Your safety is our priority.

[Workingman]

Said a spokesman for the police before going on to explain that one million workers are going to be trained up in what to do when a terror attack happens. They will be mainly workers form shopping centres, sports and entertainment venues and hospitality.

It sounds very good, very expensive ... and unworkable.

Nobody knows where or when a terrorist attack will happen, or of which type it will be. By the sound of it these people will be classroom trained to learn the layouts and escape routes of their places of work. That should already be the case for such things as fire training. However, what none of all this can do is predict how any of these people will react come the day of an attack. Many, maybe all, will be just as panicky as the public.

Any service person who trains and trains and trains for their job will tell you that training and the real thing are light years apart.

For me the best way to make us safe is for terrorism to be a capital offence and for the police and security services to round up any and every suspect.

[cruiser2]

When I was working, I knew someone who was working in a multi-storey office block in Liverpool. One day the fire brigade decided they would have a full evacuation drill during the day.
The fire brigade found three senior managers still at their when they checked the building as they had not answered when the roll call was taken.
In another case, I was staying at a hotel in Edinburgh when the fire alarm went of in the early morning. Several guests were carrying cases down the fire escape. They must have spent several minutes packing them.
Both of these happened a long time before the present events had been heard of.
You have only to watch what happens to the traffic when there is an accident on a motorway.

[Suff]

This reminds me of us mechanics being taught NBC (Nuclear Biological and Chemical warfare), in the Army. I, like WM, saw the IA (immediate action), on a nuclear blast. which consisted of falling down on the floor with your head to the blast whilst trying to pull as much kit under your body as you can.

More succinctly the trainer then said. "Now that we've done the official IA, here is reality. If you are ever in the vicinity of a Nuclear blast, stick your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye"

Simply put it takes years of conditioning and training to override the natural human reaction to disaster. Namely freeze, panic and run around like a headless chicken.

This training is going to do nothing more than raise awareness that there are options. It is absolutely NOT going to train these people to react, in the first instance, in a way designed to save their, or other, lives. In any kind of incident like this seconds count. The whole point of intensive training is to make you respond to the training and not to the normal human reaction.

However, if they survive and start thinking again, this training will be useful. At least they will know what is possible and what they should be doing.

On the capital offense front, remember what I said about the button and terrorists dropping dead.... I think capital offense is the _Least_ we should be doing.

[Workingman]

I know that all my intensive training will make me behave some way like this: stay calm and don't panic, be purposeful but do not rush, definitely DO NOT join a stamped, be alert and take in your surroundings, look for a simple and safe escape route. If necessary stay put and play dead. If met by emergency services/rescuers do as they tell you. They might be harsh, but they are not your friends, they are there to save you.

Whenever I have to be in a strange place, an office or hotel, the first thing I do is find the nearest safe exit, fire equipment and fire escape. I was in a hospital a few weeks ago when the alarm went off, I got up and walked out of the building. On turning round most of the people were still milling around inside: "Is it a practice?", "Should we leave?", "What should we do?". Even members of staff hadn't bothered. It turned out that there had been a fire in another wing and the fire brigade turned up to dampen down. It shocked me what could have happened had the fire taken hold.

[Aggers]

This reminds me of a night we stayed at a hotel in Morton-in-the-Marsh.
The fire alarm sounded early the next morning, so we jumped out of bed, threw our things
into our cases and hurried down the stairs. The man at the reception desk said, 'It's alright,
It's always going off''. Seeing that I was about to explode, Mrs A said, 'Come on, let's have breakfast'.