Yes, I do understand a sentence. That's why when you made a point about how the logistics of the Dover/Calais ferry was no different to those of an plane at an airport, and attempted to back that up by referring to 'Le Harve or any other port", I broke it down to address (A) why the logistics of planes carrying people is not necessarily the same as ferries carrying vehicles and therefore (B) that comparison with the other named example you citied might not be consistent. I chopped it up precisely because I was trying to address your point more clearly. I wasn't at all intending to take you out of context or misrepresent you
Erm, no. I added Le Harve or any other port because the post i replied to only mentioned people but i knew someone would say Ah but what about cars and I'd have to make another post explaining how the same principal applies to cars and then there'd be a silly game of no true Scotsman and trying to prove a negative, exactly what we now seem to be engaged in.
Perhaps next time you should credit someone with the intelligence to not need something made clearer until after you've established whether something was not clear to them in the first place, because otherwise people may suspect you're doing so because your intention was to misrepresent what someone said, like i did.
If I've misread your point, then I'll gladly retract, but I'm failing to see where you think I've gone so wildly wrong with my comprehension, so just humour me for a moment:
1. danlightbulb suggests the juxtaposed border arrangement is nonsense, and that the border should be on the French side and dealt with there.
2. Bug One made the point that doing so could cause logistical problems, because rather than cars/lorries driving off the lorry and dispersing, they would instead have to queue through border control. And delays there could meant cars/lorries unable to disembark from incoming ferries due to lack of space.
3. You say it's no different from an airport where planes queue to disembark passengers as a way of claiming that is an absurd point.
4. I've pointed out that I don't think that's necessarily comparable because of the physical differences between dumping a plane full of passengers and a ferry full of vehicles. I don't think there's any situation where a queue at border control in an airport would be so bad that it would stretch back to the gate and prevent people disembarking from the plane. Therefore I don't think Bug One's point is absurd enough to warrant mockery.
1. Yes.
2. Yes.
3. No, i was being factitious. I said "
You mean like planes queue up to unload at airports across the world...Oh wait." as in planes don't queue to disembark passages (unless there's extraordinary delays) so suggesting ferries would be different was absurd.
4. Yes. However like I've pointed out the post i responded to specifically said people, not car, not lorries, not trains or tuk tuks or anything other thing that gets transported from point A to B. If you don't think Bug One's point was deserving of mockery then i can only assume you've not had any experience of conversing with them.
Can you give me some examples then? I am honestly struggling to think of any crossings where high capacity vehicle ferries are turning up with such high frequency across a narrow and busy shipping lane, and then disembarking large numbers of vehicles into a relatively small area for border control processing, which might cause a backlog long enough to prevent said ferry from operating. This is not a "gotcha", I did read "every other border crossing in the entire world" but I genuinely couldn't think of any examples which would highlight the issue Bug One alluded to, so Dover-Calais struck me as fairly unique in that regard.
I suspect you know that request can't be meet because you know as well as i do that the Dover straights is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, however like i said just because it's busy it doesn't change the technicalities, all it does is change the scale. All it changes is instead of needing one or two border officials, posts, docks, car parks or whatever you just need more, you just need 10, 20 or more of those things.
If they didn't process people, cars, lorries, vans, trains (do i really need to list ever possible way to cross a border every time?) quickly enough to prevent a backlog long enough to prevent ferries, trains, planes or whatever from operating then the companies would, i assume, kick up a stink and possibly take legal action because they have both a political and financial clout that's simply not available to a typical person.
But the repercussions would still be on us, wouldn't they? If the border control is in France, and there's a delay, and as outlined above, it causes so many issues that incoming ferries cant disembark, they are going to have to start queuing up in the Channel. Or stop embarking at Dover...which would lead to the exact same vehicle queues we are seeing anyway, but with the addition of the ferries not being able to sail. Which can have added cost and safety implications.
I should note, I'm not trying to make a defence of juxtaposed borders. I am just pointing that I can see the point Bug One was making about how, logistically, they can make more sense, because it keeps the ferries themselves sailing.
In extreme cases yes there would but as expect people would follow that trail forward to what's causing it, just like people do if they have to wait for too long at a checkout and are intelligent enough to understand that there's not enough cashiers or whatever. The blame would squarely be on whatever the actual cause is rather than what we've seen in the last few days of passing the blame parcel and no one being quiet sure who is actually to blame and by extension who needs to be doing better.
Kent Police? Never heard of them, but thanks for the heads up. I live a couple of miles away from the port, and my wife works there. Believe it or not, I've got a pretty good knowledge of the setup.
What I'm lacking is the desire to waste a Saturday morning arguing with a braggart more interested in pile-driving their opinion than actually being right.
Proving point 4 above perfectly, thanks.
