Motorcycle Survey

Hi Andrew. So you aren't, and have never been, a programmer?

As for George's
"You have only gone 10 kph the fastest in the last 12 months ??", I can
only ask that I have a pint of whatever he's having. ;-)

regards,
CrazyCam

 

On Sat, 26 Sep 2009 01:03:25 GMT, Capt About Lunchtime wrote:

[...]

Yes, but blinded by politics.

It goes in various permutations something like this:

A serious accident has occurred and someone is killed or badly
injured. The cause is unimportant.

Mrs Western Suburbs Bogan decides that something ought to be done. She
rings her favourite shock jock and insists loudly that something ought
to be done.

Shock jock, ever on the look out for a ratings effective cause to
promote, agrees. He instigates a standard campaign of public
humiliation of Pollies and their servants, the theme being that
something ought to be done.

The resultant electoral unrest attracts Ministerial attention. The
Minister contacts the chief bureaucrat and demands that something gets
done or heads will roll. The resultant directive goes down the
bureaucratic line and stops at the desk of an overworked traffic
engineer.

The engineer knows exactly what needs to be done, but has neither the
resources nor the political backing to do it. The easiest approach is
to reduce the speed limit by 10kph near the location of the accident
and place a speed camera there. This is a known way to satisfy the
upper echelons and get them off his/her back.

The traffic engineer completes the task and bounces an action report
up the line to the Minister. The Minister contacts Mrs Western Suburbs
Bogan and explains that something has been done. She rings the shock
jock and crows loudly that she got something done. The shock jock
turns this into a self congratulatory campaign the theme being that
something got done, and his ratings go through the ceiling.

Everyone is happy except the traffic engineer and the motoring public
who have gained yet another silly speed change complete with penalties
and loss of points.

The Princess Highway between Bulli and Nowra is a fine example of this
mode of thinking being allowed full rein.

 

Too strong for you Cam, only serve up a small glass at a time

 

A pint *is* a small glass... %^}

 

[applause]

http://franiccolo.home.mindspring.com/knaves/beer3.htm

Hammo

 

For me the difference is 130, but then they have removed open speed limits
here now... (220 - 90)

Pietro

 

In 2006 the road toll in NT was 44. In Jan 2007 they removed open
limits and imposed speed limits on all highways. The 2007 road toll
(57) was 30% higher than in 2006 and the highest toll for a decade. In
2008 the road toll (75) was 70% higher than the year prior to the limits
being introduced and was the highest toll for over 2 decades. Speed
limits save lives.

Nev..
'08 DL1000K8

 

Hi Pietro.

Ninety KPH as your max in the last 12 months?

Let me guess, you, too, ride a Honda Z50?

regards,
CrazyCam

 

I admit to programming. I will never admit to assuming someone else does.
Nevertheless: your post was syntactically correct. However, mine was
funnier (IMO).

 

In a nutshell!
Well done George.

 

It sure is at the fake Pommy "Pig and Whistle" pub I went to where I
kept asking for a schooner and kept getting "you mean a pint Guvna".
15oz schooner, 20oz pint; no that a schooner! If you wanna' give me a
pint (for my seven-f#cking-dollars) then please do so but *that* glass
is a schooner.
Don't even get me started about wanker bottle-shops that try and call
750ml largies "quarts" (1140ml).

 

They can't. Just like they can't tell if a participant to an
interview, or a paper-based survey, or a focus group, or to
pretty much any other methodology where the person under study
knows they're being studied. You make your best effort, you take
steps to ensure that your results are as veratious as they
possibly can be, you ask questions in ways, for example, that
complement each other, you think long and hard about the holes
in your methodology and you discuss those holes and the steps
you took to address them in your write-up.

As it happens, there is research that demonstrates that web-
based surveys are a pretty good way of going about it. Response
rates, for example, tend to be far far better than other forms
of surveying. Regardless of the medium, there are a good many
approaches to ensuring that a good number of punters will be
candid in their responses and there are a good many ways of
filtering out the ones who aren't.

As things go, the web is a pretty good place to conduct
surveys.

That said, a good many academics, students, people generally,
just 'don't get' the web, so there's an issue there. I think
that more people should read the literature review part of:

Breach, G (2006), 100% of Respondents to This Web-Based
Survey Have Access to the Public Internet: A Review of
Web-Based Survey Tools for Academic Research, Coursework
Paper for 21908 Qualitative Research Methods, University
of Technology, Sydney

(but then I would, wouldn't I). I only read for a few days on
the subject, 'cos I really can't get in the slightest bit
interested in anything qualitative or statistical, but what I
did figure out fairly quickly is that there's a whole lot more
to this surveying business, and the business of doing it well,
than is visible from the public-facing end of the process.

I think that if you were to look under the covers, you'll find
that some of the questions that bother you are just there as
afterthoughts, or that they're designed to counter/complement
other questions, or that they're just innocent mistakes that
don't work as well in practice as the researchers had hoped
and that the answers to those will be discarded. That's another
thing about survey research: not all the questions/answers get
used in the final outputs. Ethics committees require that we
don't ask questions that don't have some demonstrable link to
the 'research questions' that we're trying to resolve. We cannot,
for example, ask if being raped at age 12 was your only sexual
experience if we're just trying to run a stupid radio show, but
within that bound, there's still a certain amount of uncertainty
as to what sort of answers you might get, and what questions are
'right'.

The system looks dodgy at times, and it absolutely is dodgy in
places, but I'm a lot more comfortable with it having been
through the 'research training' processes (the same processes
that all research students and academics go through, regardless
of field).

Fear not. It's a lot better than it looks. There's plenty of
checks and balances (and LOTS of standing on the shoulders of
giants going on).


GB

 

And as for the *Princes* Highway in the same area, well that's even worse!
Nice summary - sad though.

 

That was on a Honda Wave 125s which we own in Thailand....

Pietro

 

Yes. The problem with the survey is I suspect that will be interpreted ad
an admission to being a flagrant risk taker and lawbreaker - when in fact it
was quite legal at the time.

Mind you, they love to claim that when the speed limit was imposed on the
Lasseter highway, the death toll on that highway dropped by 50%. And it
did - from 2 to 1 and both single accidents.

Pietro

 

Yikes! Thanks for that.
<walks away muttering about modern bloody keyboards>

 

George, you are reading things into Nev's words that just simply
aren't there. At no time did he say he was cheating the ATO or had any
intent to. He merely stated that the ATO will take him at his word and
that it is naive to do so.

I mean, would you expect anyone to take you at your word?

Can I suggest you google readingcomprehension101

Theo

 

Perhaps it would be better if he googled identifyingsarcasm101 first?

Nev..

 

George, you are reading things into Nev's words that just simply
aren't there. At no time did he say he was cheating the ATO or had any
intent to. He merely stated that the ATO will take him at his word and
that it is naive to do so.

I mean, would you expect anyone to take you at your word?

*******************************************

No-one does, so why should I be expected to believe Nev, or for that matter,
you or anyone else ??

 

Perhaps it would be better if he googled identifyingsarcasm101 first?

Nev..

************************

Maybe I will have to go and buy the new edition of Newcomers guide to
NevSpeak
along with the added section of Theosunderstandings