The two legs of a ring final are effectively unequal (except at the mid-point) conductors in parallel.
Yes, but the requirements for circuits with conductors in parallel are very different from those for ring final socket circuits. The latter are specifically exempted from the rules which would otherwise apply to parallel conductors.
A RF is very much
not a circuit with parallel conductors in terms of how the Wiring Regulations regard them.
Rather than starting a war of words, can you find any evidence that RFCs are the cause of more accidents/incidents than radials?
No, but firstly I don't have access to any evidence of that nature, and secondly that isn't the point anyway - the regulations are full of provisions designed to prevent things which probably would only happen very rarely.
To repeat my oft-used driving analogy, I've been driving for about 40 years, and in all that time I could have done so in cars with no airbags, no seat belts and spears for steering columns and I'd still be here to argue the toss about ring finals. But that doesn't mean that those practices are safe, it does not mean that they should be advised and it does not mean that the next time I get into my car I won't put my seat belt on.
I do believe that all the exemptions from the normal rules of circuit protection, basically saying "well you can do this which all the other regulations would prevent you from doing as long as you ensure X Y Z" indicate that the concept is fundamentally unsound.
I do believe that the explanatory document produced by the IET, which said that they could no longer ignore all the people telling them that the tabulated capacity for 2.5mm² T&E meant it did not comply with the requirements so they had the cable capacities re-tested and then changed the requirements to match the new rating because they were "
keen to maintain the use of the UK ring circuit" indicates that they are not using sound engineering judgement.
I do believe that there is no pressing need for rings to continue to be installed which justifies the increased risks.
I do believe that if we'd never had them and someone proposed introducing them they'd be sent away with a flea in their ear.
They were
introduced as an expedient solution to particular practical problems which existed at a particular time. Those conditions no longer exist, and I do believe that the time has come to deprecate them, and that that could be regulated for without requiring existing ones to be removed and that one could continue to add sockets and spurs, do repairs etc. We would not need to stop using BS 1363 accessories, MCB manufacturers would soon step up production of 20A and 25A devices so that CUs could be replaced, and life would go on. And who knows - with a bit of tweaking to BS 1362 & 1363 we could give people the ability to plug their new Neff/AEG/Seimens/etc oven in.