From: Speeders & Drunk Drivers are MURDERERS on
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
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
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
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
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.