Define “local”
I wasn’t the only one confused by the Derbyshire police rebuke of walking in an empty landscape. The government had to clarify.
The government has said people should “stay local” and not travel unnecessarily for exercise.
New advice clarifies that people must use “open spaces” near to home, where possible.
It follows confusion over whether people could drive places to go walking, running, or cycling.
Exercise is one of the few defined reasons that people in the UK are allowed to leave their home during the coronavirus pandemic.
Derbyshire Police sparked a heated debate on Twitter this week when it shared drone footage of people walking in the Peak District, with a warning that daily exercise should not involve long trips or journeys in the car.
I would like to point out here that it’s not clear that the Derbyshire police knew the people walking had taken a long trip to do it. Some people actually live in Derbyshire, I believe.
The prime minister, who has tested positive for coronavirus, said on Monday that people can take “one form of exercise a day” – either on their own or with people they live with. The government’s official guidelines list running, walking and cycling as examples.
But the initial guidelines did not advise if, or how far, people could travel in order to exercise.
While the new advice does go further, it does not explicitly define what counts as “local”, and whether or not people can use cars.
And for some people the Peak District is local.
The RAC said before the release of the latest goverment advice that people shouldn’t drive places to exercise, recommending instead that they use their gardens – where possible – or leave home “on foot or by bike”.
Superintendent Steve Pont, of Derbyshire Police, echoed this advice in an interview with the BBC’s Today programme.
“Every time you’re out in public, away from your home, there’s a possibility you might catch or pass on the virus,” he said.
But not much of one if you keep your distance from people, don’t touch stuff, and don’t touch your face. It still looks to me like a kind of reversion to the war, when travel was restricted, for the very compelling reason that fuel was in limited supply and crucial for not letting Hitler win. This isn’t that. Maybe there’s some point to saying let’s keep the risk of traffic accidents as low as possible while medical people are in emergency mode, but it seems a bit stretched to me. It’s not personal; I don’t have a car; I just think it’s a bit too much like the cops visiting people to accuse them of transphobia.
There’s a real cost involved in being unnecessarily restrictive with these measures. Not just the direct cost of depriving people of, e.g., the pleasure of taking their walk in a scenic place, but the indirect cost of undermining public willingness to put up with these restrictions. The more restrictive the rules are, the more broadly the police interpret them, the more aggressive people get with the social shaming (I agree some social shaming is appropriate — the spring breakers, for example), the more miserable you make this experience. And the more miserable people are, the more they’re going to start to echo the complaints that maybe this is all too much to give up and what’s a few hundred thousand deaths, etc.
I just returned from the grocery store, my first time out in a long time. I was horrified by the number of people who would see someone in an aisle, and drive their cart right up to within less than a foot of the other person. I found myself dodging constantly. I think a couple of people got mad when I moved away from them, but they shouldn’t .They have no way of knowing I’m not sick (I have no way of knowing that at this time).
People around here are either treating it like a joke, or are openly defying distancing measures. I counted fewer than 20% of the people in the store that were taking precautions. And the worst was a woman in a flu mask who would go as near to people as possible, probably under the misapprehension that she was protected.
there’s a fairly real risk at gas/petrol stations, though, unless they’ve banned self-serve. I do understand the reasoning, whether I agree or not.
I see that Ireland has decreed that people shouldn’t exercise more than 2km from home. I don’t know how they plan to enforce it but it sounds reasonable to me.
The idea that you have to drive somewhere to exercise is a modern absurdity. What have we done to our cities that people think they have to travel to WALK – walking is our natural way of getting about? And that there is not enough green space to give them a breather?
My street isn’t a pleasant one for walking, but a little further on there are some nice areas where people have pretty front gardens (that’s another thing – the immediate area would be pleasanter if vandals hadn’t paved over their front gardens to park their cars instead of growing flowers). We have destroyed our urban environment by designing it around everyone owning a car, so neighbourhoods have been cut to pieces with motorways; some don’t have any footways (I think that’s more of an American thing); and people drive miles to the shops.
The mayor of Paris has a policy of the 15 minute city:-.
“The Paris mayor, Anne Hidalgo, has made phasing out vehicles and creating a “15-minute city” a key pillar of her offering at the launch of her re-election campaign.
The Socialist politician wants to encourage more self-sufficient communities within each arrondissement of the French capital, with grocery shops, parks, cafes, sports facilities, health centres, schools and even workplaces just a walk or bike ride away.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/07/paris-mayor-unveils-15-minute-city-plan-in-re-election-campaign
In this crisis other cities have been bollarding the city streets to widen their cycle lanes and make it easier for people to get to work without using public transport. If active travel is part of your daily routine, you don’t need to make special trips to the gym or to wilderness to get exercise.
I’ve read solemn articles about how this unprecedented crisis will change the way we live. I have my doubts about that, however if it means a re-design of cities, some good will have come out of it.
What could possibly be the point of such an instruction? Either or? So if they choose to go for a walk with their spouse and dog, a person may not then exercise on their own in their house? Bizarre. The only real restriction that should be placed in working out, in any fashion, is: exercise in whatever fashion you like, including multiple different exercises, but don’t share equipment with people, don’t get close to them. Stay spaced apart if you really want to have company.
Exercising outdoors in a spacious place, walking the dog for example, really sounds ideal. The worst place to go is likely a gym – there’s always some jerk that doesn’t bother wiping their sweat from benches even at the best of times.
I agree that in normal conditions exercise in one’s neighborhood is fine, but right now it can be a frustrating experience because of having to do so much dodging of people who aren’t doing their share of the social-distance maintaining. There’s a beautiful fairly big cemetery about a mile from me which is a brilliant place to walk for exercise (and pleasure)…but the walk to it is difficult at times. I just did it. It wasn’t terrible, the dodging, but the oblivious people did annoy me.
Anyway, also, though, people might be quite content to exercise near home but also want to go to a nice park occasionally. I’m like that myself, when I can use the buses.
Holms – I think BJ meant one or the other outside, didn’t he? Do anything you like inside.
The National Police Chief’s Council (NPCC) appear to be contradicting the government guildelines regarding exercising once a day and traveling to do so.
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-52066145
I’m lucky in that it takes me about one minute to walk from my front door to several acres of little-used oak woodland, so traveling to exercise (for me and my mutt) isn’t necessary, but with so mamy.people in heavily populated areas of towns and cities being at home then it’s obvious that social distancing could become problematic if only a small percentage of people take their exercise locally. It makes more sense to me for those who can to drive a little way to somewhere more secluded. I’d rather be passed on the roads by two dozen cars headed out of town than by a couple of cyclists or runners heavily panting potentially virulent breaths in all directions as they passed me on pavements that aren’t even wide enough to allow a 2-metre gap between us.