From: Speeders & Drunk Drivers are MURDERERS on 14 Jun 2010 00:40 On Jun 12, 6:47 pm, Alan Baker <alangba...(a)telus.net> wrote: > > People die each year in cars in what appear to be large numbers because > people do a *very* large amount of traveling by road. Hey stupid. What difference does that make? It's still 40,000 deaths a year .
From: Alan Baker on 14 Jun 2010 02:32 In article <2ac26d58-6ec0-4650-b37b-f70cea7b3f90(a)a30g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>, "Speeders & Drunk Drivers are MURDERERS" <betaxxx(a)earthlink.net> wrote: > On Jun 12, 6:47�pm, Alan Baker <alangba...(a)telus.net> wrote: > > > > > People die each year in cars in what appear to be large numbers because > > people do a *very* large amount of traveling by road. > > Hey stupid. What difference does that make? It's still 40,000 deaths > a year . It makes a difference in that if lots of people are doing something lots of the time and lots of people die, it is not as much of a problem as when few people are doing something some of the time and some people die. In the U.S. last year, people spent something like 86 BILLION person-hours on the road. That is something on the order of 130,000 human lifetimes. If cutting the speed limits of every road in half would have eliminated all 43,000 fatalities (it wouldn't have, but suppose), it would also have cost another 130,000 human lifetimes in additional driving. I'm not sure how stealing a lot more of everyone's lives really improves the situation. -- Alan Baker Vancouver, British Columbia <http://gallery.me.com/alangbaker/100008/DSCF0162/web.jpg>
From: Brent on 14 Jun 2010 08:17 On 2010-06-14, Alan Baker <alangbaker(a)telus.net> wrote: > In article ><2ac26d58-6ec0-4650-b37b-f70cea7b3f90(a)a30g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>, > "Speeders & Drunk Drivers are MURDERERS" <betaxxx(a)earthlink.net> > wrote: > >> On Jun 12, 6:47�pm, Alan Baker <alangba...(a)telus.net> wrote: >> >> > >> > People die each year in cars in what appear to be large numbers because >> > people do a *very* large amount of traveling by road. >> >> Hey stupid. What difference does that make? It's still 40,000 deaths >> a year . > > It makes a difference in that if lots of people are doing something lots > of the time and lots of people die, it is not as much of a problem as > when few people are doing something some of the time and some people die. > > In the U.S. last year, people spent something like 86 BILLION > person-hours on the road. That is something on the order of 130,000 > human lifetimes. If cutting the speed limits of every road in half would > have eliminated all 43,000 fatalities (it wouldn't have, but suppose), > it would also have cost another 130,000 human lifetimes in additional > driving. > > I'm not sure how stealing a lot more of everyone's lives really improves > the situation. Stealing people's lives is the entire point of the control freaks. They don't really care how many people die or don't die in collisions. If they did we'd have had sensible speed limits decades ago. Instead they manipulate data and make presentations that appeal to emotion to construct a case for low speed limits that otherwise doesn't exist. Control ultimately means breaking the transporation system of the private automobile. To keep people from being able to travel so easily. Better yet as far as they are concerned, to make travel something that has to be approved by control freaks. More problems (caused by controls) brings about more control.
From: N8N on 14 Jun 2010 16:37 On Jun 14, 2:32 am, Alan Baker <alangba...(a)telus.net> wrote: > In article > <2ac26d58-6ec0-4650-b37b-f70cea7b3...(a)a30g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>, > "Speeders & Drunk Drivers are MURDERERS" <beta...(a)earthlink.net> > > wrote: > > On Jun 12, 6:47 pm, Alan Baker <alangba...(a)telus.net> wrote: > > > > People die each year in cars in what appear to be large numbers because > > > people do a *very* large amount of traveling by road. > > > Hey stupid. What difference does that make? It's still 40,000 deaths > > a year . > > It makes a difference in that if lots of people are doing something lots > of the time and lots of people die, it is not as much of a problem as > when few people are doing something some of the time and some people die. > > In the U.S. last year, people spent something like 86 BILLION > person-hours on the road. That is something on the order of 130,000 > human lifetimes. If cutting the speed limits of every road in half would > have eliminated all 43,000 fatalities (it wouldn't have, but suppose), > it would also have cost another 130,000 human lifetimes in additional > driving. > > I'm not sure how stealing a lot more of everyone's lives really improves > the situation. And to make matters worse, the "if it safes JUST ONE LIFE it's worth it" argument, besides being applied far to often and too broadly in contemporary American legislation and rulemaking, has yet to even be definitively shown to apply. That is, the argument that a lower speed limit will "save lives" when the current speed limit on a given road is already ignored is specious on the face of it. nate
From: Brent on 15 Jun 2010 00:07
On 2010-06-15, Alan Baker <alangbaker(a)telus.net> wrote: > In article ><d1f7e613-79d5-4b9e-a10d-2526ca4c8ddd(a)c10g2000yqi.googlegroups.com>, > gpsman <gpsman(a)driversmail.com> wrote: >> You can rationalize 6M crashes and 40K fatals as reasonable and >> accidental however you wish, but safety professionals agree the vast >> majority are easily preventable. > Yet neither your government nor mine appears to be interested in doing > anything real about it. Government's idea of safety is the same as a feudal lord or a slave owner, control. That control is a great cost. Living under the thumb of control freaks isn't worth the marginal safety improvements. That control will only result in more infintile drivers looking for someone else to do the work of driving for them. Like most things driving is clearly safer with less control. It's safer in small towns where all the confusing signs, signals, etc are removed and there is more integration and people are expected to pay attention. It's safer on the limited access highways when speed limits are removed. It's just plain safer when people are responsible for their own safety and cannot look to a government agency or a cop or some other controller to make it safe for them while playing their little control freak games on the road. |