Best way to travel 5 miles to a train station?

Because they have been told that the roads are much too dangerous,and
that it is everybody else's job to keep out of the way of the cars.

Speed limits were intoduced in response to motorists' consistent
failure to keep to reasonable speeds. Introduction of the 30 limit
round towns is credited with one of the largest reductions in road
deaths on record.

And better road sense - you don't learn much about defensive driving
when you are surrounded by airbags and safety cages.

19??: There seem to be a lot of people getting killed by drivers
failing to choose apropriate speeds. And that's the problem: a snmall
section of society has never accepted that law should have been
passed. Just as a (somewhat smaller) section thinks the drink-drive
laws should not have been passed, and behaves accordingly.

Guy

 

As I've pointed out on this thread already - the list has been posted
on several previous occasions.

Google for it.


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There are 3,000 fatalities on the roads every year and over 30,000
serious injuries. If each one were investigated as a murder or
serious assault is investigated (typically several hundred man-hours,
according to a quick Google) the plod would never do anything else.
Even if it wer only 100 man hours that would still be a the equivalent
of thousand coppers assigned permanently to crash investigations.

Endless references (see the Motorcarnage website for examples). And
in what way is killing someone through negligence not as serious as
doing something which makes it somewhat more likely that you mightkill
someone through reduced control?

It is for deterrence. And it works very well: most drivers do not
risk it.

See above.

Guy

 

....

No.

....
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And your evidence for that is? Oh wait, it's pure supposition.

Any form of transport smaller than a sherman tank is dangerous if some
homicidal maniac in a 4x4 decides he is going to run you over.


...d

 

Actually I know of at least two instances where the road was not
closed at all after the ambulances had left the scene. That accounts
for 100% of the fatal crashes of which I have seen the immediate
aftermath.

Yes, plod on the scene form a snap judgement. And then when they
investigate in detail they find that speed is actually the cause in
may more cases. Your point was?

Guy

 

(more or less):
....

Actually, it's not. (Based on studies looking into this specifically
done in Germany)


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If you are cutting towards yourself, it is stupidity.

Guy

 

Which shows that some road deaths are investigated.

Not that all such are investigated as much as or more than any other
sudden, accidental or suspicious death.

(It's a 'black swan' problem)


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And the consensus is that the changes become, over time, more enlightened.
So, homosexuality was legalised, speeding was banned. Society chose to stop
protecting itself from an imagined danger and protect itself instead from a
real one.

The reason for 30 not 20 is, as previously stated, balance of risk versus
benefit. Society having decided on a speed which embodies that acceptable
balance, for drivers to decide, based on their known unreliable judgement,
that society is wrong, does nobody any favours.

Think for a moment: who gets the benefits of greater speed? The driver.
Who gets the risk? The road user community in general, pedestrians and
cyclists far more so than the driver. The driver has an in built incentive
to make the wrong judgement.

Guy
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88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington
University

 

Before you argue the toss about this, I suggest you read up on it. Really.
It is quite an eye-opener.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington
University

 

When I get my copy of the relevant book back form the bloke I lent it to

Many documented on the motorcarnage website. A study in Oxford, one of the
cities with the most indisciplined cyclists, showed that 75% of car-0bike
crashes were the car driver's fault. Certinaly 100% of my crashes have been
the driver's fault, two of them the classic "failing to yield to circulating
traffic on a roundabout" case which accounts for 50% of fatal crashes on
roundabouts.

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

Guy
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88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington
University

 

Oh. Do you also think _all_ cyclists should be blamed for the actions of
the recent one of their number who slashed the car tyres?

Why, when making the use of cars safer would achieve the same result?

Judging each case on its circumstances?

Do you think "collective responsibility" for the acts of criminals is the
way of the future?

So you would support those who campaign for genuinly, safer roads and better
trained and better educated drivers? And you would attack ill-conceived
policies which purported to contribute to road safety, whilst complying with
a "hidden agenda", and relied upon overt spin, misrepresentation of
statistics and research data, and general hoodwinking of the general public?

 

Can you provide some which show that _any_ aren't?

Up to the point of establishing the cause?

Enlighten me

 

Do we? Do either stop short of establishing, as far as possible, the cause,
blame etc, and charging, where possible, those with a criminal case to
answer?

 

No. But if there was suddenly an outbreak of thousands of instances,
then we'd be talking about a suitably parallel example.

Perhaps - but we can all see the moving goalposts where that's concerned.

Because it wouldn't. Making it harder to qualify to be able to use a car
would increase the driver standard and, almost certainly, decrease the
number of cars on the road. Cars have been getting safer for years,
doesn't actually seem to be the having the effect you're claiming.

If, by that, you mean allowing magistrates and judges the ability for
(much) longer bans and enhanced re-education, then yes.

I've not called for collective responsibility, I've suggested that
enough drivers demonstrate enough irresponsibility and lack of ability
that questions need to be asked about whether the current standards of
qualification are high enough.

That's exactly what I've just called for.

Yes.

 

But, surely, they only need to investigate them as assaults or murder if
their initial appraisal suggests that they are those type of crimes. Same
as for other causes of injury or death. If it is obvious that the victim
was solely resposible for his own demise or predicament, what other action
should the police take?

I thought it was the chances of getting caught that was the deterrent.

What?

 

Based on what assumption or even what facts? You are implying some sort of
police complicity or incompetence or what?

 

How many white swans do you have to find, before you have disproved
the existence of black swans?


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Yes, we do. Compare the number of manhours / incident put into
investigation and inquiry for air, rail and road.

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