Really the Nopesport Urban League 2010

[redkite]

I am slightly confused as to what Insurance we are talking about.

If a competitor runs infront of a car and causes an accident, and the driver sues the organiser, what differnce does it make if it was a 14 year old child or a 35 year old adult who runs infornt of the car?

the BOF insurance covers for public liability, anything else?

[frog]

I presumed when the St Andrews' urban races referred to M/W16+ it meant that children in the M/W16 age category and above can run ie children who will be 15 or 16 in that calendar year. M/W16s are on the entry list. This will be my son next January when he is age 14 and 1 month. The events minutes say only over 16s are insured which means only M/W18 and above should be running to ensure no child under 16 competes.
I'd like to see the evidence that 12-14 year olds are worse at crossing roads than 70 year olds.
I suspect a fast 20 year old after a medal is more likely to take chances crossing roads than either of these age groups though.

[SeanC]

I assume this is about the willingness of the insurer to continue providing BOF with public liability insurance. The insurer may consider a 14 year old more of a risk of causing an accident than a 35 year old, It might not be fair, but that's insurance. Is there anything BOF could do to persuade the insurance company to change their position that they haven't already tried?

[Scott]

If a competitor runs infront of a car and causes an accident, and the driver sues the organiser, what differnce does it make if it was a 14 year old child or a 35 year old adult who runs infornt of the car?

the BOF insurance covers for public liability, anything else?

In that situation, the organiser would be covered by the BOF insurance.

My understanding is that while it is perhaps reasonable for the organiser to expect the 35-year-old to exercise due care when crossing the road in a race, it is perhaps not so reasonable to expect the 14-year-old to exercise the same level of care in the same situation - after all children are not legally held to the same standards of diligence as adults - so it is arguably negligent to allow the 14-year-old to be in that situation. But I am emphatically not a legal expert, so I am quite prepared to be told that that is nonsense.

But ultimately I suspect that SeanC is right: the 16-year age-limit has been determined by the insurers, and it may have more to do with their own belief that a child is more likely to cause an accident (and is therefore a greater liability) than a adult.

[andypat]

The irony is that there is no reason to believe that a typical 15 year old is more likely to cause such an accident than a competitive adult. Maybe we'd better abandon the sport altogether. After all if it were invented today I doubt it would be considered acceptable to send children out into a forest on their own.

Oh I hark back to the day when as an 11? year old I first camped alone on Dartmoor

Eddie - You must have a greater knowledge of risk assessment and young people than I do. I'd have thought the risk in terms of speed versus awareness is signficantly greater for younger people than it is for experieced adults.

[Wayward-O]

Clarification was sought on the situation regarding the insurance restrictions for those under 16 at urban races. MH explained that those under the age of 16 are not allowed to take part in courses that allow free running on busy roads. They can compete in parks, campuses, controlled traffic areas, roads with very slow moving traffic and cross roads using manned crossing points. In addition to this, the parent or guardian of a person under 16 cannot sign a waiver of liability to allow them to compete on an over 16 urban course.

Have these insurance-led requirements been articulated in BOF event guidelines yet? It would be interesting to see what does and does not constitute slow moving traffic and what other criteria need to be complied with for M/W16- courses.

I can see these guidelines hampering the development of urban events in smaller towns where parks and campuses may not be available to provide M/W16- courses with the required level of percieved safety / lack of risk.

BL have planned a Street League of four urban events in towns / cities in Cumbria in November and December, but these are restricted to competitors 16 or over (unless accompanied by an adult). We (M14 son and I) were looking forward to these when we first heard about them but will not now be attending due to the restrictions

[Scott]

Have these insurance-led requirements been articulated in BOF event guidelines yet?

Not yet in the guidelines, I think, but it has been expanded on in the June Club Newsletter:

Urban Orienteering and risk (including arrangements for under 16s)
The National Office has recently received several enquiries regarding urban orienteering, risk management and U16s completing on urban courses.

It is not appropriate for under 16s to be competing on courses that tempt them (or require) them to run across road(s) that contain traffic; roads with traffic management that included low speeds (15mph as on many campus) are acceptable but public roads are not. 16 year olds are considered to be adults in this context and they can then accept responsibility for the crossing of such road – under 16 cannot. This does cause the problem for the M/W16 age class in that they can be split across this legal 16 years of age boundary. Managed crossings of roads can be used to overcome this problem and I can confirm that there is no issue with parks and campus that contain no roads bearing significant traffic.

There are no such issues with 16 and older competitors although once again the risk assessment and management around the crossing or temptation to cross roads that are busy whilst racing are to be taken seriously and must be mitigated as much as possible. Where roads are busy we would expect courses to be planned to avoid the crossing of the busy roads unless via a controlled/managed crossing.

All competitors should be made aware of the risks and their responsibility in protecting themselves and the safety of others. For instance a person running around a ‘blind’ street corner is responsible for not colliding with another pedestrian and a person running across a road in such a way as to cause a road user to swerve and injury someone else (the driver or another pedestrian) is likely to be held responsible in that their actions caused the incident.

[andypat]

I suspect a fast 20 year old after a medal is more likely to take chances crossing roads than either of these age groups though.

From the organiser's point of view you cant mitigate against the actions of a 20 year old taking a stupid risk, you can mitigate against the risk of a 14 year old who doesnt appreciate the danger. I appreciate parents of 14 year olds may hold different views

[EddieH]

Quote "From the organiser's point of view you cant mitigate against the actions of a 20 year old taking a stupid risk, you can mitigate against the risk of a 14 year old who doesnt appreciate the danger."

Rubbish - you can mitigate against the former by not planning legs that cross roads. You can mitigate against the 14 year old onnly in exactly the same way.

It is absolutely clear that that is not what most of the preople posting here want.

[frog]

Has BOF considered another insurer if the current one is starting to tell us how to run our competitions?
This seems to be a new problem. Why has it arisen now?

[Scott]

I would hope most people would agree that it would be a bit irresponsible to allow nine-year-olds to race across roads with fast-moving cars. The problem is that a line has to be drawn somewhere, and you are never going to be able to keep everybody happy.

Personally I quite like having a nationally consistent policy for races that cross fast public roads, even though I may not agree that 16 is the right age at which to draw that line. When I organised the Oxford race in 2007 we decided to restrict M/W14s (and below) to running the "park" courses - as an organiser I wasn't particularly keen on being responsible for having 12/13-year-olds racing across roads with 30mph traffic. It also helped us to convince the police and City Council that we weren't completely reckless.

However, as a result of this decision I received a couple of unpleasant emails from certain parents, along the lines of "Event X allowed Little Bobbie to race on the roads, so why won't you? Who are you to decide whether or not my child can safely cross the road? She's very mature for her age" (but rather less politely phrased).

I could see their point: I had settled on the M/W14 cut-off after discussing it at some length with the controller, but neither of us was an expert on road safety or child development, and it was still basically an arbitrary limit (we had year of birth from the BOF database, so it was relatively easy to enforce). No doubt some of the 14-year-olds who we were restricting to the "park" courses were far more sensible than some of the 15-year-olds (and 30-year-olds) who we were letting onto the "city" courses. On the other hand it would have been negligent to have no age limit at all, and so the only fair thing to do was the set a limit, publicise it well in advance, and enforce it equally for everybody.

At least with an age limit in the BOF guidelines everybody would know where they stand, event officials would have the vague reassurance of knowing they were following some kind of best practice, and a few organisers might be saved from a bit of parental opprobrium which can now be redirected at the convenient scapegoat of a faceless insurance company .

Before anybody tries to figure out from the results who the especially impolite parents were, I think I'm right in saying that in the end their families decided not to come.

[roadrunner]

Does this mean that all road crossings on traditional events now have to be manned if used by under 16s? Surely the risk is the same.

[andypat]

It is absolutely clear that that is not what most of the preople posting here want.

Eddie - but the sport needs to take a broader view than just what Nopesport enthusiasts want. There's plenty of self-interest in any individual sport, but its in no-ones interest to have the whole urban experience stopped on account of a foreseeable accident. Unless we are going to have some sort of restricted access to these events based on experience, the risk assessment has to account for people of any capability turning up and potentially getting run over, not just those of us with enough experience to avoid that.

I think Scott's answer shows a pretty balanced view of the situation. I've said before I dont know where the cut off should be but like him - can see there needs to be one.

Theres a reason Glasgow people tell annoying kids to "go play in the traffic" !

I'll excuse your "rubbish" comment since i know you've been having a bad run of DNF's recently

[Roger]

Results from St Andrews now included: women, men.

I've improved the de-duplication method, and found a few that had previously escaped my attention. I've also included a column giving each competitor's maximum possible score, assuming they win the last race. If my calculations are correct then the leader-boards below include everyone who has a chance of making the top three.

Juniors
Adam Bradbury and Elizabeth are both safe, so the engravers can get to work. Michael could finish anywhere from 2nd to 7th and Karen could move up to second.

Code: Select all

Junior Men (M18-)                   races best6 possible
Adam Bradbury             SYO     M18   6  558  574
Alex McCann               MDOC    M16   6  550  566
Michael Adams             SYO     M14   6  538  554
William Parkinson         NOC     M14   7  530  544
Simon Bradbury            SYO     M16   5  486  586
Adam Potter               BOK     M16   5  459  559
Ben Beresford             DVO     M16   5  444  544
Junior Women
Elizabeth Parkinson       NOC     W18   6  589  596
Amy Kimberley             DVO     W16   7  549  562
Karen Maxwell             RR      W16   5  465  565

Open
The men are all sorted. Jenny wins the women's competition but the minor places are still open.

Code: Select all

Open Men
Edward Catmur             SLOW    M21   7  563  574
Liam Harrington           LOG     M21   7  532  551
Oliver O'Brien            SLOW    M21   6  485  513
Open Women
Jenny Johnson             SYO     W21   6  585  592
Maria Mackenzie           NN      W21   6  520  552
Charlotte Ward            HALO    W18   5  476  576
Blanka Collis             DRONGO  W21   5  451  551
Viv Murphy                CLOK    W35   5  401  501
Helen Smith               HALO    W35   5  393  493

Veterans
Martin needs a win; if Charlie is second then they tie. Paul is safe from everyone except me. Similarly, Liz needs a win; if Delia is second then they tie. Janet or Lesley could pass Carol.

Code: Select all

Veteran Men
Charlie Adams             SYO     M45   7  585  592
Martin Ward               SPOOK   M40   8  581  588
Paul Murgatroyd           LOG     M40   8  542  553
...(6 others who can't beat Paul)
Roger Thetford            TVOC    M45   5  452  552
Veteran Women
Delia Kingsbury           WRE     W45   9  568  575
Liz Phillips              OD      W45   9  560  571
Carol Edwards             TVOC    W50   6  536.5  556.5
Janet Evans               NOC     W45   6  524  545
Lesley Ward               SPOOK   W40   9  520  537


Superveterans
Bill wins and Doug is second, but Mike can pip Tony for third. Glenys is safe from everyone except Lynden, who needs to win with Glenys 4th or worse. Susan has two rivals for third place, and could grab sole second place if Lynden is outside the top four.

Code: Select all

Superveteran Men
Bill Hanley               SYO     M55   8  582  589
Douglas Henderson         RR      M55   9  566  578
Tony Carlyle              AIRE    M55   8  550  564
Mike Hampton              OD      M60   7  547  563
Superveteran Women
Glenys Ferguson           SROC    W60   7  556  566
Lynden Hartmann           HOC     W55   9  545  557
Susan Findlay-Robinson    WCH     W55   7  531  548
Catherine Odell           EBOR    W70   9  519  534
...(2 others who can't pass Susan)
Gill Ross                 AIRE    W60   5  435  535


The final race of this year's league is at Warwick next Sunday.

[Spookster]

Good work with all the figures Roger, thanks.

Veterans
Martin needs a win; if Charlie is second then they tie.

The final race of this year's league is at Warwick next Sunday.

Actually, first Martin needs an entry . Looks like I missed the closing date by 30 minutes. Hopefully those nice people at OD can sort me out.

And Charlie will be at VHI helping England win