Does Speed Kill?

  

Does Speed Kill?

(This post is featured in Surveyor Magazine - December 2013 edition)

We must decrease speed and make everyone safer. To do this designers are putting in vertical and horizontal realignments on existing roads. Speed limits are being reduced. Police cameras are being erected and mobile units despatched to stop this huge menace.

Except. That is not quite correct is it?

The amount of deaths on our roads is no longer decreasing substantially, and yet safer routes are being implemented every week. So what is going wrong?

Nothing in that sense, but everything in another.

We have bottomed out as a nation as far as casualties are concerned on the highway. In other words, you will never get zero deaths on the roads. It’s not possible. Stupidity, bad driving, lack of concentration, bad luck, weather, faulty mechanics – all these are random acts and are impossible to design out.

So should we stop trying to make our roads safer? No. However we’re going about it in the wrong way.

For starters I am not anti-camera, but I am anti-cameras being placed in the wrong locations.

It is a fact that mobile speed cameras and static speed cameras are placed to help reduce speeds, but they are not placed in the locations where they are needed for safety. Have you ever seen them outside schools or sports arenas? Or, outside hospitals or elderly residents housing complexes? NO. 

This is because camera units have to be self funding. If they were placed where they would be effective in deterring stupid driving, they wouldn’t generate income. So they are placed in areas where speeds are high, and this tends to be where speed limits are being broken. However, the public is not stupid. Many authorities are turning perfectly good 50mph or 40mph designed roads into 30mph roads. This is where the cameras are stationed. 

The natural speed of a road is not the limit, but the design speed curves, widths, verges and locations. A semi-urban 5m wide lane dual carriageway should never be 30mph, yet councils are reducing these speeds due to a problematic junction or roundabout further up the route. Their thinking is if the approach speed is reduced, then the accidents will reduce. However, my studies have concluded these types of accidents are due to low speed hesitations and mis-timings. Nothing to do with speed, but confidence - lack of, or too much of.

I have looked at hundreds of accident statistics over the years. Less than 1% of these accidents is due to speed alone. Most are non-concentration, carelessness, weather, drink/drugs or non-driver faults (i.e. pedestrian’s fault - very common). Yet there is a common belief that the road must be realigned and the speed reduced, as that is the only answer. This not only misses the point but means the majority of users on that road get a road which is slower for no apparent reason, and so naturally drivers drive to the design speed. I will mention this a lot, but designers must design to the natural speed and desire line of vehicles. 

Too many are designing to force drivers to follow white lines and speed limits that are clearly wrong. I will cover this in my next column.

The problem with reducing semi-urban road limits to 30mph, is that ‘genuine’ 30mph roads such as those in a built up location, means there is no formal reduction in a speed limit. 

As you can see in the pictures (above), why should both of these roads be 30mph? 

Drivers will clearly see a lack of danger in the semi-urban route. 

In fact we all know driving at 30mph past a school at 9am is more dangerous than driving at 90mph on a motorway. 

Not that you’ll find a speed camera outside a school, but you’ll find a camera over the M4 near Chippenham!

Find The Engineer

www.findtheengineer.com

0845 021 2468

New Group Structure

New Group Structure

Find The Engineer is proud to announce it has been merged into First National Recruitment Group Ltd.

Along with Sister companies and brands We Are Recruitment, Cotterell & Gifford and First National Recruitment we can offer a complete package of expertise to any market sector in the UK, Europe and abroad.

Call 0845 021 2-4-6-8 

for more details on what we can offer you, or visit

www.findingtheengineer.com

www.cotterell-gifford.com

www.wearerecruitment.com

UK Manufacturing Is Efficient

      

UK Manufacturing is Efficient

I recently had the opportunity to be invited to look around Siemens' Poole factory by the IET. 

Having worked in traffic signals for years, I realised I had never been in their factory before, so was quietly excited and intrigued what went on behind the scenes of one of the UK’s leading traffic technology companies.

The first thing you need to know about Siemens in Poole, is it is the original Plessey site in Creekmoor. 

Creekmoor is a quiet residential suburb, but just after passing the local grammar school, you’re presented with a mixture of post war and modern architecture.

My first thought was that I would find a run-down dusty, dirty warehouse with scruffy men hammering kit together.

Siemens Traffic Head Office - Poole

Well what a pleasant surprise. The factory is very sleek, clean, bright, and very quiet! I was presented to the factory managers, who were very professional, and came across as very proud of their work.

The factory was amazing. More than I thought it would be. Inside were fabrication machines, soldering and assembly lines, all running and very quiet.

Siemens do not have the capacity to make thousands of products there. They stated, quite rightly, they would be swallowed by the Chinese manufacturers on that level. 

However, they make a few hundred to order, and in fact sell to the Chinese, as well as over 20 other countries, which surprised me.

The Factory Floor

They assemble traffic light heads, push button units and their own comms units as well as many circuit boards, all designed and built to fit over 400 different models. The logistics of setting the machines for that was mind boggling. 

The main product was of course the controller for traffic systems. These are assembled to order in full, then moved to another section where they are thoroughly tested and sprayed with Tecqua protection before being shipped to the client. 

Even the shipping rota is efficient. It’s all sent to Leicestershire twice a week, then despatched from there by a national haulage company. Saving them and customers P&P costs.

So why was this factory doing so well in the UK?

Well it is all down to Siemens LEAN 3i system. An anglicised version of Toyota’s LEAN system. This system is where staff earn bonuses (yes money!) for trying to make their work more efficient. If it is a success and Siemens use it, then they get their bonus. This means all staff from floor to manager, are working to be as efficient as possible. The managers also meet on the factory floor, so there is no ‘them and us’ scenarios.

Tecqua Protected Controller

As I’ve previously stated, manufacturing is alive and well in UK. We may never compete on Chinese, and Indian levels, but for high tech manufacturing and assembly, we easily compete with the US, Germany and Japan. Long may it continue to grow.

And I hope Siemens in Poole continues to be successful too. I think they should open their doors more often to the public, as it is a great way to showcase modern UK manufacturing and assembly.

Poole

Location of Poole, Dorset, England

Find The Engineer

0845 021 2468

www.findtheengineer.com

HS2. Is it HS Too Late?

HS2. Is It HS Too Late?

Here’s a controversial blog in some aspects. 

A non-scientific experiment carried out by myself and my co-director Nick Brown has resulted in a ‘Top Gear’ style result. 

Before I state what the result was, the relevance to this experiment was due to the regular cost updates and business return projection for the HS2 project. 

Of course we hear that this rail line will upturn a lot of countryside, and cause a lot of noise and pollution and split communities in half along its route (I wonder if I.K Brunel had this outcry?)

Looking at the figures and the proposition it is hard to see what return of investment the route may bring, but as with all things this big and directly controlled by a government, the costs can be recouped by other means.

The route seems a logical one. Connecting North & Northwest England with Midlands and Greater London. This model has worked well in Japan, North America and closer to home in France, linking Paris with Lyon, Toulouse and Marseille.

However, the key is, that these rail routes have operated for years and brought benefits to those countries. How can it bring investment into parts of England today? If this was built in the 80’s or even 90’s there is no question the benefits would outweigh the costs, but today?

Will people travel to/from London to Leeds or Manchester? Think about it. Twitter, Facebook, Skype, email, Dropbox, Instagram, Google+, YouTube, LinkedIn, Interactive channels and more and more. All these fabulous communication links. And the key? Working from home and hours that suit your clients is the way to work today. 

We, at Find The Engineer all work from home, and communicate with all the means above. We no longer travel into offices, or commute to work. Just a quick cuppa and into the study to start work at 6am for me! We have video conferences via Skype, use LinkedIn to publish papers. Blogs, emails and our websites to broadcast news and views. We use Twitter and Facebook for latest vacancy updates to the minute. Everything is very fast, and all from our recruiter’s home computer, tablet or phone.

So recently, us two directors’ had to attend a meeting in Mayfair, central London. 

Do we get the train, the tube? Or do we drive to the outskirts and commute in. 

Well, we drove right into Mayfair (paid congestion charge), parked outside the office, had our meeting. Walked across to a restaurant. Had lunch. Got in the car and drove back to Bristol. 

All for £90!! That’s £45 each. Compare that to the other two choices. Train £153 return. Each! Tube ticket £8.80 each. That’s over £160 each by public transport.

Not worth it. 

That’s why we work the way we do. It’s cheaper to work from home. 

Keeps our overheads low, which means customers get a better price. And let’s be honest if we do travel it's cheaper by car! 

So why bother with HS2? It’s 30 years too late!

Call us on 0824 021 2-4-6-8

www.findtheengineer.com

WIN AN IPOD SHUFFLE

Simplicity Must Be The Key

Simplicity Must Be The Key

Summer is finally here! The mood is good, and business is growing in the UK, northern Europe and USA. So all is well, yes ? 

During the heady days of expansion and growth, a number of 'schemes' were implemented that quite frankly now look obviously like money-grabbing exercises. 

Harsh I know, but bear with me. 

Two main ones in our industry are speed cameras and car parking charges. 

'I know', you say, 'here we go again with the pro/cons of these schemes.' Well no actually. 

My point is that during the recession, the speed camera sections had financial cuts which meant they did not heavily enforce their districts, and even cut the amount of film put into the static camera housings. This surely smells of tax raising revenue over safety. If it was purely safety, then these operations would have held constant. On-street  parking charges have been in the news lately, as town centres are deserted, and the main reason is parking is too expensive. The answer cited by authorities for charging was to encourage people to use public transport. But that was never going to work. Why carry all your bags on a bus and train then walk home? Its not practical. So it was obviously a tax raising revenue. Why? Because authorities are scrapping charges to encourage people back into town in their CARS!

Recession is all about sorting the wheat from the chaff & regeneration as I have mentioned in an earlier blog. These two horrible schemes are now showing their true colours. This makes me think what else needs streamlining. Well in recruitment, authorities pay huge amounts for 'electronic' systems to recruit new staff. They are not needed. Just a phone call to an agency, or an ad on a job site, and agencies will call you. These electronic systems take three people to operate, approximately four mark-ups, and ultimately the engineer gets paid pennies, and the authority pays pounds. Simplify it. Get on the phone and ask for an engineer, and see what happens.

In traffic signals, so much emphasis is put on SCOOT/MOVA operations in cities now, that it works out cheaper in the peak hours to just have an engineer sat in front of a CCTV camera screen manually operating the lights. Why? because he's sat in front of the CCTV camera screen watching the program operate the lights anyway. Why pay for the system? > Simplify! If a junction is still congested, well, then there's no more you can do.

Finally, have employers thought about simplifying their own working practices? We at Find The Engineer all work from home (no really, its not a euphemism), we use Skype to video and conference call. We use the telephone and the wonders of the internet to communicate. Its cheaper, reduces ours and clients overheads and keeps traffic off the roads - hey! A congestion busting scheme.

So now its time for economic growth again, surely its time to look at ourselves and ask what we can do to simplify our working life and processes, as we probably have our personal lives...

...Simple

Call us on 0845 021 2-4-6-8

www.findtheengineer.com

Spring Is In The Air

Spring is in the Air

Here we are over a quarter of the way through a new year. Who has kept their new year’s resolutions? Are things looking up? Better or worse than expected?

With the government announcing it will pump billions into the construction arena for the next five years, this will enable a sense of optimism to return to our industry – won’t it? The construction industry is very important to the UK for more reasons than most realise. When the car industry collapsed a couple of years ago, it didn’t take long for the ‘anti-car’ government and councils’ to realise that it was an essential spine of British industry. 

It affected 1 in 8 jobs in the UK, so the government had to introduce the car scrappage scheme to help the industry sell vehicles, which in turn aided the suppliers, caterers, health services, insurance companies, banks etc etc. In fact it has now been realised that the car industry is bigger now than it ever has been. 

The UK is the second largest manufacturer of cars in Europe.

What has this got to do with the construction industry? Well, that is even bigger and affects 1 in 5 people in the UK. When house-builders build, councils can loan from banks and get income from the builders, which means people move into the new houses, and more jobs are created, new roads, facilities and infrastructure, and employers move into the area, and then the circle of influence grows and grows.

The government also announced that Britain’s economy will ONLY grow by 0.6%. That is good; look at Spain, Italy, Greece. 0.6% is growth. The economy is growing. Turn that 0.6 into pound notes and it’s an increase every month of £16bn turnover. How great is that for a small island in the middle of a world cash crisis? 

OK so we’re not the States or Germany, but then we’re not Japan or China who are in negative growth (to use an Americanism). We are the world financial capital, and it’s the financial powerhouses that are in trouble, so we’ve done well as a country so far.

Why is this relevant to this column? Well, there is still a major skills shortage in the UK, we have vacancies that we cannot fill. Our sister company We Are Recruitment is now recruiting teachers from Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Ireland to fill much needed roles in schools in the UK. In those countries, teachers have taken pay cuts and reduced working conditions. The UK has not – and it has an increase in job roles.

However, the reason for the skills shortage in UK engineering is because the salaries and conditions offered for skilled engineers is below what other countries offer. Councils have signed up to supply companies which stifle mark-ups for agencies, apparently to get the best deals. However, many agencies are shunning these councils and their supply companies as the profit line is negative. 

These arrangements are also putting engineers off working for councils. It is also affecting private companies too. Very soon the UK will have to look at this, as generations are now shunning our industry, and this is bad for 1 in 5 people!

 Call us on 0845 021 2-4-6-8

www.findtheengineer.com

Rest & Relaxation

Rest & Relaxation

So everyone in the Engineering sector had a nice break over the festive period? Well I suppose most consultants did, and those in the public sector, but a fair few engineers and technicians worked harder over Christmas keeping roads clear, drains unblocked, electricity running and Santa’s sleigh oiled and squeak free! 

For the rest of the population it was a time to eat, drink and enjoy. That is often done at a nice restaurant or hotel over the festive period. So do we spare a thought for all the cooks, waitresses, maitre d’s and bar tenders’? I never did until now.

Find The Engineer recently acquired the company Better Recruitment, which specialises in hospitality and catering staff, both permanent and temporary. This was incorporated into our We Are Recruitment brand. Well when acquiring the business we did not think too much about the time of year. Most times when putting engineers into careers or payrolling contract engineers, Christmas is a time when the timesheets are scarce and the panic of payments for all engineers on a Friday are eased. However for hospitality and catering staff on a contract this time of year was the busiest, and boy did we know it.

The payroll and collating the timesheets was not a problem, the main problem was the rota that the staff were on. The timesheets would arrive at any time of the day and night, the staff had trouble getting timesheets and contracts signed by shift managers too. Our problem also, was that the banks were shut and so money transfers had to be planned in advance, which meant a lot of educated guessing on how many hours a person may do over the holidays. You cannot afford to underpay a contractor, but you cannot afford to overpay them. Literally. Wow! What a learning curve.

So time for a rest in January. No not really. This is the time that that strange phenomenon occurs whereby the government expects all its agencies and local authorities to spend all their money before the end of March or risk losing funding the following financial year. 

This means we have already been inundated with calls from clients asking for short term contractors with a lot of experience to help finish designs and schemes and help get them built. Luckily so far, we have many good engineers on our books, and as we know them all personally, it is easy for us to put the right ones with the right clients. This is a very busy time of year for us, whilst the hospitality industry has slowed a little giving us breathing space in that area. 

But wait, under our We Are Recruitment brand, we supply teachers too, and now the new term has started and a lot of teachers are ill and schools need temps quickly!! All hands to the pumps! I’m looking forward to a summer holiday if I have the time to have one! 

Happy new year!

Call us on 0845 021 2-4-6-8

www.findtheengineer.com

Interview With Bloodhound SSC

Interview with Bloodhound SSC

Find The Engineer Presents the 1000mph Car!

    

The British have held the land speed record for 70 of the 112 years of its existence. These cars epitomise the highest possible levels of technology for their age and the very high speeds achieved represent true pioneering and engineering excellence. The current record is held by Richard Noble’s Thrust SSC driven by Andy Green. Now, there is a new challenger from Bristol who is looking to break his own record. Richard Noble, again, is heading up the Bloodhound SSC project.

Find The Engineer’s Mark Ralph caught up with long time friend Mark Elvin, who has worked in the past for Westland Helicopters, Williams F1 team and then designed race transporters for F1. Now a Bloodhound design engineer, Mark is designing many parts of the vehicle including its famous fin.

“This is by far the best job I’ve ever had. It’s truly mad! It uses all your brainpower and knowledge as an engineer to overcome huge hurdles on aerodynamics as well as looking to keep the vehicle as light as possible lightweight and on budget – which varies.”

The Thrust SSC car driven by RAF pilot Andy Green was the first land vehicle to break the sound barrier, establishing the first ever supersonic land speed record at 763.035mph in October 1997. A record which still stands.

Richard Noble who ran the Thrust SSC project decided to build the Bloodhound SSC to break his own record stop the Americans from taking it & above all, to act as a showcase for engineering as a career “You see”, continues Mark “1000mph on land is the next Concorde moment”.

The car is named after the Bristol Bloodhound missile, which could do over Mach1 in 2.6 seconds from takeoff & shares the same chief aerodynamicist, Ron Ayers.

As an iconic engineering programme it is run through schools, with the hope it will stimulate a new generation of engineers. “I have been to auto shows and events, including my daughters’ school and the excitement from everyone you talk to is immense.”

The research element of the programme to produce the first 1000mph car has taken far longer to develop than expected but now the Bloodhound team has a safe and viable design for the world’s first 1000mph 133,000hp car.

With companies, schools, universities and colleges taking part, the team plans to build and roll-out in late 2013, UK runway testing early 2013 in preparation for low speed test runs in South Africa late 2014 (up to 850mph, taking a new land speed record in the process) & the full fat, 1000mph runs during 2015.

The car (yes it has four wheels and a steering wheel – of sorts), uses a formula 1 car engine just to power its rocket oxidizer pump, a hybrid rocket  and an EJ200 jet engine from a Typhoon fighter plane, but the Bloodhound SSC shape is completely different to anything seen before. The car needs to minimise the cross-sectional area to minimise drag, whilst remaining ‘lift neutral’ at all speeds to ensure the car stays safely on the ground.

“In the design, packaging of all the components including Andy (the driver) has been a difficult issue. He and his cockpit have ended up just under the EJ200 intake, with the cockpit external shape being a part of the all important intake shock management structure. Andy has lost out on comfort value there, but that’s one of the compromises that have been necessary in developing a Mach 1.4 car.”

Land-speed record cars have had big fins to ensure good stability. But too much fin means a car which will severely be affected by increased drag and not enough fin means that the car will be directionally unstable. The designers believe that Bloodhound SSC will have excellent directional stability.

So will they do it? If you spend a short time with any of the team you will be convinced they will easily break 1000mph. “My only worry is not if we will reach 1000mph, but what I will do after this. Where can you go from here?”

Good point Mark, so what do you do when you’re not travelling the UK or making the fastest car in the world?

“It’s difficult to unwind, but normal stuff. Sleep! Beating you on the Xbox, swimming, cycling, be a husband to a lovely wife & being a taxi in a normal car, to my two lovely daughters.”

The Bloodhound SSC team are touring the UK and were based near the SS Great Britain in Bristol – in a shed! Now they are in large premises in Avonmouth near the Severn. 

Visit their website for updates. www.bloodhoundssc.com

Call us today on 0845 021 2-4-6-8

www.findtheengineer.com