The Genoa motorway bridge disaster

PoS said:

The mafia is a big fact of life in Italy. It wouldnt surprise me if they had an indirect involvement in this by siphoning funds away that was meant to repair the bridge.

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Mafia, Camorra, n'Drangheta..........................even if they were occupied elsewhere, the fish rots from the head. That may seem an overly damning verdict on the whole country but any Italian I ever met shared into it.

Corruption is a way of life and anyone who has made it into money is suspect. That includes "old" money going back to the Medicis.

The stupid claim of any of this being down to EU activities simply disqualifies anyone making it. "The system" cheats the EU as much as it cheats its own people.

Manc Skipper said:

The absurd claims are yours, as per.

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As I pointed out elsewhere, some people will cling to whatever own irrelevant uttering just to keep from being shown wrong.

Of course road repairs are part of infrastructure investment, someone simply hasn't heard of what to stop doing when in a hole.

Infinite Chaos said:

Do you think anyone honest who lives in Europe believes what you've written in this thread?

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To do so one would need to ingest large quantities of



:lol:

Meanwhile one hears more and more Genoans describing their feelings of trepidation, every time they drove over that bridge while it was still whole. One can see that as a case of 20:20 hindsight but people are not as stupid as the 5 Stelle would have them be. That the bridge was not built for today's traffic loads was obvious to any thinking person who lived there. Lorry (truck) weights have at least doubled since its inauguration, and the amount of traffic passing it at the same time probably trebled.

Beyond which nobody builds bridges of this construction type any more today, the problems that Lord Tammerlain outlines in post #5 being common knowledge among engineers by now.

Whether "Autostrada" actually failed in its duties of surveillance remains to be seen, fact is that there are many of these types of bridges around in Europe and the world. Fact is also that quite a number of them have crashed, albeit with less dire consequences and that we don't get to hear much about that happening in (to us) far distant locations of the world.

In the rest of Europe they're all under constant surveillance (one hopes) and like a big one I know in Germany that crosses the Rhine, either completely closed to traffic while repair is under way, or their use is restricted to just one lane and trucks over a certain weight prohibited altogether for the same reason of repair work.

By all accounts this tragedy has led to additional flurry of activity thruout Europe with vigilance by those responsible for maintenance of infrastructure experiencing a new "high".

I think anyone with a rudimentary understanding of Finance would know that infrastructure investment and repairs / maintenance are two completely different things.

To be clear, the EU sometimes helps fund the former, but never the latter.

I'm not backing down in the face of the overwhelming ignorance of my detractors. This isn't even a political point - it's just a fact.

Westphalian said:

I think anyone with a rudimentary understanding of Finance would know that infrastructure investment and repairs / maintenance are two completely different things.

To be clear, the EU sometimes helps fund the former, but never the latter.

I'm not backing down in the face of the overwhelming ignorance of my detractors. This isn't even a political point - it's just a fact.

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Repairs and maintenance are a part of infrastructure spending. When a government, whether that be the EU, Italy, or the US says money is for infrastructure that includes both building new infrastructure and the maintenance of current infrastructure.

Maybe those lacking rudimentary understanding shouldn't go about defining what it is. Whether they back down or not from a silly position held is really of no in interest to anyone. But when they don't it's in the face of their own ignorance.

The main point being (to focus back onto what started this semantic pissing match) that finger pointing already started before the last particles of dust had settled. In this instance by Salvini trying to lay the blame at the doors of Brussels and in that process making himself look the proper fool.

Meanwhile attention has been focussed away from that gaffe and re-directed at Austostrade per Italia, the private company running that particular road and thus the bridge.

Giving it a fortnight to prove its innocence seems a somewhat perverted interpretation of justice but I guess if a state has given up control of its roads to private enterprise, it's also given up its responsibility of surveillance.:roll: Possibly that has dawned on somebody by now and a government commission is being formed to investigate the causes of the tragedy to actually identify them.

Maybe any result can be spun into laying the blame on previous administrations but that won't get the current government around 5 Estelle's refusal to consider the citizens' worries over the condition of the bridge (having called those fairy tales).

Next thing we'll hear is a call to boycott Benneton products :roll:

P.S. newsflash/update: It's already happened. Mock-up adverts showing "United Colours of the Dead" have appeared in Italian social media.

Chagos said:

~ Maybe any result can be spun into laying the blame on previous administrations but that won't get the current government around 5 Estelle's refusal to consider the citizens' worries over the condition of the bridge (having called those fairy tales).

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There is a continuing trend where alternative facts will be found. We now live in a world where you can seek out your own facts to support your views - there will be an Italian version of what we have seen in the US and the UK ably supported and fed by Russian "truth" factories.

Infinite Chaos said:

There is a continuing trend where alternative facts will be found. We now live in a world where you can seek out your own facts to support your views - there will be an Italian version of what we have seen in the US and the UK ably supported and fed by Russian "truth" factories.

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Not long now before RT will claim that its initials actually stand for "Real Truth".

One has to admit thought that it would be an improvement on Pravda, necessitating no command of Russian to get the meaning.