"Tumbleweed" wrote in message . ..
"Mike Lyle" wrote in message
m...
"Tumbleweed" wrote in message
. ..
"Mike Lyle" wrote in message
om...
[...]
I never understand when this kind of topic comes up why people think
the law is "an ass" for providing that we should avoid putting
dangerous things in proximity to the public. We could all think of
plenty of ways in which a spiky fence might injure the person or
property of a perfectly innocent passer-by; and it's not much harder
to think of perfectly innocent reasons why one of us might need to
scramble over somebody else's boundary without permission.

Mike.

Go on then.

Others in the gang have mentioned a few genuine possibilities already;
but here goes:

My mother trips on a loose paving slab, grabs the nearest thing for
support, and a rusty iron spike goes through her hand.

Scary MIL, is she 9ft tall? Otherwise I fail to see how she'd put her hand
on top of a 6ft wall.

We're generalizing he I'm sure you know the difference between
general principles and specific instances. Your experience may be
different, but I have from time to time seen walls and fences which
were less than six feet tall, and average-sized mothers who could
reach over their heads.

You're walking down the road in the teeth of a rainstorm, and your
expensive umbrella or trench-coat (I know you'd have nothing but the
best) catches on a spike and gets ripped.

Could happen on a low lying bush, tough luck.

And if it's your bush and it's dangerous, you may be liable.

I'm steering an uncertain course back from the boozer one night and
some part of my marinaded anatomy connects with the projections;
fortunately, I don't bleed to death, but it's touch and go when I get
septicaemia.

What, on the top of a 6ft wall? Must be a *very* uncertain course

See above.

I'm away on holiday, so the vicar can't ask me if it's ok to pop into
my garden to retrieve his hat, which has just been blown in there by
the wind.


Well he should, just because you are out doesnt (shouldnt?) give someone
the right to go onto your property. Next time he should hang on to his
baseball cap or better yet not wear one.

In the real world we have to think as though in the real world.
Personally I'd rather a fellow-citizen got his hat back in good order
than get on my high horse about my property -- especially if I was at
Disneyland or wherever you go at the time. And if it were not a hat,
but something which might do damage to my property, such as (as
happens to me now and then) a herd of cattle or a compulsively digging
dog, I'd be most annoyed if the owner *didn't* retrieve it at once and
without initial formality.

You don't have to *like* the existence of laws controlling your use of
dangerous objects; but they do exist, and it's no great intellectual
strain to see why.

Mike.