Best way to travel 5 miles to a train station?

Pedestrian and cyclist deaths on motorways? Rear passanger deaths when,
apparently, noone ever has more then 1 person in a car?

 

The statistical support given was the death toll and IIRC a reference
to TRL reports which showed law breaking as the cause of death.

I'm fortunate enough never to have been near a road death. I (vaguely)
witnessed a murder for which there was a long police investigation but
no conviction. However, when charging people, the police have to allow
for the possibility of conviction, which requires cast iron evidence
of the circumstances leading up to the collision and the likelihood
that a magistrate or jury will convict. In road deaths the evidence is
hard to gather and the courts are less likely to convict because
they're likely to be perceived as 'accidents'

ITYM relentlessly.

A

 

I heard of a bike at TT weekend that went into a truck fast enough to
push it off the side of the road. The bike was going downhill at the
time, and it could be an apocryphal story.

A

 

Trouble is that cameras wont detect this. And 29 in the fog past a school
at kicking out time (undetected by camera) is more dangerous then 31 past
the same school in good visibility in the middle of august (detected by
camera)

Rigid proppaganda and enforcements of speed limits encourages people to
think "35 is bad, 30 is good".

 

I actually saw a police van yesterday! First sign of police pressence I've
seen in 4 weeks!

The problem isn't guarding property rights vs. enforcing punitive or
inadequate motor laws, it's about paperwork.

If, instead of filling in paperwork for 6 hours a day, police were out on
the beat, enforcing ALL traffic laws AND were on call to report to break
ins when neccersary, there wouldn't be a problem. Imagine a (marked) police car
cruising arround a few villages all day. As well as slowing traffic down,
it will deter other forms of crime, and be ready to respond to 999 calls
from a much better starting location.

Instead they have to fill in paperwork all day.

 

This certainly happened 15 years ago. We were taught the laws of the road
(ride on the left, signal, stop at red lights, dont ride on pavements,
etc) too. Sadly many cyclists, adults and kids alike, blatently ignore
traffic laws and endanger themselves and others.

The law is not neccersarilly right. Isn't it still legal to shoot a
welshman in chester on a Friday if you're carrying a pig? Homosexuality
certainly wasn't legal as little as 50 years ago.

Perhaps kids should be forced to ride 10 miles per week, on the road. As
well as cutting obesity, when they do become drivers, they'll have more
respect for cyclists.

It's quite funny when nothing goes wrong, and at the average speed of the
M6, if something does go wrong it's hardly serious.

1850: There seems to be a substantial minority of people trying to abolish
slavery
1900: There seems to be a substantial minority of people trying to allow
women the vote
1950: There seems to be a substantial minority of people trying to
legalise the long lost fight against baning of homosexuality

Of course in the case of a motorway the fastest users are the ones without
the safety cage, and aside from them there are no cyclists or pedestrians.

We can always hope.

 

Compared with the Mark 1 cortina from 70mph in 60 yards, we can see
that modern bikes cannot even stop from 100mph in the distance a Mark
1 Cortina stops from 70.

The nearest here is 97m = 106 yards.

So the best bike stops from 100mph in about twice the distance that a
Mark 1 cortina stops from 70mph.

Any vehicle, assuming it's brakes and tyres are up to the job, can
manage to brake from 150 in only 2 and a quarter times the distance
that it takes to brake from 100mph.

The projected distances, in yards, for the bikes to brake from 150mph
are therefore, respectively:
270
240
250
272
246
287
261
240
239
254

The best bike would take 4 times as far to brake from 150mph as a Mark
1 Cortina takes to brake from 60mph.

The worst bike would take more than 4 and a half times the distance.





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True - but 31 in the fog past a school at kicking out time will be
caught.

Whereas, it typically would not have been, in the old days.

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On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 16:23:21 +0100, "Matt B"

Who is?

It would, if it were made.

....
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I guess that cutting yourself with a knife is no longer an accident.
Afterall you could be wearing gloves.

 

Far too few.


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....>> When you say 'certain nutters', you mean peoiple causing almost
4,000

That serious injuries from car misuse need to be counted in all this,
not just fatalities.

No, it was not his own fault.

Yes.

As for a conviction, I don't know.


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You mean how many of them were killed by people guilty only of
'entirely safe driving'?

Or were due solely to some catastrophic mechanical failure of one of
the vehicles?

Err, very few of them, I'd say.

But dangerous driving, or careless driving? Lots.

It's an unfortunate thing that manslaughter has become inapplicable to
deaths caused by driving into people.

We don't all know this. Largely because it's not true.


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I think you'll find that after _every_ fatal accident the road is closed for
several hours whilst every shred of evidence is collected. Any vehicle is
taken away for mechanical and forensic examination. Drivers' blood is
analysed for alcohol, phone records are checked for likely use at whell etc
etc. No stone is left unturned in an effort to find a blameworthy cause.

There lies another fallacy. Until recent government pressure, and reworking
of the accident recording processes, the police recorded what they
considered to be the primary _actual_ cause of the accident. This was speed
in about 3% of cases IIRC. Now they have to put speed if anything was
moving before the accident - i think We all know what they're up to
though, so we take it with a pinch of salt - don't we?

 

Can you refer me to any such cases?

Perhaps they weren't as serious. By that I mean that the investigators were
happy that no negligence or intent or whatever was involved and that it
_was_ an accident, or even that the _cyclist_ was at faault? Have you any
references?

Probably to do with the prevailing political climate or recent tabloid
stories when it was in parliament.

To do with the level of negligence and intent.

 

Which is to say they're stopping at the same G force.

A

 

In more cases than any other violent crime?

Believe me, they are thorough.

You're right. I'm multi-tasking - poorly :-(

 

Quote from earlier in the thread:

Me: are the majority of violent crimes committed with a motor vehicle as the
weapon?

You: Yes, they are. (based on fatalities)

You decide...

 

OK. How many are there per year, compared to from all other souces, and how
many are someone else's fault, and how many are found to be as a result of a
criminal act?

So, what more could be done? It's like in all walks of life. At least with
motoring there are plenty of laws, regulations, codes etc to hold against a
perpetrator. You try trying to get a conviction for _anything_ as a result
of an injury caused in a non-motoring incident.

 

Can you cite a case that wasn't investigated?