Are too loud and too many PRM alarms and announcements making travellers uptight.....

[py_megapixel]

"
But you don't have those messages in cafes or on planes - they seem very excessive to me. I think most people aware that you need to drink a hot drink carefully without the need for a prompt!

Indeed. You could have:
"Please do not throw objects in the carriage"
"Please do not lie on the carpet; use the seats provided"
"Please avoid causing fires during your journey"
"Glass is fragile. Please take care not to break the windows and doors."
"Passengers are advised not to insert their fingers into the power sockets."
Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

But we don't, because it's common sense.

 

[hooverboy]

Indeed. You could have:
"Please do not throw objects in the carriage"
"Please do not lie on the carpet; use the seats provided"
"Please avoid causing fires during your journey"
"Glass is fragile. Please take care not to break the windows and doors."
"Passengers are advised not to insert their fingers into the power sockets."
Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

But we don't, because it's common sense.

please do not look at your mobile phone when boarding/disembarking the train- that would be a good one!

 

[Tio Terry]

"A printed warning is of very limited use to those visually challenged.

Such announcements are sometimes made following an incident related to the risk."

But you don't have those messages in cafes or on planes - they seem very excessive to me. I think most people aware that you need to drink a hot drink carefully without the need for a prompt!

You tend to go in to a cafe or plane, sit down and have your drink. With a train you may be getting on or off or trying to walk along inside one carrying a hot drink, not quite the same thing.

I have know airlines to stop serving hot drinks when turbulence is expected.

 

[jagardner1984]

The problem seems to me to be a complete lack of personal responsibility, more than common sense.

I spill a hot drink, I think “what an idiot, must find something/someone to help clear it up”. I don’t complain to a train company for inadequately warning me.

There is absolutely a phenomenon of over warning people and therefore the warnings having no effect. Some fairly terrifying examples of fire alarms set up so badly as to respond to a waft of hair spray or steam from a shower, meaning many interviewed in the recent student accommodation fire in Bolton said “I thought it was just a false alarm” when in fact they were in real peril.

I am quite certain the majority of people with reduced mobility have spent a lifetime battling a world not designed for them (and there is a rich irony in train companies pompously announcing this stuff when they can’t get the legally required adjustments to their stock correct a decade after they were instructed to do so). It seems incredibly patronising to suggest without such voice announcements every blind person would be hurling themselves down the gap between the train and the platform.

Some people will require assistance on, in and off trains. It might be inconvenient for operators to offer actual help, but it’s a lot more effective than barking incessantly at everyone in a patronising manner.

 

[takno]

The problem seems to me to be a complete lack of personal responsibility, more than common sense.

I spill a hot drink, I think “what an idiot, must find something/someone to help clear it up”. I don’t complain to a train company for inadequately warning me.

I'm sure that's a great comfort to the poor seated passenger who gets scalded when a hot drink gets spilled all over them. There are more and more people getting angry about the "wasteful" paper bags and just trotting up and down the train with cups that will explode all over the place if they get knocked out their hand. Sure, somebody may have just got overexcited and shoved an announcement into circulation that wasn't quite justified by the risk, but there's nothing inherently wrong with calling people out for dangerous behaviour that is more likely to impact other people than themselves

 

[jagardner1984]

I'm sure that's a great comfort to the poor seated passenger who gets scalded when a hot drink gets spilled all over them. There are more and more people getting angry about the "wasteful" paper bags and just trotting up and down the train with cups that will explode all over the place if they get knocked out their hand. Sure, somebody may have just got overexcited and shoved an announcement into circulation that wasn't quite justified by the risk, but there's nothing inherently wrong with calling people out for dangerous behaviour that is more likely to impact other people than themselves

But again I would take that back to personal responsibility. I’d love to see the bit of research that shows that the dull automated announcement wedged in the middle of 7 other dull automated announcements makes the slightest difference to that arrogant paper bag “I know better” person. FWIW I wasn’t referring to carrying a hot drink on a train, just a general point in general life, taking responsibility for a hazard that I might cause rather than abandoning it or blaming someone else, but taking my PRM point, it actually seems strangely incongruous that we take a cup of boiling water, put it in a pourly sealed cup and then tell someone unsteady on their feet to carry it (paper bag or not) 4-5 carriage lengths of a Pendolino tilting at 125mph.

The announcement may allow a TOC’s sweating Health and Safety Officer to add a mitigation point to a tenuous risk assessment, but actually employing sufficient staff/resources to serve that person at their seat will far better reduce that risk.

My point is specifically that the over information dilutes the potency of all the information.