Health and Safety Police Ban Swimmers From Doing Lengths

Forget staying in the shallow end. Swimmers at the Dagenham Swimming Pool in Essex are now only allowed to swim across the width of the pool for safety concerns. Officials say they would have to hire another lifeguard if people were allowed to swim lengths, as it is more difficult to keep an eye on them and there is not enough funding to pay for one. I can't quite wrap my head around how swimming one direction instead of another makes it any easier to spot someone drowning, and neither can local resident Dean Bradford. He says, "This is just the nanny state gone mad and it's affecting my life and other people's lives. It's another obstacle for people trying to get fit and healthy."

Comments

Ok, I can actually sort of picture this.

[clone53421]

If you put a lifeguard in the middle of the long side of the pool, they can pretty easily see the whole thing.

If you put the lifeguard in the middle of the short side, the far end is too far away, and you'd need another lifeguard at that end of the pool.

So, you prefer to put the lifeguard in the middle of the long side, to avoid having to hire two lifeguards.

However, if people are swimming across the length of the pool, putting a lifeguard in the middle of the long side would require the lifeguard to swim across the path of everyone who's doing laps in order to reach anyone needing help. If the people are swimming laps across the width of the pool, the lifeguard doesn't have to cross their paths to reach someone.

Gov't response seems reasonable

[Just Some Guy]

But Barking and Dagenham Council, which runs the pool, said they had changed the swimming lanes to run width-ways to help people training for 50metre and 100metre events and to free up more space in the shallow end of the pool for less confident swimmers.

A council spokesman said: 'This enables people who are less confident to swim lengths of the shallow end to help them get fit and also it makes it easier to see where people are swimming and what they are doing. It's about variety, giving a whole host of swimming options.

'Most people who are training for events don't want to swim 33.3 metres, it doesn't fit in with the distances involved. It's not all about health and safety although it is true it does make it easier, they can use different staffing levels. It's easier for the staff and it's better swimming.'

That actually makes sense. When have you ever heard of a swimming event that wasn't a multiple of 25 meters in length? A 100m race is 2x50m (or 4x25m if you have a short pool), not 3x33.3m.