Never mind the bollards

And so to the Peterborough Evening Telegraph, where we are presented with further evidence of why we should never rely solely upon technology.

After responding to an emergency call, paramedics were forced to abandon their ambulance and run to a desperate patient after CCTV controlled bollards failed to function.

Luckily the 26 year old patient, who had suffered a fit, was placed on a stretcher and quickly taken to Peterborough District Hospital.

Peterborough City Council's resilience services manager later said that a network cable in the CCTV room had been accidentally disconnected, leading to a break in communication with the bollards.

This incident is another timely reminder of the uncertainty inherent in technology. The ‘simple’ fact that a network cable was unplugged could have cost someone their life. This was a real world physical object that could clearly act as an obstacle to emergency vehicles, yet no mechanism existed to prevent such an obvious occurrence.

Not only does this hallowed CCTV technology fail to prevent crime but it is now being implemented in such ways that actively endanger the public.

By James Stannard