This thread makes me a little sad, it seems that the common sense element has been lost as Jim says, but then it seems to have been lost in life in general compared to 25 years ago.
I mean that if I walked in to the road without looking to see if a car was coming and got hit I'd not blame the driver ... I SHOULD HAVE LOOKED!! I'd not try and claim of his insurance for my mistake, I'd claim of my own personal accident cover if at all. If the driver was doing something silly, like massively speeding, which I couldn't have predicted then it was at least part his fault as he wasn't following the rules of conduct relating to the roads!
Now lets liken that to race day and I am marshalling, Joe Blogs crashes his car by my point from the lead of a final but the other 9 guys are coming along not far behind him I'm affraid Mr Blogs will have to wait and become last. How is that fair? Well it was his mistake crashing there and I don't see why I should;
a) potentially ruin the runs of other drivers who haven't made a mistake by stepping out in front of them and maybe blocking their view, causing them to swerve to avoid the idiot in the middle of the track (i.e. me in this case) or worse still kicking their car and damaging it
or
b) putting myself at risk of injury for the sake of reducing the impact of Joe's mistake by a couple of seconds!
I will get there as fast as SAFELY possible and do my best to marshal his car as well as possible (i.e. not pull the wing off, not drop it back on it's roof again and put it on the correct part of the track facing in a sensible direction)
Now that brings me back to my other pet hates with marshalling;
1) the shouters ... your screaming voice doesn't make me waddle my fat butt across the track any faster, if anything it makes me less interested in helping you (if I've not noticed the car and am facing in the wrong direction please feel free to shout something like "marshal 6, behind you please" or ask the ref to do it for you).
2) the revers ... I'm not picking it up with you reving it, I need my fingers for work and typing fluff and nonsense on to RC forums. If you rev it I will hold my hands up till you stop, if you rev it when I'm holding it I will let go.
Be sensible, it is especially bad when the marshal is a little kid who might not be thinking "safety first"!
Now back to my comment about the general reduction in common sense and the ability to asses risk and the roads. How many people over the age of 30 remember those cartoon hedge hogs teaching us about the green-cross-code? Most of us I expect, hence why were not constantly bouncing off the bonnets of people carriers!
I see so many kids / young people who walk out in the road in traffic and expect the motorists to stop ... crazy.
Even my dog sits and waits for a clear slot to walk across the road for crying out load ... how dumb are these people (as it's not just the youngsters to be fair)?????
I blame the ambulence chasers for installing this "where there is blame there is a claim" culture into our lives and making them poorer for it.
Third party insurance is just that, protecting the other person for the affects of your mistake .... if you want personal accident cover take it out, it's not expensive, hell I get mine free with my bank account.
Stop, look, listen ... It's not hard to spot a brightly coloured buggy heading for you.
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