Southern 100 Deaths

[Chef Raekwon]

14 minutes ago, Kopek said:

So are all those who said the details were none of 'our' business now deliberately ignoring the latest Police statements.

Natural \human curiosity but not for them???

Deleting this as I should be a better person

Edited July 14, 2023 by Chef Raekwon

[Kopek]

Don't worry. You'll never be a better person???😀

[Max Power]

1 hour ago, Kopek said:

I fancy that Max has released those details???

It's only based on what I've been told by people who were there, and there were a lot of them but they seem to agree on what happened. Others may have different opinions and the formal inquiry may find out more?. 

[Ghost Ship]

7 hours ago, TheTeapot said:

Personally I find the way open discussion can be shut down, the 'omerta', far worse than a potentially gruesome video after a major incident.

As mentioned above the races need public support. I'm no fan, but the obvious joy it brings to so many and the fact that it is so nuts in a risk averse world means I'm keen for it to continue. But the way the big supporters behave following a bad accident pisses me off something silly, they should be far more open and honest - and willing to listen to non bikers - or they will lose the support. 

Don't get me wrong.  I don't disagree with you.

The point I was trying to make was that I thought @Tailless had completely misunderstood the point @joebean was trying to make - ie that sooner or later a spectator would share on social media a video of some horrific accident about the TT or Southern 100 and that that would lead to a an upswell against the TT and other motorcycle events.  I'm not saying that would necessarily be a bad thing and I don't think @joebean thinks it's necessarily a bad thing either.  (If I'm mistaken I apologise to @joebean).

I was merely trying to point out to Tailess that they had misunderstood what I think @joebean was saying.

Just to make clear my own point of view - which I think I have on other TT threads - I was a great TT fan but started to question what it was all about when Gene McDonnell was killed in '86, when the 26th milestone incident happened in 2007, and over the Mercer incident.

It all seems so avoidable and unprofessional...

[Non-Believer]

10 hours ago, Passing Time said:

Is that based on comments on here? It's certainly not the feeling I get. Yes people are shocked and dismayed at any sport related death but they still go and watch

We've had a huge cultural shift in society in recent years though. This is going to sound deep but we had two World Wars and Korea in the early and mid 20th century, British Isles society became hardened to large numbers of deaths and that sort of ingraining takes many decades to erase.

As such, deaths in the TT and other motorsport were more "acceptable" for a long period after those conflicts; we've had no losses of life on those scales for a long time now and society has adjusted in the years since (IMHO) and life has a little more value now. I certainly can't be alone in seeing less of the "stiff upper lip" than there would have been years ago for TT and other motorsport deaths, including F1. There is more remorse now and don't start me on the litigation culture but it's a fact.

A death or even serious injury now in F1 invokes a huge amount of investigation, research and measures to try and prevent reoccurrence (look at Senna and Ratzenburger). Road racing is clinging on to a society culture that is somewhat left behind in this respect and it's becoming more and more difficult to reconcile it with modern expectations.

[Passing Time]

7 hours ago, Non-Believer said:

We've had a huge cultural shift in society in recent years though. This is going to sound deep but we had two World Wars and Korea in the early and mid 20th century, British Isles society became hardened to large numbers of deaths and that sort of ingraining takes many decades to erase.

 

And more recently 

Northern Ireland, Falklands, Gulf War, Bosnia, Desert Fox, Afghanistan, Iraq all of which claimed human lives so not sure what your point is. Society still has to deal with death in large numbers.

[Non-Believer]

1 minute ago, Passing Time said:

And more recently 

Northern Ireland, Falklands, Gulf War, Bosnia, Desert Fox, Afghanistan, Iraq all of which claimed human lives so not sure what your point is. Society still has to deal with death in large numbers.

Yes, but not our society, in the numbers of losses in the conflicts I've previously mentioned. Our society didn't suffer losses in any of the examples you've listed there that come anywhere near our losses in WW1, 2 and Korea because we now value life more. We don't ask our soldiers to stand and walk slowly towards the machine guns any more, if you will.

If you look at the indigenous populations (with the exception of NI and Falklands now) I think you'd find that they regard loss of life as somewhat more "expectable" than our home culture does now. No compunction about women and children for human shields and hostages for example? Call it cheaper if you will. Russia is exhibiting it right now in Ukraine.

Our society has "softened" over the years and it shows in the more public displays and the reluctance to accept deaths (without doing something about it) that we see now. It's a slow changing of culture and road racing cannot be immune.

[A fool and his money.....]

12 minutes ago, Passing Time said:

And more recently 

Northern Ireland, Falklands, Gulf War, Bosnia, Desert Fox, Afghanistan, Iraq all of which claimed human lives so not sure what your point is. Society still has to deal with death in large numbers.

Precisely. The anti TT brigade are very often for our "defence" spending, despite the fact that it causes far more needless deaths, not always of willing participants. I guess they don't close the roads though eh?

Logic, objectivity or integrity very rarely feature anti-road racing arguments.

[A fool and his money.....]

3 minutes ago, Non-Believer said:

Yes, but not our society, in the numbers of losses in the conflicts I've previously mentioned. Our society didn't suffer losses in any of the examples you've listed there that come anywhere near our losses in WW1, 2 and Korea because we now value life more. 

How do you define "our society"? Lives have been lost in staggering numbers in each of the conflicts mentioned. Is it OK because they aren't British? Is it OK because they happened elsewhere?

If we value life more we have an extremely funny way of showing it. Look at Covid - economic factor were front and centre of the policies which let hundreds of thousands of people die. We continue to get involved in pointless wars in which thousands are routinely killed.

If society really does value life more then there are far more productive places to start doing something about it than the Southern Hundred.

[Non-Believer]

2 minutes ago, A fool and his money..... said:

How do you define "our society"? Lives have been lost in staggering numbers in each of the conflicts mentioned. Is it OK because they aren't British? Is it OK because they happened elsewhere?

If we value life more we have an extremely funny way of showing it. Look at Covid - economic factor were front and centre of the policies which let hundreds of thousands of people die. We continue to get involved in pointless wars in which thousands are routinely killed.

If society really does value life more then there are far more productive places to start doing something about it than the Southern Hundred.

I'm not posting this from an anti-TT or road racing stance - I'm just trying to get over that our societal culture has changed in what it finds acceptable in respect of deaths. Plenty of riders have died over the years at the Southern. Was the meeting ever scrapped before because of it? No. But now it has been because attitudes, and quite possibly legal requirements have changed.

As for your first paragraph - yes, most definitely. We are fed the CNN video version of what goes on via our tvs, we see precision bombing from the pilot's view. We aren't shown the effects on the suckers who are hit by the 1000lb bomb; we get the video game sanitised version. Our trained service personnel are the only people who see it close up because if our society knew and saw what the weapons used in our name actually did to people there'd be even more of a cultural outcry against their use.

Our public have been carefully distanced from such reality for some time and that's now why they find deaths closer to home to be less acceptable even if it's in motorsport rather than war.

[Malik]

8 hours ago, Non-Believer said:

We've had a huge cultural shift in society in recent years though. This is going to sound deep but we had two World Wars and Korea in the early and mid 20th century, British Isles society became hardened to large numbers of deaths and that sort of ingraining takes many decades to erase.

As such, deaths in the TT and other motorsport were more "acceptable" for a long period after those conflicts; we've had no losses of life on those scales for a long time now and society has adjusted in the years since (IMHO) and life has a little more value now. I certainly can't be alone in seeing less of the "stiff upper lip" than there would have been years ago for TT and other motorsport deaths, including F1. There is more remorse now and don't start me on the litigation culture but it's a fact.

A death or even serious injury now in F1 invokes a huge amount of investigation, research and measures to try and prevent reoccurrence (look at Senna and Ratzenburger). Road racing is clinging on to a society culture that is somewhat left behind in this respect and it's becoming more and more difficult to reconcile it with modern expectations.

I politely disagree and believe the value of life has always been the same, it’s beliefs that have changed over this time with few realising the meaning of life these days. The Kells road races club used a quote from the William Wallace movie in ending their tribute to the two men killed: "Every man dies, but not every man really lives". I agree with that but not in the way most would think about it.

[Ringy Rose]

One thing that may change is the use of catch fencing near grandstands, as we would see catch fencing on permanent racing circuits. Debris landing in a grandstand is one thing that would cause issues for any event (although F1’s near miss at Silverstone last year didn’t get the coverage it deserved).

The incident itself doesn’t appear to be specific to road racing or the Billown circuit and I don’t see why racing would stop there. Disappointing as that is to the anti-bike bores.

[Gladys]

1 hour ago, Passing Time said:

And more recently 

Northern Ireland, Falklands, Gulf War, Bosnia, Desert Fox, Afghanistan, Iraq all of which claimed human lives so not sure what your point is. Society still has to deal with death in large numbers.

Not on the scale of the World Wars where just about every family lost or  knew someone who had died in action.  Often, more than one. 

[Mr Helmut Fromage]

1 hour ago, Malik said:

I politely disagree and believe the value of life has always been the same, it’s beliefs that have changed over this time with few realising the meaning of life these days. The Kells road races club used a quote from the William Wallace movie in ending their tribute to the two men killed: "Every man dies, but not every man really lives". I agree with that but not in the way most would think about it.

Disagree Malik as The Biblical body count is approximately 2,8 million - but he loves you 

[offshoremanxman]

53 minutes ago, Ringy Rose said:

One thing that may change is the use of catch fencing near grandstands, as we would see catch fencing on permanent racing circuits.

I’m not sure even that would have caught what was flying around.

Edited July 15, 2023 by offshoremanxman