Best way to travel 5 miles to a train station?

So because society has deemed that it is morally acceptable for thousands to
die to convenience others that makes it morally acceptable, does it?

If society said it was OK to persecute Jews or blacks would that be morally
acceptable?

So you agree that the rules are arbitary then?

If the speed limit has nothing to do with what is safe then why have it?

Ah, we're back on "society" again, are we?

The purpose of laws is to protect people, if the speed limits are just what
some shadowy group think is "acceptable" and not what is "safe" then the law
is arbitary and unfair.

 

Gawnsoft () gurgled
happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Although the average mileage of a car decreases as it ages.

An insidious trend. Big 4x4s are now anything up to 2.5ton - unladen.
Twice the weight of a "big" car of a generation or two ago.

<sits back, waits>

 

And I disagree, because we clearly tolerate a much poorer standard of
safety on the roads than on the railways or for air travel, which
indicates that when the safety measures are a cost to others we "care"
more than when we perceive them as a restriction on our own movement.

Funny, then, that we are happy to require the railways to spend that
kind of money. Becuase, of course, it's seen as somebody else's money
(even though it is ours really).

Very few of them are out of date, and the only arbitrary thing is the
level of the limits in some places, and that is mainly because we
stick to the archaic mph system rather than going to kph which would
give finer increments of speed (assuming we stick with intervals of
10).

It tells us the maximum level of danger which society is prepared to
allow drivers to pose to others on the road. Very few drivers regard
it as an absolute maximum, a sizeable minority apparently regard it as
the minimum acceptable.

Right up to the point where we remember why they exist in the first
place...

Two fallacies in one, well done

Fallcay one: what does not cause a crash, is safe. You can see the
weakness of that if we consider the first time a driver takes a blind
bend slightly over the line. No crash? That's safe, then. So that
becomes the target for next time. Until he runs a bit wider, and a
bit wider still...

Fallacy two: speeding does not put anybody in danger. It is
incontrovertibly true that, all other things being equal, driving
slower poses less risk to others than driving faster.

So campaign for a change in the limit, not an end to enforcement.
Rules are good, enforcement is good, muddle is bad. Pretending the
motorway limit is 80 and then getting upset when Mr Plod points out
that it isn't, is a silly way to approach the issue.

Plus, although I know a lot of people who have been done for 40 in a
30 limit (by which time the average car speedo will be indicating
nearly 50% over the limit, of course), and one or two who have been
done for sixty and more in a 30 limit, I have never actually met this
mythical character who was done for driving at 80 on an empty
motorway, roadworks excluded. Not least because there are few fixed
cameras on the motorways.

Guy

 

Ah, Godwin's law. Thanks for bringing the thread to a timely close.

Guy

 

Only for truck and PCV drivers. The vast majority of people who are
paid to drive are driving cars and light vans, exempt while doing so
from the health and safety legislation which would govern their
behaviour were they on their company's, or their customers' premises.
Or indeed pretty much anywhere else apart from at the wheel of their
car, while on firm's business. They may not be required to lift heavy
objects out of their cars at risk to their health, but they are free
to drive like maniacs in the company vehicle on the company business
without fear of bringing down the wrath of the HSE. An excellent bit
of special pleading by the motor lobby.

Guy

 

Acknowledged - but, as stated, there are many laws in whose breach you
cannot drive safely, such as driving without due care. And there are
no traffic laws I can think of in whose breach you are not driving at
least somewhat less safely than if you were obeying them.

Guy

 

Why are we worrying about a few deaths is the other way to look at it.
Life is cheap to aquire, Humans are like a virus spread across the
planet - a few dieing here and there is not exactly a major problem is
it?

 

We fundamentally agree that life is expendable for the sake of travelling
convenience. We disagree on how convenient that travelling should be. I'd
say we're both morally bankrupt.

Who are "we" in this context? I've never voted for a political party on the
basis of their rail safety policy, I don't know anybody who has.

Fine increments, eh? Yup, that will be what we need.

When the motorway speed limits were introduce 70mph was a lot closer to the
top speed of an average family car than it's cruising speed. Nowadays,
traffic and other conditions permitting, a family car is perfectly safe and
comfortable at 100mph. Why isn't the motorway limit 100mph? Because idiots
keep bleating on that speed kills, so we stick with out dated laws and then
wonder why people disrespect them.

That's the other thing about road safety campaigners, they're always so damn
sanctamonious.

I don't believe I have implied that fallacy. You can put people in danger
at any speed, exceeding some limit or another doesn't necessarily put people
in any more danger and is very far removed from taking a blind bend on the
wrong side of the road, isn't it.

Are you really reduced to these petty and pathetic mis-matched anologies to
make your point?

Not at all. Hitting something slowly carries less risk than hitting
something quickly. Not hitting anything at all is even less risk.

The truth is that we could all do what ever speed we wanted provided that
none of us every hit anything, but that requires good driving.

The problem with bad driving is that there are lots of reasons for it and
it's a complex problem. Even a good driver can be bad in the wrong
circumstances.

Sucessive governments have, as is there way, gone for the easy excuse rather
than the complex reason. "Speed kills" is so beautifully simple that even a
moron can understand it.

As you're demonstrating, thanks

Can't do that ... speed kills, remember.

I disagree with your first point. Why are rules good? Shouldn't life have
as few rules as are necessary? People who say things like "rules are good"
are either accountants or wanted to be accountants.

I'm not saying that anybody, ever, has been done for 80 on the motorway, but
if you advocate zero-tolerance then you advocate finding that 80mph-bastard
and making an example of him.


--
AndrewR, D.Bot (Celeritas)
Kawasaki ZX-6R J1
BOTAFOT#2,ITJWTFO#6,UKRMRM#1/13a,MCT#1,DFV#2,SKoGA#0 (and KotL)
BotToS#5,SBS#25,IbW#34, TEAR#3 (and KotL), DS#5, COSOC#9, KotTFSTR#
The speccy Geordie twat.

 

It's an empirical rule which holds good over a fairly wide range of
road types. Others have plotted the variation with speed i other
countries and obtained similar results. It is only a rule of thumb,
because even assuming it is a fourth-order and not a thirs-order
polynomial, nobody has qantified the parameters. But it is used and
cited because it seems to work.

Smeed's Law is another such case; wholly empirical, but it seems to
hold up well.

Guy

 

Sometimes. Other times, not.

Guy

 

Any form of visual identification is flawed; the question is, is it
generally effective? And here the answer is clear: yes. Some people
will seek to subvert the system, just as some people drive without
licenses. Does that make driving tests and licensing a bad idea?
Most people will not.

Widespread ANPR could start to erode the emerging practice of fleeing
the scene of fatal crashes, especially when the driver thinks they
might be over the blood alcohol limit. And if you are concerned about
ringing then as Ambrose suggests, legislating the attachment of a
concealedd RFID tag in all new cars would not only eliminate the
problem, it would make car theft and motor trade fraud a lot harder as
well.

Guy

 

Just zis Guy, you know? () gurgled happily,
sounding much like they were saying :

And the very next post in the thread is by.... Guy.
And four of the five after that...

 

Just zis Guy, you know? () gurgled happily,
sounding much like they were saying :

There's no inherent loss of safety in driving without insurance or MOT. It
could be argued that you'd drive *more* safely.

 

Thank you for that succinct, yet brilliant, insight into the meaning of
"average".


--
AndrewR, D.Bot (Celeritas)
Kawasaki ZX-6R J1
BOTAFOT#2,ITJWTFO#6,UKRMRM#1/13a,MCT#1,DFV#2,SKoGA#0 (and KotL)
BotToS#5,SBS#25,IbW#34, TEAR#3 (and KotL), DS#5, COSOC#9, KotTFSTR#
The speccy Geordie twat.

 

There's a whole host of technical offences.

The police are fond of turning up at bike meets and handing out a ream of
tickets for illegal exhausts and under-sized numberplates; those two great
killers of our time.


--
AndrewR, D.Bot (Celeritas)
Kawasaki ZX-6R J1
BOTAFOT#2,ITJWTFO#6,UKRMRM#1/13a,MCT#1,DFV#2,SKoGA#0 (and KotL)
BotToS#5,SBS#25,IbW#34, TEAR#3 (and KotL), DS#5, COSOC#9, KotTFSTR#
The speccy Geordie twat.

 

And that's equivalent to driving slower because you haven't got an MOT and
want to make sure the police don't pull you, is it?


--
AndrewR, D.Bot (Celeritas)
Kawasaki ZX-6R J1
BOTAFOT#2,ITJWTFO#6,UKRMRM#1/13a,MCT#1,DFV#2,SKoGA#0 (and KotL)
BotToS#5,SBS#25,IbW#34, TEAR#3 (and KotL), DS#5, COSOC#9, KotTFSTR#
The speccy Geordie twat.

 

I think that risk is inherent in high-speed travel, and high-speed
travel is a public good. I also work hard to minimise the risk I
pose, not least by not driving most of the time. I work much harder
to minimise risk when I drive, because the risk is that much greater.

The tabloid press led the "one death is one too many" bollocks after
Hatfield. Admittedly they are quite adepot at manipulating public
opinon, but there was a lot of handwringing.

That would explain why the Autobahns have tewice the fatality rate of
our motorways, then. "Perfectly safe" at 100mph is Clearly Bollocks.

Becuase the Government are not stupid speed freaks, they can see that
the fatality rate is dramatically higher on the Autobahn where such
speeds are common. They realise that while the technology has
improved,. the Mk. 1 Driver is much the same as the 1950s model.

I think people fail to respect laws because certain people with a
libertarian agenda keep trying to pretend that speed doesn't kill,
when there is incontrovertible evidence that it does.

I recently spoke to a journalist who had decided to investigate the
speed camera debate. From a starign point of being equivocal about
the issue, he rapidly reached the conclusion that "speed kills" is not
propaganda, but a consensus; and that there are a few mischievous
groups and individuals who use statistical humbug to try to pretend
otherwise.

But you posted the fallacies.

But what you said was "almost all the time it doesn't cause an
accident or put anybody in danger." So what if it doesn't always
cause a crash? Is pulling out of a junction without looking
dangerous? You might get away with it any number of times.

Similarly, all moving vehicles pose risk. The larger the vehicle, and
the faster it is moving, the higher the risk. Yet a large number of
driver unilaterally decide that their judgementof the acceptable level
of risk is somehow better than those who designed and manage the road.
This sits ill with the well-documented fact that most drivers
overestimate their own skill.

So you agree: It is incontrovertibly true that, all other things being
equal, driving slower poses less risk to others than driving faster.

And nobody does that, certainly not all the time, so we have rules
instead which tell us what good driving looks like. And many drivers
decide that they know better. These are the same drivers 85% of whom
think they are above average skill, and who on average rate their own
skills around 1/3 better than the generality of drivers. Which is, of
course, why the laws exist in the first place.

Correct. And the law exists to tell us what good driving looks like.

And the real beauty of it is, it's true.

Cheap shot. Ad-hominem attacks generally indicate a lack of
confidence in your argument. Are you unsure of your facts? Or just
trolling for a fight? I do quite a good line in invective if that's
what you want.

Either you think it should be legal to drive faster or you don't.
Which is it?

Rules are good because without them drivers kill even more people.

I advocate obeying the law. I have not always done so. I am a
reformed speedophile. And driving is much more pleasant now I have
lost the speed imperitive, and much less pleasant when it creeps back
in.

Guy

 

Welcome to the wonderful world of offline newsreaders.

Guy

 

The shadowy group happens to be our MPs for the national limits (70mph
on motorways etc) and our County Councillors for local implementation
and variations. If you think its arbitrary and unfair and enough people
agree with you then you can get them changed to people that agree with
your views, as happened with the Poll Tax.

Have a look though at the process for the recent review of Bucks speed
limits and tell me again it was decided behind closed doors by a shadowy
group -
http://www.buckscc.gov.uk/cabinet_papers/local_south_bucks/sblc_20040707_item9.pdf

Tony

 

OK, fair point. On the other hand there is more risk - it's just
financial rather than injury. Aside from the MoT - the vehicle could
be unroadworthy (and often is).

Guy