Herbie J wrote:
I havent got a clue where you are getting this rubbish from but to humour you, I never mentioned speed limits, in fact if I were to it would be to make speed on open roads less of an issue than many would think, also speed within built up areas would be a serious issue to me because thats where the majority of fatalities occur not on open roads.
Installing software...lol. yeah thats gonna stop all the fatalities and serious injuries caused by such a crazy undertaking isnt it! doh!
Well it will certainly reduce the costs of dealing with spam, a significant drain on the economy, since most of that is sent through infected PCs
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Its called 'Electrician' not 'Shop' and again you in your wisdom have hit the nail on the head, thats gonna save counless life as only yesterday 3 Brazilians died wiring their TV plug up.It was even brought to George Bush's attention when he said 'My god, thats sad, just how many is a Brazilian?'
You could call out an electrician. Most people would find it cheaper to take it to a shop that has one onsite. Sucks if you're disabled or infirm.
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Cooking??? Thats a toughy so I'll leave that to the wife.
As your final point which I must say is the only bit appearing sensible
They were all examples of the same thing, dumbing down "dangerous" activities so that people don't get killed, ignoring the fact that many people can perform such activities safely without harming themselves or others. Go watch Idiocracy to see where that leads you (actually, go watch it anyway, it's a good film)
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Like so many your sentiments are admirable but you overlook facts and logistics.Do you know how many people we are talking about, are you aware how many poor drivers are out there?
A lot
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Do you know how many police are on duty at any one time?
not enough
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Do you understand how much time/effort would be required to deal with every case of the poorest driving standards when not related to speeding or crashes?
More than the current lot can be arsed to deal with, that's for certain
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Do you know how many people are given very very basic training followed by an inadequate test that does not include high speed driving/braking and does not include motorway driving?
Pretty much all of them
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Do you believe that everyone who passes a driving test is actually good enough to be on Britains roads?
Not at all.
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I have many years past experience teaching most licence groups and people from all walks of life. You will not stop people scraping through tests and being a complete idiot behind the wheel it can be an Oxford don or Road sweeper. You can only reduce some of the crap on our roads by introducing tougher policing/penalty for clearly identified causes, like mob phone use.You can use the passive softly softly stuff alongside that but the reality is people are being killed, I for one would hapily sacrifice mob phone use for me and everyone if it saved one life
Careful now, that's the exact same argument the pro-speed-camera brigade use.
It's not about saving lives though. If the government actually looked at their own research they'd realise that when people do get distracted, it's the conversation that causes the distraction, not the hand held phone, so why didn't they ban handsfree kits? Because actually enforcing that ban would require some effort, wheras banning handhelds can be enforced with a modified talivan. In the meantime you are telling people that if they use a handsfree kit they are safe. People who would've kept their conversations down to a bare minimum have been told it's ok to gab on the phone for as long as they like. Employers are fitting the kits to company vehicles and are expecting a return on their outlay, so wheras previously company mobile phone policy would be to keep to to essential or emergency calls only they're now just repeating the government message that handsfree is safe. "I was driving" is no-longer a valid excuse for not taking a call once the company fit a handsfree kit.
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I for one have not used MP on the move for years yet Ive had more training and mileage experience than most . People are addicted to things they feel they need yet dont, like mob phones. Mob phone use has been factually identified as a cause of many crunches ( some horrific ) and everyone using it at the time wasnt thinking that they were doing any harm or that their driving was affected.
If that is true, they should receive a significantly harsher penalty than a standard death by dangerous driving conviction. That's the message you want to get out. If you cause an accident or kill someone because you're on the phone, you are going to be royally fucked and will be looking at jail time. That should be enough to separate the essential calls from the non essential ones.
However most of the research has been conflicting and inconclusive, the government cherry picks and publicises the research that suits what it wanted to do anyway. If such research doesn't exist then it "funds" some research.
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This should not be worthy of debate but simply accepted. STOP USING MP WHEN DRIVING it wont kill you!
No, but it will kill lots of one or two man businesses. In todays society customers expect someone to answer the phone within 3 rings and wont bother to leave an answering machine message, they'll just go straight to the next one in the yellow pages and that probably costs an awful lot more than a £60 mobile phone fine. When the new vans come out I'm expecting to see a lot of white vans sprouting reflective windscreens (that still let in the required amount of light) since they're also going to be used to get you for eating a sandwich and quite possibly for smoking too.
Also, let me give a recent example of an illegal non-handsfree call that was made recently, obviously not naming names, but this person was driving down the A42 near to where it becomes the M42 when a fencepost-sized chunk of wood fell of the back of a flatbed. Said person immediately called the Highways Agency (via directory enquiries, since they can put you through these days) to report the hazardous debris and they dispatched someone to clear it up. Should they have waited until they got to Tamworth services some 15 minutes later, parked up, switched off their engine (as even having the engine running while using a handheld phone is illegal) and then called the HA? The person who drives into that post a minute before the HA arrived would probably have preferred it if the call were made earlier.