Best way to travel 5 miles to a train station?

It is a strange example, since they themselves use the word
"unredictable" and skidding on ice is one of the more predictable
hazards.

Not at all, we just seem to be going round in cricles.

And I'm making a point about road safety

Hatfield is almost never described as a "rail accident", it's a crash.
Concorde did not have an accident, it crashed. We seem quite content
to use the word crash in some cases, but on the roads we use
"accident" and it seems to me that this is part of the defence
mechanism we use to pretend to ourselves that driving is perfectly
safe, when we know full well it is not.

Guy

 

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

No, running into the road without looking kills.

 

No it doesn't. Rapid decelleration kills. Colliding with fast moving cars
kills. Colliding with slower moving vehicles doesn't necessarily kill.

...d

 

That's fair enough but some context is useful.

Yes, I'm not disputing that, but it makes absolutely no difference to this
discussion. The fact that the usage they catalogue for the word accident
covers the circumstances of the events we're talking about would suggest
that the use of the word is perfectly correct.

Well there's not much point in going back over this since we disagree about
what the correct language is. While I can see that it's perfectly valid to
use the word crash, that in no way invalidates the word accident.

 

No, the vehicle which collides with the running child kills it. The
running does not kill the child.

 

Yes, I think we will have to agree to disagree.

But I'll leave you with this:

http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_control/documents/contentservertem
plate/dft_index.hcst?n=5161&l=1

Seems that officially, at least in this country, the terminlogy for air
incidents such as those you mention, still involves the word accident.

 

On that basis, you would not blame the killer who used a gun, as it is not
the bullet leaving the muzzle of the gun that kills, but the (later)
collision between it and the victim.

Similarly, jumping off Beach Head (or even pushing somebody) would not cause
death - that wouldn't occur until the suicide/victim hit the rocks at the
bottom.

Let's face it, it *is* possible to be a little *too* enthusiastic in one's
efforts to twist and subvert language and thought, isn't it?

 

It was somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember Helen Deborah Vecht

Being alive is what kills the child.

www.thinkofthechildren.co.uk


--

Dave

GS 850 x2 / SE 6a
SbS#6 DIAABTCOD#16 APOSTLE#6 FUB#3
FUB KotL OSOS#12? UKRMMA#19 COSOC#10

 

JNugent opined the following...

Except that no-one is blaming the car... they're blaming the driver. So
your analogy would actually follow that one _would_ blame the killer who
used a gun.

Assuming no heart attack on the way down (Apparently the actual cause of
death in many distance falls) the above is entirely correct. Jumping of
Beachy Head won't necessarily kill you. Impacting the rocks below have
descended rapidly from the cliffs will.

Possibly. Do you have any better examples that actually support your
case?

Jon

 

The phrase actually used was "the vehicle"; but that doesn't matter all that
much - it is not blaming a pedestrian who runs recklessly into a road and
blaming only a third party who has no particular reason to anticipate such
behaviour which demands an explanation, not the other way round. It is
simply wrong to blame the driver (or the vehicle) when a pedestrian runs
blindly into the road.

Do not mistake my meaning. I say that one should put the blame where it
correctly lies. And that is not with an innocent road-user acting lawfully,
is it?

 

One has no particular reason to anticipate pedestrians on the road in a
residential area? One wonders how people get from or too their parked cars.

One should always anticipate that there is a higher risk of inattentive
pedestrians where there are roads inhabited potentially by young families.
Just as when using a pedestrian crossing, one should always anticipate that
drivers may be inattentive.

You seem to assume that the only people supposed to use the road are those
in a car.

...d

 

Caution: You are replying to a Nugentbot. This is an Artificial
Stupidity experiment. Care should be used when attempting to reason
with a Nugentbot, as it becomes unstable in the face of logic.

Guy

 

But I have made the point on this ng before that as soon as the cameras
make the roads "safer" we won't have the same number of police looking
out for other road offences. I don't believe we have them now. Also it's
much easier (and cheaper) to prosecute people for absolute offences such
as speed >x or alcohol >y than to have to go to court and prove some
action was inappropriate or dangerous.

 

If you want police on traffic duty then get the government targets to
reflect traffic offences (which they dont.)

Traffic police have been redeployed in the hope of meeting the 'targets',
not because of speed cameras. It would indeed be better to return to a high
level of traffic policing *And* have speed cameras. Is there a reason why
speed cameras cannot be adapted to include technology to catch tailgaters?

...d

 

One has no particular reason to anticipate that a pedestrian will rush
blindly and recklessly into the road into the path of a moving vehicle. You
knew that (it is all there above, and you have even quoted the quotation).
Stop acting daft.

Indeed - that is the only sensible bit of your post, save that even then,
you fail to acknowledge that we all operate to a common set of rules in
using the road, whether on foot or on wheels, and that it is breach of the
rules which leads to accidents. It is certainly not only the drivers of
motor vehicles who breach those rules, is it?

If all wheeled traffic (whether motorised or not) had to move at a pace
which would enable avoidance of a pedestrian suddenly and unexpectedly
darting out into the road (no-one is taklking of pedestrian-crossings),
wheeled traffic could not be operated practically. That includes buses and
bicycles as well as the cars you and others seek to demonise. A total
non-starter.

Rubbish, and I have written nothing which could cause you to suupose that.

 

David Martin wrote

I don't think it is so much a matter of technology as a more a matter of
interpretation.

The way I understand it they already record the passage, at least, of
every vehicle which passes. I understand that for the purposes of
gathering statistics they can make a good guess at the type and size.
So it don't seem a humungous technological leap to work in tailgating.

But you know as well as I do that there is a mile of difference between
a photo of tailgating and one which includes the **** in front anchoring
up because she has seen a camera and doesn't know what speed she is
doing.

Janitors with video cameras is the only real solution to tailgating.
That and education, education, education and some **** actually learning
from it for a change other than being given a fucking certificate for
saying their name was spelled right.

 

Not if all are aware of the appropriate behaviour. Children will
occasionally do odd and unpredictable things. It is not always possible eg.
to ensure a child is restrained and they do sometimes run out. Whilst noone
would place blame on a driver who would anticipate that such a thing is
possible, albeit unlikely in a particular journey, one should always
anticipate that it is possible and so be aware and moderate ones speed
accordingly. I do so when I drive, and also when I ride a bike. A few
seconds extra on my journey is all it costs timewise.

Sometimes an adult will just have not seen a car and will step out in front
of it. SMIDSYs happen to cars as well as bikes.

They are not rules, they are guidelines. What was that about the right of
way should be yielded, not presumed? It is indeed not always drivers who
breach these guidelines (though speed limits are more acknowledged in the
breach rather than the observance).

There needs to be a degree of reasonability here. Your original response
gave no indication that a driver had any requirement to even consider such a
possibility.

" It is simply wrong to blame the driver (or
the vehicle) when a pedestrian runs blindly into the road."

The driver is never wrong in a collision with a pedestrian? They have no
duty of care?

...d

 

Yes it is because if the child had stood still by the side of the road it
would not have died, and if he'd walked the car would have been passed him
before he got in its way (so to speak).

The whole speed kills thing is rubbish.

 

So are muggings, murders and not having enough money to go private when you
need health care.

...d

 

Driver breathing kills!

If the driver had been dead he wouldn't have been able to drive the car and
the child would have lived.

Get a grip. However you try to excuse it, increased speed increases your
chance of death in a crash. It decreases your reaction distance making a
crash more likely. It increases the stresses on whatever vehicle you are
using making a crash more likely. It increases the distance you need to
stop.

So with speed making a crash more likely, and making the effect of a crash
more severe, which part of speed kills happens to be rubbish?

...d