not the primary aim of the legislation.

I would like to suggest a new tax. Split air conditioners should pay £100 per unit. I don’t particularly want to pay £100 extra, but a tax would mean that air conditioning units would not be split, so all the refrigerant gas would be in the outside unit. Then water / antifreeze would be used to shift the heat from the room. Such systems are made now, but are rarely used because they are more expensive.

The advantage is that specialist fitting isn’t needed, as only water and antifreeze are moved around the building. Leaks are obvious and it is so much easier to move or reconfigure the systems. Refrigerant leaks are rare, because the gasses are totally contained in the outside unit. It won’t happen, it would be too useful.

Useless WEEE regulations.

The WEEE regulations are supposed to reduce the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment that is being produced and that is not being recycled. It is failing to give any incentive, especially to small businesses.

There is no minimum production level for registration, and there are large registration fees. Once you have registered, there is a cost for disposal of equipment, but it is only a few hundred pounds per tonne, a tiny cost for many manufacturers.

So if I want to sell a tiny electronic device in small quantities, it costs me thousands of pounds in registrations fees. Someone already registered pays nearly nothing for end of life disposal, even if they make a larger and more wasteful device.

We’ve needed some transfer belts for colour laser printers in the past. They aren’t obtainable, and massive, expensive assemblies that contain the belts need to be replaced. If the government wanted to reduce the quantity of waste they should force manufacturers make part available.

The WEEE registration scheme has one of the classic indicators of over-regulation. Companies that want to register have to go through registration agents, they are not allowed to register directly with the government. This puts the registration agents in a near-monopoly position and they can charge what they want, while the government can say that the huge annual fees are not the government’s fault.

Hazardous Substance?

Our scuba diving club has been asked for a COSHH (Control of Substances Hazardous to Health) assessment for the gas we keep in the scuba tanks kept at the swimming pool we use.

It’s air. We need to write an assessment including how to treat people exposed to air.

Stealth tax

I couldn’t find a bit of paper that the government sent me about 3 years ago. I had to pay £25, and wait 3 days for a replacement.

So that I can send it to the government.

I could be contributing to GDP if I wasn’t chasing paper.

Appreciation of quality systems

One of our customers seems to have had some problems with the components we make failing when in their assemblies, so I was talking to on of their engineers to try to work out what is going wrong in details.

He mentioned that we could expect a visit from his quality department. I joked that we would get out the brooms and whitewash.

He said that I would be better off with garlic and silver bullets.

You have to be able to blame someone.

One of the traffic lights that I often pass at night stays on red unless it sees a car coming.

You may wonder what is wrong with that.  Well for one thing just about every car at night has to come to a complete stop. Then drivers get about 3 seconds to get the car going before it turns back to red. That’s fine nearly all the time, until someone stalls the car.  Then they are stuck there until a car comes in the other direction.

Last night I was there for 8 minutes 20 seconds.  The sensor that detects cars don’t seem to be able to spot a second car arriving, or a stationary car waiting at the line. The lights only changed last night when a van ran the red light, on the wrong side of the road.

It’s also made a dangerous as possible for cyclists. The detectors won’t spot them, so they have to wait for a car to arrive. Now junctions and cars together put cyclists in the most danger.

You could have flashing yellow at night, like France manages with, or just no lights at night. Either would probably be safer. But safety isn’t about reducing accidents, it is about making sure that someone can be blamed when there’s an accident. The van driver that ran the red light after waiting 5 minutes didn’t do so because he’s a maniac who runs lights all the time, he did it because the lights were sequenced by an idiot, but he would be to blame if there had been an accident.

Playing the safety card

I’m allegedly in charge where I work, so I don’t have to suffer the idiocy my brother has.

He programmes computers, in an industry one doesn’t normally associate with computers, and one with a poor safety record.

He now has to wear gloves and a high-visibility vest when doing what you are doing now, sitting in front of a computer. As he does this inside he doesn’t have to wear a hard hat or safety boots.

So now, instead of doing anything productive, he is trying to write a safety case to show that it is more dangerous to wear gloves than not. That is going to be tricky, as you can’t argue against safety without looking reckless.

Also he isn’t sure whether he should wear leather work gloves, rubber, latex, neoprene or chainmail gloves as he doesn’t know what dangers he is protecting himself against.

Danger NIMBYs

There is a hospital near our diving club. They have a breathing air compressor. We asked about getting our cylinders filled. We were told:-

“They cannot help with air fills due to HSE regulations”.

So we have to drive a 30 mile round trip to get air, which has got to be far more dangerous. I’m not even sure what danger the HSE are protecting us against as we have to have the cylinders tested every 2 years, and I would guess that hospitals keep their compressors in good condition.