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#21
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Not many cyclists out, must be the weather.
On 22/12/2010 17:41, Mrcheerful wrote:
Matt B wrote: On 22/12/2010 16:35, JNugent wrote: On 22/12/2010 14:27, Matt B wrote: On 22/12/2010 14:19, Mrcheerful wrote: Matt B wrote: On 22/12/2010 13:55, Mrcheerful wrote: But 100 per cent of the cyclists I have seen in the last 24 hours broke the law in one significant way or another while I watched. What were the top 5 "offences" committed IYHO? Red light jumping (2) and no lights after dark(2), followed by wrong way in a one way (1) and pavement cycling (1). Your sample size was 6? Did any of those "offenders" cause any real danger to anyone? Does it matter what his answer (which would necessarily be based on only a fleeting impression of the overall situation) would be? If they'd all caused buses or trucks to swerve out of control, or similar, we'd have a different picture to the one we now have. As a parallel, only a small proportion of drivers over the drink-drive limit on any one night are ever caught. And that's partly because most acts of drink-driving cause no real danger to anyone and don't attract the attentions of the police for various reasons. That doesn't mean that drink-driving is harmless or worth ignoring, does it? You tell me. Is there evidence that drink-drivers are over represented in the accident statistics? I know that a few years ago some police force somewhere did a Christmas campaign against drink-driving and "randomly" tested drivers who were not involved in accidents or traffic offences. They found a larger proportion were over the limit than for those in the same area who were tested after being involved in an accident or committing an offence. I've no idea though how representative that was of reality or whether there have been studies and there is real evidence that drink-drivers cause more harm than sober ones. "I always drive more carefully when I am drunk" someone said. I have known many people that drove when absolutely hammered on a very regular basis, many are now dead, but they didn't have crashes as they were used to it and drove accordingly. whereas an irregular drinker might get drunk on a smaller amount and be unaware of their condition and not take the extra care needed. Just to be clear: the comment immediately above is not reflective of my position on this topic. |
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#22
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Not many cyclists out, must be the weather.
On 22/12/2010 18:00, JNugent wrote:
On 22/12/2010 17:09, Matt B wrote: On 22/12/2010 16:35, JNugent wrote: As a parallel, only a small proportion of drivers over the drink-drive limit on any one night are ever caught. And that's partly because most acts of drink-driving cause no real danger to anyone and don't attract the attentions of the police for various reasons. That doesn't mean that drink-driving is harmless or worth ignoring, does it? You tell me. Is there evidence that drink-drivers are over represented in the accident statistics? I know that a few years ago some police force somewhere did a Christmas campaign against drink-driving and "randomly" tested drivers who were not involved in accidents or traffic offences. They found a larger proportion were over the limit than for those in the same area who were tested after being involved in an accident or committing an offence. I've no idea though how representative that was of reality or whether there have been studies and there is real evidence that drink-drivers cause more harm than sober ones. There's so much non-sequitur there, it's hard to know where to start. "Is there evidence that drink-drivers are over represented in the accident statistics?" That's not the issue (which is whether the majority of drink-drivers get away with it - and of course they do). You said: "That doesn't mean that drink-driving is harmless or worth ignoring, does it?". I was exploring whether we actually /know/ if it is harmful or not. And to the extent that it ever could be the issue, there is likely to be plenty of evidence showing that cyclists are more, rather than less, likely to be involved in collisions if they cycle along footways - whether with legitimate footway users or at the interface between footway, footway-crossing and carriageway (perm any two from three). More likely to correlate, possibly, but what is the causal factor - is it cycling on the footway per-se, or is it more to do with a reliance on and faith in arbitrarily set priority conventions. "... some police force somewhere did a Christmas campaign against drink-driving and "randomly" tested drivers who were not involved in accidents or traffic offences ... a larger proportion were over the limit than for those in the same area who were tested after being involved in an accident or committing an offence" That's not data. It's an observation. "there is real evidence that drink-drivers cause more harm than sober ones" That's a, possibly unintentional, misrepresentation of what I meant - which was: "I've no idea though how representative that was of reality or whether there have been studies and [whether] there is real evidence [from those studies] that drink-drivers cause more harm than sober ones.". I don't know where you get that from. It's counter-intuitive at the least, and smacks to a degree of "Doug's "two kinds of dead". Why would a driver who's had four pints (say) "cause more harm than [a] sober [one]"? If driving safety was adversely affected by drink, then one would surely expect drink-drivers to cause more harm (through having more accidents) that sober ones. The answer is that he wouldn't, necessarily, or probably. He might be more likely to be involved in a collision, but that's a different matter and unless there's some super data somewhere out there which proves what you say, it doesn't seem likely that accidents involving drivers with illegal amounts of alcohol in their blood are any worse than accidents involving teetotal drivers. But are they more, or less, likely to have one (an accident)? If it isn't "more", then what is the drink-drive law about? Drink-driving is banned (FCVO"DD") in order to reduce the number of collisions, not to make collisions less eerious when they happen (though that might be a side-effect in some cases). Is there evidence that drink-drivers have more collisions than sober drivers? I think we've done full-circle now - that's where I started from. -- Matt B |
#23
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Not many cyclists out, must be the weather.
On 22/12/2010 18:01, JNugent wrote:
On 22/12/2010 17:16, Matt B wrote: On 22/12/2010 16:41, Mrcheerful wrote: Matt B wrote: On 22/12/2010 16:27, Mrcheerful wrote: Matt B wrote: On 22/12/2010 15:42, Mrcheerful wrote: Matt B wrote: On 22/12/2010 14:34, Mrcheerful wrote: Matt B wrote: On 22/12/2010 14:19, Mrcheerful wrote: Matt B wrote: On 22/12/2010 13:55, Mrcheerful wrote: But 100 per cent of the cyclists I have seen in the last 24 hours broke the law in one significant way or another while I watched. What were the top 5 "offences" committed IYHO? Red light jumping (2) and no lights after dark(2), followed by wrong way in a one way (1) and pavement cycling (1). Your sample size was 6? Did any of those "offenders" cause any real danger to anyone? I did say that not many were about Just 6 in 24 hours - how much of that time were you out and about - and where? One of the rlj did cause a car to slide to a halt, which could easily have caused a pile up. Naughty then. The others caused no dangerous situation in the short time I saw them, So the appropriate legislation is possibly a bit of an overkill? Requiring people to stop or have lights or whatever when, actually, such a requirement isn't strictly necessary. so is it alright to break the laws of the road if no danger is caused? Let's turn that around... Is it all right for laws to be created willy-nilly, inconveniencing those who feel obliged to comply with them for no apparent reason and at the same time giving the advantage to those who have no qualms about breaking the law? Shouldn't unnecessary or incompetently drafted laws be abolished? They seem to have missed that bit out in the Highway Code that I have read. Laws is laws - but do we need them all? that was two journeys for which I was on the road for about 25 mins. I did not see any car RLJ or drive without any lights, or drive on the pavement or in the wrong direction, and I proably saw close to a thousand cars in that time. so is the way forward to break the laws, or mend them? Do you think that banning someone from doing something that has no detrimental effect on anyone else is a good thing? Do you think that regulations which, by their very existence, lead to more casualties and congestion than would otherwise exist without them are good regulations and should be kept? Do you think that regulations which are only generally obeyed if and when they are rigorously enforced, but are otherwise widely flouted, are good regulations? if everyone ignored every road law 'because it is not causing any danger at the moment' there would be carnage. I have no interest in living in an anarchy, I have seen Mad Max. Do you prefer that the law abiding be inconvenienced (and the advantage given to the law breakers) by a raft of, basically unnecessary and even counter-productive laws? the road laws are not inconvenient, Do you find it "not inconvenient" having to wait at a red light for several minutes whilst the sequence is faithfully stepped through at, say 3am, when there are no other vehicles on the road - and you are waiting for nobody to cross? and are for everyone's safety, Good intentions maybe, but are they misguided? In many places where traffic lights have been removed the junctions have become safer. That's a completely differenbt proposition. If lights are removed, that's fine. If they're not removed, everyone must obey them. But they don't, and those that don't get an advantage and those that do get inconvenienced by them. The discussion should be about what should be done about it: should they be heavily enforced (which itself has many other implications) so that /everyone/ is inconvenienced equally, or should they be abolished so that everyone (including the law abiders) benefit from the advantages? -- Matt B |
#24
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Not many cyclists out, must be the weather.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1 On 22/12/2010 13:55, Mrcheerful wrote: But 100 per cent of the cyclists I have seen in the last 24 hours broke the law in one significant way or another while I watched. Aye, drivers have so completely undermined the idea of obeying road rules that it would not be a surprise to find that everyone else had given up as well. As it happens, though, TRL's *objective* data (as opposed to your wank-fantasy) shows that cyclists are actually *more* likely to obey the law than drivers. The Usenet fire brigade will be along shortly to extinguish the smouldering ruins of your argument, such as it was. - -- Guy Chapman, http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk The usenet price promise: all opinions are guaranteed to be worth at least what you paid for them. PGP public key at http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk/pgp-public.key -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.14 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJNEo2kAAoJEJx9ogI8T+W/vVoH+QEJ17SvOCuu4v0a3dHoZaL2 w/d0egcZsvFlyyPsn07D/HtWjRmv9oFjWMxVhued63KyOcKsx0hBmu2rGt+XG2v0 wyalUZMyxAkl7cIcF5A+DpG5QQ+yzQtvkvVaNaS1/7SpExplt1csAtzw63CO999L 9caUrIp7lXljbx+3tssevBtnRnmxIYvc1zYpi7AgJEiW7fUZdS QsCaa4hSZ9oL4h Wk6e2aaxcj4KEu3Klln4i4UBng1C0G0cd3A0qttIRll+kDhOeO VtffTpqo8LPRcE XY6EaPrJjGDOYtJVk1RQwMYWChUbylgbKX/su8ZYGKxLvNT5rmlHZV51TqqCxzg= =kq3w -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- |
#25
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Not many cyclists out, must be the weather.
On 22/12/2010 20:19, Matt B wrote:
On 22/12/2010 18:00, JNugent wrote: On 22/12/2010 17:09, Matt B wrote: On 22/12/2010 16:35, JNugent wrote: As a parallel, only a small proportion of drivers over the drink-drive limit on any one night are ever caught. And that's partly because most acts of drink-driving cause no real danger to anyone and don't attract the attentions of the police for various reasons. That doesn't mean that drink-driving is harmless or worth ignoring, does it? You tell me. Is there evidence that drink-drivers are over represented in the accident statistics? I know that a few years ago some police force somewhere did a Christmas campaign against drink-driving and "randomly" tested drivers who were not involved in accidents or traffic offences. They found a larger proportion were over the limit than for those in the same area who were tested after being involved in an accident or committing an offence. I've no idea though how representative that was of reality or whether there have been studies and there is real evidence that drink-drivers cause more harm than sober ones. There's so much non-sequitur there, it's hard to know where to start. "Is there evidence that drink-drivers are over represented in the accident statistics?" That's not the issue (which is whether the majority of drink-drivers get away with it - and of course they do). You said: "That doesn't mean that drink-driving is harmless or worth ignoring, does it?". I was exploring whether we actually /know/ if it is harmful or not. I left out the word "potentially" before "harmless". That was an error on my part. Merely driving with blood alcohol above a certain arbitrary value is clearly not harmful to anyone. However, there is a statistical increase in the potential to make mistakes which might lead to an accident. The majority of drivers with alcohol in their blood do not have accidents and that has always been the case, even before 1967, despite the hysteria emanating from some, then and now. The whole argument is a statistical one. There is nothing certain about having an accident whilst "over the limit". And to the extent that it ever could be the issue, there is likely to be plenty of evidence showing that cyclists are more, rather than less, likely to be involved in collisions if they cycle along footways - whether with legitimate footway users or at the interface between footway, footway-crossing and carriageway (perm any two from three). More likely to correlate, possibly, but what is the causal factor - is it cycling on the footway per-se, or is it more to do with a reliance on and faith in arbitrarily set priority conventions. Both are part of the same phenomenon. Others are not having their (entirely reasonable) expectations - even entitlement - met. "there is real evidence that drink-drivers cause more harm than sober ones" That's a, possibly unintentional, misrepresentation of what I meant It's a verbatim quote from what you posted and is not unfairly truncated so as to change meaning through precluding context. - which was: "I've no idea though how representative that was of reality or whether there have been studies and [whether] there is real evidence [from those studies] that drink-drivers cause more harm than sober ones.". I don't know where you get that from. It's counter-intuitive at the least, and smacks to a degree of "Doug's "two kinds of dead". Why would a driver who's had four pints (say) "cause more harm than [a] sober [one]"? If driving safety was adversely affected by drink, then one would surely expect drink-drivers to cause more harm (through having more accidents) that sober ones. That's a different issue. Most sober drivers driving home late on any given night don't have accidents. Most drivers who are over the arbitrary alcohol limit driving home late on any given night don't have accidents either. Is there likely to be any evidence that for any accident which does occur, one involving a driver with a blood alcohol reading of (say) 70 (perfectly lawful) is likely to be "worse" than one involving a driver whose reading is 100? Or even 140? Let's leave aside those with grossly excessive readings (too drunk to stand up, etc). The answer is that he wouldn't, necessarily, or probably. He might be more likely to be involved in a collision, but that's a different matter and unless there's some super data somewhere out there which proves what you say, it doesn't seem likely that accidents involving drivers with illegal amounts of alcohol in their blood are any worse than accidents involving teetotal drivers. But are they more, or less, likely to have one (an accident)? If it isn't "more", then what is the drink-drive law about? That's the point: it's a pure statistical argument. Drink-driving is banned (FCVO"DD") in order to reduce the number of collisions, not to make collisions less eerious when they happen (though that might be a side-effect in some cases). Is there evidence that drink-drivers have more collisions than sober drivers? Statistical evidence, certainly. But it is pretty raw. Some sober drivers are "worse" than some "over the limit" drivers and that will never (be allowed to) come out in the PR. Blood alcohol enforcment is a rough justice measure because there's nothing else available. If something better (a test of spot-competence, perhaps?) were available, it'd be better. I think we've done full-circle now - that's where I started from. The issue has at least been clarified. |
#26
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Not many cyclists out, must be the weather.
On Wed, 22 Dec 2010 23:45:40 +0000, "Just zis Guy, you know?"
wrote: -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 22/12/2010 13:55, Mrcheerful wrote: But 100 per cent of the cyclists I have seen in the last 24 hours broke the law in one significant way or another while I watched. Aye, drivers have so completely undermined the idea of obeying road rules that it would not be a surprise to find that everyone else had given up as well. As it happens, though, TRL's *objective* data (as opposed to your wank-fantasy) shows that cyclists are actually *more* likely to obey the law than drivers. I love the way that you agree with TRL on some of their reports - and yet you find that others are not to you liking: eg I am sure that you will agree with their findings regarding cycle helmets: Main findings Assuming that cycle helmets are a good fit and worn correctly, they should be effective at reducing the risk of head injury, in particular cranium fracture, scalp injury and intracranial (brain) injury. Cycle helmets would be expected to be effective in a range of accident conditions, particularly: the most common accidents that do not involve a collision with another vehicle, often simple falls or tumbles over the handlebars; -- "I have never said that I encourage my children to wear helmets. I would challenge judith to find the place where I said I encourage my children to wear helmets." Guy Chapman Judith then produced the web page where he said "I encourage my children to wear helmets." Later that day Chapman immediately added the following to the web page: "This page is out of date and preserved only for convenience" but he left the date last updated as 31/08/2004. |
#27
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Not many cyclists out, must be the weather.
On Dec 22, 2:52*pm, Matt B wrote:
On 22/12/2010 14:34, Mrcheerful wrote: Matt B wrote: On 22/12/2010 14:19, Mrcheerful wrote: Matt B wrote: On 22/12/2010 13:55, Mrcheerful wrote: But 100 per cent of the cyclists I have seen in the last 24 hours broke the law in one significant way or another while I watched. What were the top 5 "offences" committed IYHO? Red light jumping (2) and no lights after dark(2), followed by wrong way in a one way (1) and pavement cycling (1). Your sample size was 6? *Did any of those "offenders" cause any real danger to anyone? I did say that not many were about Just 6 in 24 hours - how much of that time were you out and about - and where? One of the rlj did cause a car to slide to a halt, which could easily have caused a pile up. Naughty then. The others caused no dangerous situation in the short time I saw them, So the appropriate legislation is possibly a bit of an overkill? Requiring people to stop or have lights or whatever when, actually, such a requirement isn't strictly necessary. so is it alright to break the laws of the road if no danger is caused? Let's turn that around... *Is it all right for laws to be created willy-nilly, inconveniencing those who feel obliged to comply with them for no apparent reason and at the same time giving the advantage to those who have no qualms about breaking the law? *Shouldn't unnecessary or incompetently drafted laws be abolished? They seem to have missed that bit out in the Highway Code that I have read. Laws is laws - but do we need them all? -- Matt B If the existing laws were applied to cyclists as and when they break them, there would be an uproar of victimisation. |
#28
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Not many cyclists out, must be the weather.
ash wrote:
On Dec 22, 2:52 pm, Matt B wrote: On 22/12/2010 14:34, Mrcheerful wrote: Matt B wrote: On 22/12/2010 14:19, Mrcheerful wrote: Matt B wrote: On 22/12/2010 13:55, Mrcheerful wrote: But 100 per cent of the cyclists I have seen in the last 24 hours broke the law in one significant way or another while I watched. What were the top 5 "offences" committed IYHO? Red light jumping (2) and no lights after dark(2), followed by wrong way in a one way (1) and pavement cycling (1). Your sample size was 6? Did any of those "offenders" cause any real danger to anyone? I did say that not many were about Just 6 in 24 hours - how much of that time were you out and about - and where? One of the rlj did cause a car to slide to a halt, which could easily have caused a pile up. Naughty then. The others caused no dangerous situation in the short time I saw them, So the appropriate legislation is possibly a bit of an overkill? Requiring people to stop or have lights or whatever when, actually, such a requirement isn't strictly necessary. so is it alright to break the laws of the road if no danger is caused? Let's turn that around... Is it all right for laws to be created willy-nilly, inconveniencing those who feel obliged to comply with them for no apparent reason and at the same time giving the advantage to those who have no qualms about breaking the law? Shouldn't unnecessary or incompetently drafted laws be abolished? They seem to have missed that bit out in the Highway Code that I have read. Laws is laws - but do we need them all? -- Matt B If the existing laws were applied to cyclists as and when they break them, there would be an uproar of victimisation. why not then realax the laws for motorists too? Look what happened when the police kindly allowed some leeway for unlit cyclists in Oxford, the just took the **** even more. |
#29
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Not many cyclists out, must be the weather.
On Dec 25, 9:25*pm, ash wrote:
On Dec 22, 2:52*pm, Matt B wrote: On 22/12/2010 14:34, Mrcheerful wrote: Matt B wrote: On 22/12/2010 14:19, Mrcheerful wrote: Matt B wrote: On 22/12/2010 13:55, Mrcheerful wrote: But 100 per cent of the cyclists I have seen in the last 24 hours broke the law in one significant way or another while I watched. What were the top 5 "offences" committed IYHO? Red light jumping (2) and no lights after dark(2), followed by wrong way in a one way (1) and pavement cycling (1). Your sample size was 6? *Did any of those "offenders" cause any real danger to anyone? I did say that not many were about Just 6 in 24 hours - how much of that time were you out and about - and where? One of the rlj did cause a car to slide to a halt, which could easily have caused a pile up. Naughty then. The others caused no dangerous situation in the short time I saw them, So the appropriate legislation is possibly a bit of an overkill? Requiring people to stop or have lights or whatever when, actually, such a requirement isn't strictly necessary. so is it alright to break the laws of the road if no danger is caused? Let's turn that around... *Is it all right for laws to be created willy-nilly, inconveniencing those who feel obliged to comply with them for no apparent reason and at the same time giving the advantage to those who have no qualms about breaking the law? *Shouldn't unnecessary or incompetently drafted laws be abolished? They seem to have missed that bit out in the Highway Code that I have read. Laws is laws - but do we need them all? Obviously those who present the biggest threat to life and limb deserve the application of the most laws than those who don't. If the existing laws were applied to cyclists as and when they break them, there would be an uproar of victimisation. Uproars mainly come from motorists because they are far more numerous. -- . UK Radical Campaigns. http://www.zing.icom43.net A driving licence is a licence to kill. |
#30
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Not many cyclists out, must be the weather.
On 26/12/2010 07:04, Doug wrote:
On Dec 25, 9:25 pm, wrote: On Dec 22, 2:52 pm, Matt wrote: On 22/12/2010 14:34, Mrcheerful wrote: Matt B wrote: On 22/12/2010 14:19, Mrcheerful wrote: Matt B wrote: On 22/12/2010 13:55, Mrcheerful wrote: But 100 per cent of the cyclists I have seen in the last 24 hours broke the law in one significant way or another while I watched. What were the top 5 "offences" committed IYHO? Red light jumping (2) and no lights after dark(2), followed by wrong way in a one way (1) and pavement cycling (1). Your sample size was 6? Did any of those "offenders" cause any real danger to anyone? I did say that not many were about Just 6 in 24 hours - how much of that time were you out and about - and where? One of the rlj did cause a car to slide to a halt, which could easily have caused a pile up. Naughty then. The others caused no dangerous situation in the short time I saw them, So the appropriate legislation is possibly a bit of an overkill? Requiring people to stop or have lights or whatever when, actually, such a requirement isn't strictly necessary. so is it alright to break the laws of the road if no danger is caused? Let's turn that around... Is it all right for laws to be created willy-nilly, inconveniencing those who feel obliged to comply with them for no apparent reason and at the same time giving the advantage to those who have no qualms about breaking the law? Shouldn't unnecessary or incompetently drafted laws be abolished? They seem to have missed that bit out in the Highway Code that I have read. Laws is laws - but do we need them all? Obviously those who present the biggest threat to life and limb deserve the application of the most laws than those who don't. We should repeal the law for murder with a firearm then, it happens rarely. If the existing laws were applied to cyclists as and when they break them, there would be an uproar of victimisation. Uproars mainly come from motorists because they are far more numerous. -- . UK Radical Campaigns. http://www.zing.icom43.net A driving licence is a licence to kill. -- Tony Dragon |
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