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PostPosted: Tue May 17, 2005 18:46 
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Andy L wrote:
I agree. The greatest argument against them IMO is the infringement of civil liberties


Nooooooooooooooo :( Infringement of civil liberties pah! Jailing a burgler is an infrigement of their civil liberties if we take this much abused concept to its Nth degree. I'm sick and tired of this pathetic offering as reason not to do what is asked of us.
What about our civil responsibilities? When we stop giving those a damned good ignoring, we can start whinging about civil bloody liberties.


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PostPosted: Tue May 17, 2005 20:14 
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basingwerk wrote:
No, I'm sorry but around 10 people have died in RTA's and many times more seriously hurt since your wrote that response, so the accident rate is already much higher than it could be. Complacency is NOT an option. If we had landmines that maimed or killed 1000s of parents and children each week, so that things were as bad as Ulster was or Iraq is, we’d all be up in arms, and quite right! But cars are worse than that!


And the authorities' inability, or unwillingless, to look past speed is perpetuating the situation.
And you are pandering to that mindset, which makes you no better.

As an aside, when last did you protest about the tens of thousands who die from preventable infections and medical 'mistakes' in our hospitals?
How come we're not all up in arms about that?

Cheers
Peter


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PostPosted: Wed May 18, 2005 12:47 
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Pete317 wrote:
As an aside, when last did you protest about the tens of thousands who die from preventable infections and medical 'mistakes' in our hospitals? How come we're not all up in arms about that?


When I use the roads, I'm careful, partly out of self-interest, and partly out of respect for safety. If I worked in hospitals, I'd try to take it seriously too. We should pay more for the health system to make it safer.

Failing drivers should take remedial training to teach them how to a) respect limits and b) accurately and safely gauge their speed. It doesn’t have to be expensive.

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PostPosted: Wed May 18, 2005 14:16 
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basingwerk wrote:
No, I'm sorry but around 10 people have died in RTA's and many times more seriously hurt since your wrote that response, so the accident rate is already much higher than it could be.


And out of that 10 people none are likely to be as a result of speeding, a point people like you fail to recognise as your over simplfied thinking cannot and will not move beyond the 'speed kills' mantra.

Andy


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PostPosted: Wed May 18, 2005 15:37 
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Rigpig wrote:
Nooooooooooooooo :( Infringement of civil liberties pah! Jailing a burgler is an infrigement of their civil liberties if we take this much abused concept to its Nth degree. I'm sick and tired of this pathetic offering as reason not to do what is asked of us.
What about our civil responsibilities? When we stop giving those a damned good ignoring, we can start whinging about civil bloody liberties.


:roll: First, there is no comparison to be made (either legally or morally) between someone who exceeds a speed limit (at a time when it is safe to do so or unintentionally as most of us do) and a burglar, so the comparison should not be made. Also a burglar has more legal rights than has a motorist accused of speeding – try taking your speeding ticket to court and see how unfair the road traffic legislation really is, designed for the purpose of fast tracking fine revenue payments and not to ensuring justice.

:roll: Second, you cannot assume that speed camera based technology will remain purely a ‘camera on a stick’ and will escalate, in fact the government are already discussing satellite tracking systems and have some vehicle ANPR tracking already in use, all under the guise of road safety of course. This technology is flawed as is all technology, but perceived as infallible in order to simplify the judicial system.

:roll: Third, as is becoming increasingly apparent the government will use this technology for reasons other than originally espoused (i.e. road safety) simply because they can use technology as a 'smoke screen' to justice that will and does already infringe our civil liberties.

:roll: Fourth, if people disregard their ‘civil liberties’ and don’t draw the line in the sand somewhere then they will be paving the way for everyone being tracked, monitored and prosecuted just in case their actions should have some criminal outcome. This is the case today, where a driver who exceeds a posted speed limit is automatically branded a ‘dangerous driver’ or even a possible ‘child killer’ by some, held to account by the law even though they have decades of safe driving behind them and are in reality no risk to anyone.

As for civil responsibilities – I agree we should all exercise this, I also believe most of us are responsible and conscientious, but ‘civil responsibility’ has to work all ways, authorities right up to government need also to be held to account for their bad policies and decisions (such as their speed camera policy which cost lives amongst many others) not just the public - as I write this a PC has just been acquitted for travelling 159 mph – it is these double standards that need to be addressed first, ‘civil responsibilities’ are not a one-way street – in the meantime our civil liberties are under threat now more so than ever before because of the use of speed cameras along with other tracking technologies and need protecting.

Andy


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PostPosted: Wed May 18, 2005 19:59 
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basingwerk wrote:
We should pay more for the health system to make it safer.


Pouring more money into a bottomless pit, when most of the NHS woes are caused by mismanagement and incompetence.
I fear that even if we all paid 100% tax and it all went to the NHS we wouldn't see much in the way of improvement.

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Failing drivers should take remedial training to teach them how to a) respect limits and b) accurately and safely gauge their speed. It doesn’t have to be expensive.


I rest my case, m'lud

Cheers
Peter


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PostPosted: Wed May 18, 2005 20:52 
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Andy L wrote:
A load of stuff with rolly eyes as bullet points.


I'm afraid I get that same rolly eyes feeling whenever the 'civil liberties' thing comes up. We've still got more civil liberties now than we've ever had, and certainly more than many other countries enjoy. But we're never satisfied these days are we?


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PostPosted: Wed Jul 20, 2005 14:19 
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Hi Paul, I've just read this page and decided to point out that it will take more than 1.1 sec to read a speedo, as the experiment that you've suggested isn't truly accurate, say you're outside in a normal bright afternoon, your eyes doesn't just have to focus to read the speedo, you'll also need to adjust to the lighting conditions, bright outdoor, and dark speedo, after you focus to the speedo, you will also need to read and confirm the speed, if the car is familiar to you, this will take slightly less time, and if it was a hired car, or if it's a friend's car etc. it'll take you longer to read and confirm the speed (I wonder why cars these days still don't have a digital readout for the speed?? It's not important for road safety, but it's a necessity for the new camera age!!) After you read the speed, and when your eyes rolls back to the outdoor view, you don't just focus your eyes to the views, you'll have to scan the whole area again, looking for hazards and/or any moving objects within views, and recap what is actually happening around you... this could take 1.5-3 seconds for some people, certainly much more than 1.1 seconds as you suggested in the experiment, 1.1 seconds is only the time taken to focus from a close object to a distance object, NOT THE TIME "LOST" while trying to read the speedo.

With all the people that's complaining and trying to tell us how they can drive without reading their speedo too often, I am proud to tell you, that I can probably drive a whole journey without looking at my speedo, and I probably will know exactly what speed I was doing and I also know when I should slow down and when to speed up, but before I approach a speed camera, I will check my speedo AT LEAST 3 TIMES, these days, I will check my speedo probably every 1-2 seconds, why? Because I cannot afford not to check it, call me paranoid, I'm afraid I may accidently go over the limit, but if I do get flashed, I will at least want to know if I was actually driving over the posted speed limit (I won't call it "speeding"), or if it was equipment malfunction, you can never trust machines, and you don't want to trust a corrupted legal system too!


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PostPosted: Fri Aug 19, 2005 00:11 
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This paper: http://www.vtt.fi/rte/projects/fits/impacts/aap9807.pdf appears to suggest that looking at the speedo adds two seconds to your reaction time.

This page: http://www.safespeed.org.uk/inattention.html shows how two seconds of inattention is equivalent to travelling at over 50mph instead of 30mph.

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 17:00 
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Try driving a Mercedes with (driver set) speed control, which keeps the speed below the value you set, and you will realise just how much time you spend looking at the speedometer and how much safer your driving becomes without the distraction of having to check your speed.


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