The news comes after an annual review of the TT Course during which ACU Events Ltd (ACUE) identified the need.

Gary Thompson, the Clerk of the TT Course, carried out a risk assessment during the 2014 Festival of Motorcycling event and concluded that a debris fence should be put in place to protect the Scouts while carrying out their duties on the scoreboard.

Mr Thompson said:

‘The nature of racing on the TT Mountain Course changes every year with machine modifications and improvements, faster speeds and other variable factors such as weather conditions and road surfaces and as a result we carry out a comprehensive risk assessment every year prior to the event to comply with our insurance requirements and mitigate where possible against any race incidents. 

‘The position of people, notably the Scouts, working on the scoreboard has been identified as an area of risk and as a race organisation we have a duty of care to ensure that this area is properly protected, particularly where minors are involved. The risk assessment identified the need for a barrier to protect Scouts not only in the event of a collision but also in case of debris in the event of an accident. The existing protection is simply no longer viable.’

He added:

‘I have consulted with a number of riders – past and present - and the general consensus is that this is an area of concern. Glencrutchery Road can actually be a slightly curved bend for riders although it is perceived as a straight.

‘There is a also notable increase on speeds through the grandstand compared with previous years.’

Quote:

"The position of the Scouts working on the scoreboard has been identified as an area of risk" 
Gary Thompson, clerk of the course

A panel debris fence manufactured by German-based company Geobrugg has been identified as the most appropriate solution.

Geobrugg panel debris fencing meets FIA Institute specifications and is FIA and FFSA approved.

The ACU says the fencing offers high strength resistance and protection by forming a high tensile 4mm diameter wire into a mesh.


The mesh catches the impacting object and absorbs the initial impact energy before transferring the remaining energy to the reinforcing ropes and posts.

The tensile mesh construction will still allow spectators in the grandstand to view the information on the scoreboard.

The system was recognised with the ‘Safety Initiative of the Year’ award at the 2010 Professional MotorSport World Expo in Cologne, Germany.

International race tracks that are already using the system include the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi, Sochi Formula 1 Circuit, the Circuit of the Americas in Texas, Sepang in Malaysia, Circuit Dijon-Prenois in France, Motorsport Park in Sydney, Australia, as well as circuits in Switzerland, Norway and Austria.


The barrier, which also features a concrete base, is 3.5m high and 100m long. It will be installed on May 18 and removed shortly after this year’s TT Races.

It will also be in place for this year’s Festival of Motorcycling and is available for use at other relevant events in the Isle of Man’s annual calendar.

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They might as well take it down then, because it will be be very difficult to see anything on it unless you are looking square at it. All it needed was to be moved back on top of the wall ajoining the cemetary.

The previous structural comments (causing the "Save the Scoreboard" campaign) along with the fact that this fence is temporary makes me think that they don't view the arrangement as a long term plan. If that is the case then taking it down might be the ultimate goal anyway!

Well I am very disappointed in you lot !! when ever I have used the statement of fact that the COC has used in his statement, and I copy and paste his words ( as a race organisation we have a duty of care ) ,when ever I used that statement when discussing safety or responsibilities you lot shot me down no end but its ok now is it ??


.

Jesus it's been risk assessed to potentially protect the legacy of the scoreboard and the scouts that have always operated it

It's not like they've put a burka on it is it

(06-05-2015, 08:21 PM)gixxertim Wrote: Jesus it's been risk assessed to potentially protect the legacy of the scoreboard and the scouts that have always operated it

It's not like they've put a burka on it is it

Well said...some of them would twist on 21 !

I made no comment on this being a good thing or a bad thing. There are three facts here:

1. The fence is needed to preserve the safety of the scouts.
2. The scoreboard will be hard to read with a fence in front of it. This is based on the legibility of the lower portion behind the fence that already exists.
3. The scoreboard is structurally unsafe to maintain in it's current form.

The first two of these three facts are conflicting so in the long run something will have to give.

Bascically if a bike was to lose control coming through the start/finish area and end up in the scoreboard area it would be a disaster considering the speed these machines are travelling at.If one of my kids were helping with the scoreboard i would be happier with the protective fence up.Yes it might not be as easy to see the scoreboard but at the end of the day safety is paramount.


P

(07-05-2015, 08:00 AM)maybolezx12r Wrote: Bascically if a bike was to lose control coming through the start/finish area and end up in the scoreboard area it would be a disaster considering the speed these machines are travelling at.If one of my kids were helping with the scoreboard i would be happier with the protective fence up.Yes it might not be as easy to see the scoreboard but at the end of the day safety is paramount.


P

Given the proximity of the scoreboard and the scouts to the road, the speed at which the bikes pass is largely irrelevant. A Manx Norton doing 130ish  would have been just as dangerous in 1955 as a Fireblade at 170+ today. The scouts and other operators are deserving of the extra protection, but the justification based on the increasing speed is false.
The extra speed would only widen the field of potential damage so maybe the Grandstand, the VIP tent and the Fanzone stand in Nobles park should be assessed. And so on and so on.....

(07-05-2015, 09:19 AM)Dougboy Wrote:

(07-05-2015, 08:00 AM)maybolezx12r Wrote: Bascically if a bike was to lose control coming through the start/finish area and end up in the scoreboard area it would be a disaster considering the speed these machines are travelling at.If one of my kids were helping with the scoreboard i would be happier with the protective fence up.Yes it might not be as easy to see the scoreboard but at the end of the day safety is paramount.


P

Given the proximity of the scoreboard and the scouts to the road, the speed at which the bikes pass is largely irrelevant. A Manx Norton doing 130ish  would have been just as dangerous in 1955 as a Fireblade at 170+ today. The scouts and other operators are deserving of the extra protection, but the justification based on the increasing speed is false.
The extra speed would only widen the field of potential damage so maybe the Grandstand, the VIP tent and the Fanzone stand in Nobles park should be assessed. And so on and so on.....

Undertsand what your saying Doug but Health and Safety rules are very different nowadays.I work in the construction industry and things are just crazy regarding H&S.I also understand the NW200 have a whole bunch of "improvements" to make this year regarding safety it is coming very quick that we will not be able to watch anywhere but the Grandstands are for me that is a disaster.

P

The COC is correct in his risk assesment with regards to to Score Board.
But... at the end of the day, this is the TT races. If we are talking about risk assesments, then the whole of the course ( with a few exceptions) where marshalls, spectators etc are should have a fence like this infront of them.

(07-05-2015, 11:55 AM)c iom tt Wrote: The COC is correct in his risk assesment with regards to to Score Board.
But... at the end of the day, this is the TT races. If we are talking about risk assesments, then the whole of the course ( with a few exceptions) where marshalls, spectators etc are should have a fence like this infront of them.

Yes it is true , where do you start and finish when you talk about Safety and a duty of care ? it is a fine line and one that at times is swept under the carpet , and the closer you look at it the worse it can be at times , as a punter I just used to do my own risk assessment of where I was going to watch from , but as a marshal you have to try and lookout for the public in your sector , all of them in all of the sector , and believe me it puts a whole different light on it , 


.

Organisers say paying customers on the T.T. Grandstand will still be able to see the historic scoreborads despite a safety fence being placed in front.

A risk assessment has concluded that a mesh barrier needs to be put in place to protect scots working on Glencrutchery Road.

Bike speeds are reaching around 180mph past the Grandstand.

Isle of Man T.T. Clerk of the Course Gary Thompson says safety is always the priority but feels the fans experience won't suffer as a result.

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(07-05-2015, 02:15 PM)Steady the Edward Wrote:

(07-05-2015, 11:55 AM)c iom tt Wrote: The COC is correct in his risk assesment with regards to to Score Board.
But... at the end of the day, this is the TT races. If we are talking about risk assesments, then the whole of the course ( with a few exceptions) where marshalls, spectators etc are should have a fence like this infront of them.

Yes it is true , where do you start and finish when you talk about Safety and a duty of care ? it is a fine line and one that at times is swept under the carpet , and the closer you look at it the worse it can be at times , as a punter I just used to do my own risk assessment of where I was going to watch from , but as a marshal you have to try and lookout for the public in your sector , all of them in all of the sector , and believe me it puts a whole different light on it ,
 
.

There is no wrong and right where the risk assesment of the TT event is concerned.

My point is that if they do a risk assesment correctly for the whole event, then the racing would not go ahead. What the organisers do and have done, is look at the obvious risks, and have tried to address them. If they ignored a particular incident, and continued to race without addressing that incident, then they could leave themselves open to ignoring an obvious risk. An example of this is, we use to watch on the banking at Brandish. A few years back, a bike came off there and hit and injured a few people ( including a child). After that, the outside of Brandish was restricted. If they had not restricted it and there was another accident that injured ( or worse) people, then it could be argued that the organisers were negligent. We still however can watch at the bottom of Hillbery which for me has the same potential risk as Brandish. The list goes on and on.
The COC has raised this as there is a lot of kids in one paticular area ( which is ALWAYS covered by TV cameras dont forget) and part of the reason is the increased speeds, and that although it is considered by most to be a straight, it is actually a slight bend ( there description) As I have said, no right or wrong to this, damed if they dont, damed if they do.

Risk Aassessment is all about identifying 'significant risk' & this is one area which has come into the spotlight recently, personally it has bothered me for some years now, at 180mph that area is a slight left hand curve and even without an actual crash occurring anything falling off a machine would be propelled in that direction, imagine something like an exhaust can!!

We are talking about protecting children here too, and they have to be in that spot to do their unless the boards are moved, so to me its a no brainer and well overdue.

(07-05-2015, 06:36 PM)warrior Wrote: Risk Aassessment is all about identifying 'significant risk' & this is one area which has come into the spotlight recently, personally it has bothered me for some years now, at 180mph that area is a slight left hand curve and even without an actual crash occurring anything falling off a machine would be propelled in that direction, imagine something like an exhaust can!!

We are talking about protecting children here too, and they have to be in that spot to do their unless the boards are moved, so to me its a no brainer and well overdue.

I could not agree more that the scouts and the sign writers need protecting from any, God forbid, accident along the area where the scoreboard is, at speeds of up to 180mph the debris could fly anywhere. I also feel that the pit wall area needs some kind of protection, I always felt vunrable when in that area especialy when holding out a pit board.

Like I said where do you start and finish ? I appreciate that there are youngsters on the Board and have no problem with doing what they can , but do it sympathetically , retain as much of the look of it as they can is all we can ask , but when you talk of risk assessment and duty of care , you open up a whole different can of worms , but I have been shot at for pointing this out for some years by people on the other place so dont want to go into it further any more , but needless to say there are many many places that should be altered in one way or another and many places where people would be far better off watching from than where they do now , all right at some they would be locked in till roads open but that happens all over the place as it is now , two places that spring to mind the Gooseneck and the Creg , both places that used to have watching from years ago and would be far safer than being on the outside , and there are many more , it is an eye opener to ride round on closed roads in the response cars , you see people in places you never thought of, and when you are using the full road it shows how driving through a section on the racing line makes it way different than you would have thought just driving through normally , but at the end of the day the new ways of legal lingo and the claims and blames mentalities means no one can turn a blind eye to their duty of care any more like it or not

Personally I think that this is an opportunity to provide state of the art scoreboard big screen. I appreciate the scouts have been manning the scoreboards for years but times move on. Who still has a black and white television?

That space across the road could show live (or 10 second delay) video pictures from the commentary/timing points, along with a screen detailing which sector any rider is in along with leaderboards etc...

This would give far greater coverage right through the field

The old scoreboards could be used to line the walls of the well overdue TT museum.

(15-05-2015, 03:27 PM)drev Wrote: Personally I think that this is an opportunity to provide state of the art scoreboard big screen.  I appreciate the scouts have been manning the scoreboards for years but times move on.  Who still has a black and white television?

That space across the road could show live (or 10 second delay) video pictures from the commentary/timing points, along with a screen detailing which sector any rider is in along with leaderboards etc...  

This would give far greater coverage right through the field

The old scoreboards could be used to line the walls of the well overdue TT museum.

Drev . Duck incoming flack

(15-05-2015, 03:27 PM)drev Wrote: Personally I think that this is an opportunity to provide state of the art scoreboard big screen.  I appreciate the scouts have been manning the scoreboards for years but times move on.  Who still has a black and white television?

That space across the road could show live (or 10 second delay) video pictures from the commentary/timing points, along with a screen detailing which sector any rider is in along with leaderboards etc...  

This would give far greater coverage right through the field

The old scoreboards could be used to line the walls of the well overdue TT museum.

No flack from me, I think it a great idea.