Simple Decision. What Would You Do?

[Perpetual Man]

While everyone is talking about it, the area in question is based on an area close to me, and indeed it is somewhere I used to go to. I walked through it as a kid numerous times with my mum, brother and dog and played there with my friends. I can honestly not remember if there was a sign saying Private Property, but there is now, and as far as I am aware ownership has not changed since then.

I'm pretty sure my dad would say, 'Just ignore it,' but that's just him.

I'm wondering why the sign is there now, it does look new. All I can guess is that the woodland is on a rather steep slope and I can only guess it might be to do with health and safetly. If someone did walk through the wood and slip and roll down the slope with all the injuries that might be incurred the woner is able to say that they should not have been there....

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I live near a lot of military land so I'd have stayed out. More than one set of woods is used for exercises and firing ranges.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Farms here must now have a warning sign.
http://www.pittman.ie/c/farm-safety-signs/321
http://www.css-signs.ie/products-services/health-safety-signs/farm-signs/

The 2005 Health, Safety and Welfare at work act requires you to make your farm a safer place for you, your family, employees and members of the public. It is important to take action now

http://www.fbd.ie/farm/farm-safety/

Government guides
http://www.teagasc.ie/newsletters/safety/farmsafetyguide.asp

From the local Agricultural Co-op, the most popular sign

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

We have to put warning signs on all the electric fences we use to separate paddocks. They cause more hazard than the fence (which is 240 V and pretty much fries you, but that's just a technicality ). They flap in the wind, causing horses to spook, knock people over and occasionally run them down.

I`ve loved all the stories that have cropped up, and indeed the zombifying of Kerry.

Oh, thanks, Perp. Glad I'm providing entertainment by my ZOMBIFICATION!

All I can say is that this forum is clearly peopled by very intelligent folks with BIG BRAINS and will provide a happy feeding ground for me and my mates.

And to answer Perp's actual question, a sign where there didn't used to be one would make me even more determined to trespass. For the record, I was brought up on a farm so I have a healthy respect for bulls, cute terriers and geese and I would never cause damage or leave gates open behind me. Why isn't there an emoticon for a saintly face with a halo?

 

[Ray McCarthy]

They cause more hazard than the fence (which is 240 V and pretty much fries you, but that's just a technicality )

I hope not, that they are the regular "cattle fencer" which is about 2000V, but only very low current and a once a second very short pulse, so that it feels like a nip, bite, jab.
Outdoor wires connected to 240v, need to be in pairs and are lethal, illegal. Tempting at times. A cattle "Fencer" uses ground as return so is only one wire. They just feel nasty!

 

[Perpetual Man]

Ahhh, electric fences.

The story goes that my grandfather (a long, long time ago), was out walking his dog and came across a fence of some sort. The dog went under it, his back touched the wire and nothing happened, so my grandfather stepped over it. He was halfway over, one foot on one side, one on the other when the fortunately low voltage fence pulsed, as it was want to do every five or so seconds.

I'll leave you all to imagine where the wire was...

 

[Ray McCarthy]

fortunately low voltage fence

very high voltage, low current/low power.
You don't feel Low voltage at all unless you stick the wires in your mouth.

 

[Perpetual Man]

I'm not sure what it was then. He always described it as a pulse, followed by a slow numbness, and the feeling that he just wanted to curl up in a ball.

It was probably for keeping sheep from straying too far.

But it was a loooong time ago!

 

[Ray McCarthy]

They ALWAYS have been high voltage. Early ones used an actual car ignition coil to step up the 7.5V or 9V battery pulse to about 2000V.
It feels like a bite/jab followed by numbness due to nerves overloaded.
The only difference ever in them is how the pulse is created and now using a custom transformer and electronic switches instead of car ignition coil.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

When I started the thread I said there would be a second part to the question, which is more for the people who said they would obey the signs . . .
What if the area of woodland was somewhere you had played in and explored a lot. If it was fully open and you were allowed to be there and then one day, for no apparent reason there was suddenly said, 'NO ENTRY'?

In that case, I would be tempted, but I still don't think I would do it. I have a tiresome respect for other people's private property. I would make a very boring person in a book.

Also, on a more practical note, we have a lot of guns in this country, and people who might use them on trespassers.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I think Texas has scary rules about Trespass and Guns?
Using a gun on a Trespasser here will put the gun owner in court on at least a manslaughter up to a murder charge*. Though one farmer did get off lightly, but the person shot was in the "traveller community" and allegedly threatened him at his own backdoor. Shooting someone in the Woods here would be at least manslaughter.

(* I think USA instead has "degrees of murder" and no direct equivalent to "manslaughter" which is not same as self defence or accidental killing. If an accidental death is due to someone being careless, they can be prosecuted for manslaughter. Murder presumes a deliberate intention to kill, and definitely so if planned in advance, like the woman that recently survived 4,000ft fall, main parachute didn't open and reserve very partially opened, due to sabotage. So attempted murder. If she had be accidentaly given a faulty one not properly packed and died, that would be manslaughter by whoever handed her wrong chute, or packed it, or both. If it inexplicably failed then accidental death)

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I would make a very boring person in a book.

That's why people in books are not real.

 

[JaimeRetief]

Depends on the character.

And the location, after all people are shot for tresspassig on private in some parts of the world.
And I am not talking about the USA alone, in many countries armed private security can own and use firearms, some of those places actually have strong limitations on the ownership of firearms by civillians.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

I would think you'd have to go in to see why the sign had been put up.

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

I hope not, that they are the regular "cattle fencer" which is about 2000V, but only very low current and a once a second very short pulse, so that it feels like a nip, bite, jab.

You're probably right, but it is run from mains, not a battery, and believe me when I tell you it is considerably worse than a nip, bite or jab!

 

[Perpetual Man]

I didn't actually think about the repercussions of someone in a country with firearms, which gives the whole thing an interesting and dangerous twist.

Of course being set in the UK does mitigate that slightly, but then farmer's still have shotguns, and there is the chance of something rummaging around in the undergrowth could be mistaken for something that might be shot...

I also thought (for countries other than the UK again) things that might be lurking in the woods, bears being one that came to mind. Wandering through trees and suddenly stumbling into a dangerous grizzly (but not Thread Bear) might lead to a few problems and a reason there might be a sign up. (Although DANGER BEARS) might need to be included.

Although it does not seem to stop tourists with cameras.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

You're probably right, but it is run from mains, not a battery, and believe me when I tell you it is considerably worse than a nip, bite or jab!

Cheaper to run (almost nothing). There isn't a big market for mains ones. Lack of power sockets in fields. Solar powered ones are grossly overpriced.

Yes, they are very painful. Ages since I repaired one and having been attacked by them in the past, I'm now very careful.

 

[Dan Jones]

I would go in, but probably depending on who I was with. Trusted friends? Yes, I'd go in. Known associates? Possibly. Bunch of randoms? Absolutely not.

When you're a young teen, the rationale when you're with your mates is always: "well, what harm can it do?" Although I've a feeling that in this case the answer is going to be: rather a lot.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Actually, where I grew up we had too many woods around about - they got a bit boring trespassing after a while (and most were public, more or less, anyway). But we had a really spooky abandoned farm and the remains of a large paper mill on the water of Leith. And all sorts of derelict buildings in weird overgrown hollows...witch cottages probably!

It'd be great to show you them (as some of these areas would show up in Google maps) but from memory most of these places have been converted into luxury houses. It's a different world now.

 

[Abigail Dunard]

There were a few posts about gun owners in the USA, electrical fences, and trespassing. I'm from St. Louis, Missouri, USA and I thought some of my experiences might be helpful. Owning a gun in Missouri is fairly common (I don't own one but most members of my extended family do). Most of my family members are outdoorsy and like to hunt so that probably explains why they tend to own guns. That said, I don't know of anyone who was threatened or threatened anyone else for entering woods that they owned. That might be a bit extreme, especially if the trespassers are kids.

When I was a kid, there was a patch of woods where the "Bubbleheads" lived. The patch of woods was off an isolated stretch of road near the river and an old psychiatric ward. Depending on whom you asked (there were lots of different versions of the story), the Bubbleheads were violent psych patients that had been experimented on and whose heads were stretched or "bubbled" or they were a group of people who would "bubble" your head if you got lost in the woods. I'm still not sure what exactly was meant by a "bubbled" head, I just knew I didn't want it to happen to me.

Anyway, I never trespassed near the Bubbleheads because I'm a big chicken. My husband (I didn't know him at the time) did trespass (like many kids did) and the land owner threatened to call the cops and drove after him in his truck. My husband escaped the man by tripping over a log, falling into a ditch, and spraining his ankle.

In regard to electric fences, when my dad was a kid he and his sisters and brother would play around their grandparents' electric fence. They'd link hands and the person closest to the fence would touch it with a stick. The shock would pass through their arms and only shock the last person in the chain.