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Freedom to Roam in Scotland (2019)

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Re: Freedom to Roam in Scotland (2019)

#101

Post by trgn »

The absence of this, at least in the US, is that there's essentially no country side properly understood. A bucolic permeable area that a city person can integrate in their daily life.

The only way to enjoy the outdoors in America is as an activity. Drive there, park there. Do your thing. Come back. There's no osmosis or liminal space between urban and wilderness. It's either mechanized space for cars, or fenced off space for outdoor activity on the other (and even that you'll often end up sharing with off-road motorsports enthusiasts).

It shocked me for example, living in western europe, how easy it was to leave a bustling city center and enjoy rural serenity, and integrate this day2day. A bicycle commute through farmfields; a longer weekend hiking trip between cities; a trainride to a neighboring town; ... Whereas, I live in a state now that's by all measures a lot more rustic, access to the outdoors is completely packaged. It feels as if it is a product (even though access could be free).

I try to explain this difference here, and it is as if people genuinely cannot comprehend. There's this veil, a mist between us, I cannot articulate this difference. When my compatriots drive on the highways, they see mountains and vistas, and to them, that alone, is the experience (and definition) of rural life. But then, that nature is not integrated at all in daily experience. only as part of a movie playing through a windshield. I guess I need a better way of explaining this integration of town and rural life, I haven't found a way to characterize it. Muir for example was very much of the escape-to-wilderness variety. I guess I'm talking more about Jane Eyre walking country paths to deliver a letter in town. If anyone has good literature on the topic that gets at this difference, how it is possible that a much denser populated area in western-europe end up feeling more serene and bucolic than sparsely populated woodlands in the US, would love to hear it.

Re: Freedom to Roam in Scotland (2019)

#102

Post by nmstoker »

balderdash wrote: post #69

“You have to respect the interests of other people, care for the environment and take responsibility for your own actions.” My experience is the (few) individuals that struggle with this (leaving litter, leaving gates open, trampling crops, letting dogs into animal pastures, interfering with other peoples recreation) really do spoil it for everyone and irreparably damages relations with landowners

Out of interest, where are you commenting on?

I agree it's true there's always a risk of these "tragedy of the commons" style issues with bad individuals, but this kind of access is a fairly long established tradition in Scotland and it seems to work reasonably well (although other commenters have mentioned a few exceptions where by-laws were put in place for trouble spots, but thankfully those are targeted in location and time of year)

Re: Freedom to Roam in Scotland (2019)

#103

Post by whycome »

trgn wrote: post #101

The absence of this, at least in the US, is that there's essentially no country side properly understood. A bucolic permeable area that a city person can integrate in their daily life. The only way to enjoy the outdoors in America is as an activity. Drive there, park there. Do your thing. Come back. There's no osmosis or liminal space between urban and wilderness. It's either mechanized space for cars, or fenced off…

I don’t have words or additional literature to share but you’ve eloquently shared a lot of what I’ve been trying to articulate forever. The idea of the outdoors having become a “packaged experience”… to be experienced during daylight hours set by some municipal corporation…

Re: Freedom to Roam in Scotland (2019)

#104

Post by sandworm101 »

ghaff wrote: post #98
ptaffs wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Health Insurance companies will follow-up with determining if the property/land owner is responsible for the accident and try to sue. Months after ER treatment, I've had to respond that my child's cycling accident on a camp site was not because of the camp site owner's site maintenance. So it's not necessarily the victim who sues, but the victims' insurer.

I'm honestly skeptical that's a common thing however. I've certainly never encountered such a thing and, while I've seen a few cases such as yours mentioned online, it's not something I've ever heard from anyone I know.

If someone received an insurance payout (ie medical expenses covered) then there was absolutely a subrogation discussion between the insurance companies of each party. Upon being given access to electronic law records, new law students are often shocked to see their names on lawsuits they never heard about. That bicycle accident at the mall when you were a kid ... your dad's work-based health insurer sued the mall's insurer to get back the money they paid to the hospital that stitched you up. Thousands of such tiny actions are filed and settled every day.

Re: Freedom to Roam in Scotland (2019)

#105

Post by michaelt »

WilTimSon wrote: post #47
haspok wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, in Yorkshire, where there is the Rights of Way, which gives you the right to pass through private land on a specific path, I had the opposite experience. I can't count how many times I had to pass through ploughed fields, the arrow sign pointing roughly in the direction of the other side of the field, and in between there is... nothing. If it is a popular path then others might have created a faint foo…

The owner must not have thought it through then, because most tourists will chug on straight through their field. Having a marked path is to their own benefit if they have the (mis?)fortune of living on the way to a landmark. I remember a similar case on Malta, where I went up a hill to get a nice view from a cave, recommended to me as part of the tourist route. The whole access to the cave lies across private proper…

Some landowners I suspect hope that if they let the public footpath get poorly maintained and poorly marked, walkers will tell their friends its a bad walk, easy to get lost, and fewer will try to walk it. That if people can't identify the legal path across a field, they won't cross at all for fear of breaking the law.

Needless to say, this doesn't work well on the stubborn, hardy types who'll spend hours ascending hills for fun - but it might deter the more casual walkers.

Re: Freedom to Roam in Scotland (2019)

#106

Post by pricklybear »

trgn wrote: post #101

The absence of this, at least in the US, is that there's essentially no country side properly understood. A bucolic permeable area that a city person can integrate in their daily life. The only way to enjoy the outdoors in America is as an activity. Drive there, park there. Do your thing. Come back. There's no osmosis or liminal space between urban and wilderness. It's either mechanized space for cars, or fenced off…

The book Wanderlust by Rebecca Solnit digs into this -- I'd recommend it

Re: Freedom to Roam in Scotland (2019)

#107

Post by jerrysievert »

maccard wrote: post #59
ascaill wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a note for future visitors, this is actually very accessible now, the land owners have (in conjunction with the government) created a fenced off walkway the whole way down to the arch. You still need to climb over a small trestle at the end, but it's very like the pathways you would find in Scotland. https://www.irelandbeforeyoudie.com/a-new-pathway-has-been-b...

Oh nice, this is really great to know. Unfortunately, this example was one of the most prominent, we had similar issues at murder hole beach [0] where the access was cut off by a bull in the field, and a few miles away from that, a walk that was built and funded by the council but had access removed after a dispute with the land owner [1]. And we've had similar experiences in Galway, Dublin, Kildare, Waterford,Wexfor…

it appears that there is a new pathway to murder hole beach, according to the article:

https://www.irelandbeforeyoudie.com/pathway-to-murder-hole-b...

and it sounds like an amazing place to visit, thanks for the mention of it!

Re: Freedom to Roam in Scotland (2019)

#108

Post by implements »

rzwitserloot wrote: post #13

In the US it gets a little crazy: Land is separated out into square plots in quite a few places, especially the later-colonized west, think 'chessboard'. Companies buy all the white squares, leaving the black squares as public land. Which is now entirely inaccessible from anywhere except their private land. Lots of shady duderanch companies do this. There's an interesting legal dispute: Is crossing diagonally from on…

There’s a (I think “Tom Scott”) video about how these squares are accessed at the touching corners using (believe it or not) the conceit of crossing through the air using a step-ladder.

Re: Freedom to Roam in Scotland (2019)

#109

Post by trgn »

pricklybear wrote: post #106
trgn wrote: post #101

The absence of this, at least in the US, is that there's essentially no country side properly understood. A bucolic permeable area that a city person can integrate in their daily life. The only way to enjoy the outdoors in America is as an activity. Drive there, park there. Do your thing. Come back. There's no osmosis or liminal space between urban and wilderness. It's either mechanized space for cars, or fenced off…

The book Wanderlust by Rebecca Solnit digs into this -- I'd recommend it

Thank you, ordered!

Re: Freedom to Roam in Scotland (2019)

#110

Post by tephra »

bjornsing wrote: post #70
guerrilla wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As does Sweden.

It’s been customary law in Sweden since pretty much forever. But interestingly it had no explicit foundation in written law until 1994, when a short passage was added to the Swedish constitution: “Everyone shall have access to nature in accordance with ‘allemansrätten’” (“Alla ska ha tillgång till naturen enligt allemansrätten”).

Which becomes even more interesting when you find out that allemansrätten is never defined in law.
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