Safe Speed Forums

Is he a non-smoker? You never made this clear.

IMO, you can't be unhappy at people wanting to argue both sides of the issue.

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

Yes. Martini smokers are smokers who think they should be allowed to smoke any time, any place, anywhere.

And it was a smoker who told me that one. He told off someone for wanting to smoke in a similar situation he said: "You are a bloody Martini smoker!" (He then explained what he meant) He added: "Just because WE are hooked on smoking doesn't mean we have to inflict it on everyone else!"

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www.thatsnews.org.uk / www.thatsnews.blogspot.com / http://thatsmotoring.blogspot.com/

Hang on a minute! I NEVER presumed his friend was a non-smoker! I just wondered why he got in a snit with his friend when he pointed out it was illegal to smoke in a company vehicle?

So, let's suppose his mate works in -say- a large newsagents or a big office. He would not expect to be allowed to smoke in those work premises?

I think sometimes it is too easy to presume that our mates will let us get away with stuff we would not dream of trying on with other people.

Pity he put his mate in such an uncomfortable position.

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www.thatsnews.org.uk / www.thatsnews.blogspot.com / http://thatsmotoring.blogspot.com/

Have to agree with ree.t.

Its just that everything that officialdom does in this country penalises us quite steeply for minor things. EU law can be released with 10 pages, civil servants here, I believe, turn the 10 pages into 10 volumes. There is no common sense any more, its all about getting high figures and lots of money to fund honeypots such as scammers, snoopers looking for missing no smoking signs, streets full of litter and put your envelope in a street bin you get fined, pre-teen girls chalk on pavement burly cop wants to prosecute, wrong rubbish in bin = fine. If you look around there are lots of soft petty rules and decisions made. Check out Grumpy Old Sod site. At least he has some sense.

So having been in this country for 40 years I see changes that have scrept in and we have no way of stopping them because we do not have a collective voice, we are a fragmented population told we can change things because we are democratic. Its not the politicians who have the power, they just think up the ideas other people but the flesh on the bones and these people are not elected.

Education is better than punishment, ie flashing reduce your speed or use the bins provide, take your rubbish home etc

Sorry long rant and I would still leave for somewhere else given the chance.

Regards

It is OK...

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Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus

Which is one reason why the mobile phone law needn't have been introduced - DWDCA covers a whole multitude of sins. We do not need more & more specific laws.

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Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus

Mind you, I do feel so much safer since they passed a law making it illegal to detonate nuclear devices in the UK!

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"Politicians are the same the world over... We build bridges where there aren't any rivers." - Nikita Kruschev

So why are there any more rules than just DWDCA? That alone would cover all our errant driving wouldn't it?

I presume that because people find it impossible to understand what 'due care and attention' actually is the law makers (and presumably enforcers) feel that there should be more specific guidance.

I believe the reason is so that TPTB can more easily secure a conviction.

As regards your second point, this all ties in with the fact that driver quality in the UK is on a downward spiral.

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Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus

Presumably this has been happening since the publication of the first Highway Code in 1931?

I don't think so:

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

So where is that effect caused by the introduction of 'more & more specific laws' prior to the late '90's?

Up until about 1994 where the divergence starts we must have been getting things more-or-less right. Any benefit from increasingly specific laws in the pre 1994 days must have added to the systematic improvement.

I'm not in any doubt whatsoever about what has gone wrong since 1994. Policy has been ill-founded, our safety targets have been false and we've done badly. I'm perfectly certain that we are now, on average, worse drivers.

Of course the 'baseline' risk reduction from engineering, post crash medical and so on continues at a pace. In effect we should expect the trend in risk reduction to continue under these influences.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I don't disagree, but simply 'more & more specific laws' are not the problem as the early issues of the H/C were very thin (I've got an old copy from the 50's somewhere) and there were many more deaths on the road back then than there are (even) now.

So clearly adding 'specifics' to the book of rules is not the whole problem.

But, IMO, drivers are being given more and more specific 'rules' and I believe are being 'dumbed-down' and are thus thinking less and less for themselves. I firmly believe that if you drive like an idiot - whether you're picking your nose, using your phone, having a fag, changing CD etc. or not - then you should be done under the DWDCA law.

We have the technology to allow police to video and use as evidence the fact that someone was driving WDCA.

If more and more specific laws are introduced, then people will think that because changing CD and not paying attention to driving is not specifically outlawed, then it must be OK to do it. IMO.

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Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus

I dont think his complaint is with his mate at all, rather that his mate who actualy doesnt mind in the slightest if he has a fag in the car and probably wants one himself now has to by law tell him off.

I agree. Too many posts that attack the smoker without taking into account the sense of the thread.

I also feel that Thatsnews's description of a new user on this site as a 'junkie' is offensive and unnecessary and really deserves a withdrawal of that assertion.

Nannyism is but one step from fascism and laws that engender fear of prosecution rather than respect for right make this step even shorter.

We are all individuals













Except me...

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Aquila



Licat volare si super tergum aquila volat...

Yes, MGBT. If it makes you feel better I will withdraw the term nicotine junkie.

Even though many smokers refer to themselves as nicotine junkies.

I think the problem might be that Bikerrod could have expected everyone to say: "You are so right! Yes, we agree with you 100%! We all agree that smoking laws are wrong, and your friend was wrong!"

But not everyone did.

Oh dear. Not everyone agreed with his point of view. Imagine that!

And worse! Debate ensued. My god. Will the evil never end?

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www.thatsnews.org.uk / www.thatsnews.blogspot.com / http://thatsmotoring.blogspot.com/

Bikerrod had a right to expect people to read what he had written and not to respond insultingly to an imaginary version of events.

Which, as it happens, appears to be what some posters did.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I do not wish to feel better - I feel just fine. Bikerrod was the one you should have aimed your withdrawal at, but thank you anyway.

I would not normally comment, but your posts to a new user to this community and now to me, do seem rather abrasive in their tone. This seems to be a subject, the consideration of which, so enrages you that it seems to be clouding your judgement of the sense of posts.
Without polarisation of opinion, there can be no debate. People must agree and disagree to maintain a healthy argument. Careless use of assumption and overzealous statements can turn a good argument into a slanging match.

I do not think that the OP was moved to start this thread because of his friend's statement per se, but because of the draconian law that led him to make that statement to an old friend from whom he would not previously have withdrawn his permission to partake of a legal substance.

The 'all-stick-and-no-carrot' approach to the law these days does lead the public into being amateur police - a situation that was fine-tuned and turned into a Movement by a rather nasty piece of work from Austria early in the last century...

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Aquila



Licat volare si super tergum aquila volat...