Safe Speed Forums

You know, Nos4r2,

You could take all the steam out of this exchange by doing one simple thing, bearing in mind that I am not the only person to have taken offence at your comments.

You could offer everyone and the memory of that child too an unreserved apology if your comments have been 'accidently misconstrued' into something they were never meant to be.

Or you can sit there and offer no apology and no withdrawal for your comments made over a warm, dead kid of 7!

I won't hold my breath while I wait for the apology, because I truly believe you lack the sincerity to offer it.

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We have a complaisant but venal judiciary and police force - all too eager to pervert the Law to satisfy their own aims

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

I'm not apologising for your lack of comprehension. See the definition of TRAGEDY. My point and viewpoint are obvious to those that aren't blinkered.

This is <edit>NOT<edit>the ABSOLUTE LAST that I will post on this subject.

As you say, Nos4r2,

No apology. So you obviously meant the smug comment to be taken just so.

I think this will be my last post on the matter because reaching any morality within you over what you originally penned is certainly beyond me.

It takes all sorts to make a world, Nos4r2: And I suppose I will just have to accept that there are people in it who enjoy passing thoughtless abrasive comments over defenceless children's demise, periodically.

Still, as you said, we don't know each other and are unlikely to ever get to know each other so I won't have to suffer the imoral stench that must follow you around when you pass these 'funny' comments about dead kids.

What a great guy you are and must be.

Goodbye

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We have a complaisant but venal judiciary and police force - all too eager to pervert the Law to satisfy their own aims

Sorry Paul, I realise this isn't the right place to extract the Michael out of him but I can't help it.


Karma police, arrest this man
He talks in maths
He buzzes like a fridge
He's like a detuned radio...







Do you miss the point deliberately because you enjoy being offended?

Darwin's theory will catch up with you if you carry on getting stressed like this...

As Data once said in Star Trek NG, "Could you please carry on with the bickering, I find it rather interesting.", or words to that effect.

What is Mr Angry about, is he our moral guardian. If a young unsupervised tearaway is stupid enough to be playing on a busy road then it is not surprising if he gets killed. We are very sad that happened, but it is not unreasonable to make some obvious deductions about that.

Are we not to be allowed to make such observations for fear of upsetting someone’s moral sensitivities, which would seem to take us back to the dark ages when it was not allowed to note the Earth was not the centre of the universe.

Oh alright, seeing as I appear to be doing a public service

Serious head on now:-

This is the reasoning behind the 'darwin' comment.

His GRANDMOTHER is 45. That makes her 38 when he was born.
His father is in prison. His mother doesn't/can't look after him.
He was 7 years old.
The accident was at 1330.
The police couldn't identify him until THAT EVENING-so no-one missed him for a long time.
He was playing in the middle of a dual carrigeway.
He was more scared of the police car than a busy dual carriageway.
The comment from a GRIEVING GRANDMOTHER was 'He was a cheeky lad but lovely with it.'. Grieving people don't say things like that about good kids to reporters.I'd lay money on her usual opinion of him as being a complete shit.

The poor little sod didn't have a chance.The basic instincts for survival in society simply weren't in place. If he'd followed the example he was set he'd have been a father before the age of 16 and in a cell by 18.
I feel sorrier for the guy in the car that hit him and the policewoman. They have to live with what happened for the rest of their lives. The unfortunate child doesn't seem to have had a life to look forward to had he survived.

Evolution doesn't only favour the strongest physically. It favours the mentally stronger as well.

Treading carefully here (especially given my recent form) but I find this argument a little interesting so I'm dipping my toe in.

I’m sure many would agree the subsequent comment in question would have been less ‘distasteful’ (for arguments sake) had the lad been (at least) 18 years old. So what’s the moral difference?

Is it because he didn’t get to experience more of life?
Is it because he was too inexperienced to have known better? (being mentally handicapped would be a parallel)
Is it because his actions weren’t completely his fault (left completely unsupervised)

Is it all of the above?

I don't think I would have put quite the same way as Nos4r2, but essentially he has identified the issues.

I feel Mr Angry has got himself hung up on the emotional issues, but if anything is to be done about such accidents we need to move on to considering the rational issues. Perhaps that will better help with such matters.

What does Mr Angry think should be done to prevent such accidents. If he lived in Peterborough would he get himself onto the committee that sets the speed limits. Would he then have them all reduced to 20mph, with the expectation that the “much loved” little Jordan would then have “had an 80% chance of surviving” when he, and any anyone else, decides to run in front of a car.

Is there not to be some understanding that busy roads are potentially dangerous places and not play grounds for children.

It's not quite that simple. Penning something which comes across as 'having a laugh' at the expense of a dead child is morally inappropriate.



I actually know that particular part of the A47 reasonably well. We used to live in North East Northamptonshire and both I and the wife used to use that road to get all the way from Uppingham into Peterborough. FWIW, I don't think there should be a change AT ALL in the speed limits on the road, and I certainly understand that kids should not play on motorways, etc, etc.

It just that - for the very reasons why kids should be supervised and not encouraged to 'play' on or near major roads - when a kid falls foul of the losing side of chance with the absolute worst consequences, smug comments quoting "Darwin" are insensitive and inappropriate.

Oh yes, strictly speaking, Nos4r2 may well be absolutely correct in his disection of the circumstances of the fatality - but it's something most other reasonable people don't need to be reminded of in the most distasteful of ways.

A little boy has died - and I would accept that he almost certainly did so through his own stupidity - but that doesn't make it acceptable to pass smug, cute, 'clever' remarks about it.




I understand this entirely, and as I have already said a smug completely unnecessary, cute comment passed 'for a laugh' about it, belittleling a 7 year old child is not appropriate.

Still, seeing as everyone seems to think I have somehow elevated myself into the position of Mr Morality over this (I haven't) - all I'd say is this, perhaps Nos4r2 should attend the kid's funeral and offer his "Darwin" theory to the mourners. Or would it be that it just might ring true with his survival odds at such a venue too.

I am not condoning for one moment the apparent behaviour of the child concerned - All I have tried to point out here is the complete lack of taste and respect for a dead kid.

Now I really do have nothing more to add.

Goodnight, gentlemen - and goodbye.

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We have a complaisant but venal judiciary and police force - all too eager to pervert the Law to satisfy their own aims

It really isn't my problem if you WANTED to interpret what I said as tasteless. The ONLY way of stopping emotional tabloid journalist type morons trying to push ridiculous rules past on the wave of grief is to look at the problem IMMEDIATELY.
For instance:-
Problem.
Someone ran around a school in Dunblane and killed a load of innocent kids with an illegal handgun. (Yes, I agree-it was horrendous)
Solution:-
Let's start an outcry and get all legally held handguns banned.It'll make no impact on the problem of illegally held handguns at all but we'll look good to 'Mr Angry'.


Even SUGGESTING saying any of this to the mourners at a child's funeral would be extremely tasteless.

Life is too short to pussyfoot about wondering if you're going to offend the next oversensitive prig to come round the corner.

Mr Angry I am pleased to see you have stopped ranting and are prepared to discuss things in a more rational manner.

The point that Nos4r2 was trying to make with his succinct comment was that stupid behaviour in a dangerous place can have substantial adverse consequences. For you to interpret all the things you did from that single word indicates a very emotional imagination.

Of course no one would wish to discuss the reality of this at the boy's funeral, since I think we all agree that would be a rather insensitive thing to do. That does not mean, however, that the various issues should not be discussed in a forum such as this, which has been set up to consider motoring issues and matters of road safety.

If you do not wish to partake in such discussions again, then that is for you to decide. It is my understanding that everyone is entitled to their point of view about such an issue, but there is no need to be so rude and aggressive to anyone you disagree with. If you react in the same way when you are driving then it would seem quite likely that before too long you could be running down a child crossing the road.

Having read back through this, can you actually say from an evolutionary perspective that this isn't just dragging our weaknesses along with us?

The illiterate and those that need support for not being able to manage on their own are effectively evolutionary dead ends that didn't make it very far-it's only a conditioned emotional response that makes us see them as otherwise.

It's not a nice truth, nor does it fit with our comfortable moral codes.
It's an argument with a lot of interesting connoitations though.

I'm till kind of going 'WTF?' to this whole discussion.

Nos and Dr L, are you suggesting it would somehow benefit mankind if kids were all placed at the side of the road, so the ones who run into the road can be eliminated from the planet or something? I just don't really see what you're getting at.

The whole idea seems totally confused. To start with, safe road crossing isn't a genetic trait at all, it's a learned/cultural trait. Lawless youths aren't a result of bad genes, they're a result of rotting culture and rotting society. Wiping people out so they can't breed won't solve it.

And Nos, your sneering at this kid for his low Darwinian fitness seems misplaced and ignorant. Being a good citizen, being good to others, and not beiong selfish all lower one's own 'fitness'. Cheating, stealing food, and getting females pregnant as young as possible increase it. Do you actually want a society based on Darwinian survival? I think you misunderstand the concept.

Yes because "weakness" in this context isn't real weakness as people generally understand the term, it's just a technical term for low Darwinian fitness: i.e. few copies of one's one genes passed on.

In the modern world, we don't live like that anymore. We're a higher animal and we have other concerns now. Being a good person is a more important "strength" to me than just passing on copies of my genes.

Richard Dawkins concluded "The Selfish Gene" with this:

I thought of the story behind this today - young kid killed by van - as i drove a van back to our depot - on the pavement to my right , and cycling parallel to me for some distance ( scaring pedestrians sh**less) were two teenagers. Both sides of the road had parked cars, road was little wider than a transit ( possibly tight to a 7.5 tonner) .As they drew parallel to me as i slowed to allow a car into a gap ,one decided to leave the pavement and get in front / down the side of me - to find that he had misjudged the gap - lucky for him i had allowed for this and stopped .
Had i been driving a little faster/had he come up on my blind side - the result could have been different - and he would have lost the arguement.
Of course public opinion would instantly blame the driver - has this happened in this case ???????

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

No. What I'm saying is that survival of the fittest doesn't necessarily depend on physical fitness. It depends a lot on parental education and common sense. The lower the common sense and intelligence of the parents the less likely they are to pass it on to their children.

Low intelligence is a product of bad genes-and so is the inability to learn to accurately assess/prioritise danger to the self. These traits were less obvious when society wasn't so nanny state orientated.
Evolution is slow, but if you push on a mountain with one hand for long enough eventually it'll move.



I wasn't actually sneering at him. I do realise it's hard to read a tone into a text page though and I can understand why you thought I was.

I do understand the concept of Darwinian survival. What I'm saying is that it's now progressed beyond physical fitness. We live in a world more dangerous and with different essential survival traits than Darwin's era.
To learn and adapt is to evolve-and nothing says this HAS to be by growing extra arms or losing our tails.

Zamzara I think you must know you are just talking nonsense.

No one is making such a stupid suggestion, apart from yourself, as to deliberately put children at risk in the way you have suggested.

Of course crossing a road isn't a specific genetic trait, but the ability to learn how to do so safely may well be. This may be a matter of the ability of the individual, or the ability of the parents to teach the child how to do this sensibly and safely.

Even our cat has learned how to cross the road without being killed and without being taught, while other cats soon get themselves killed in the process. Hence I suggest there are strong evolutionary forces at work in such a situation, in that cats that are able to learn to cross roads safety tend to be the ones that survive to carry their genes forward to have kittens for the next generation.

We grandly like to think of ourselves as higher creatures who are above such basic issues, but we are not and if we do stupid things in dangerous situations then we are just as likely to be extinguished as a cat crossing the road in an inappropriate manner.

I put it to you that Lawless youths are, in a significant way, the result of what has been provided to them by their parents, both in terms of nature, in the genes they receive, and nurture, in the way they are brought up by their parents. Of course there are other influences, such as the surrounding culture, schools and the media, but the parents who produce the offspring are likely to have a substantial influence on how they turn out. In part that may be because the parents make choices about the environment and culture the child grows up in.

As a human society we do what we can to try to help those less advantaged, but only so much can be done. If people do not look after their children, teach them to look after themselves, or the child is not able to learn such an ability, then that can have adverse consequence for the child, such as would seem to have occured in the case considered.

Whether I want a society based on Darwinian survival is an irrelevant matter, since in various way it will be, whether we like it, or not. We very well know that some members of our society are more a risk than others as a result of what benefits and genes they get from their parents and this is going to affect their ability to survive and pass on their genes to the next generation.

I think even Richard Dawkins may concede to that, unless you are Richard Dawkins, but I don't think so.

Can we really say that though? We are still attracted to the opposite sex by certain involuntary triggers that hint at likelyhood to survive and produce good quality offspring.

Being a good person IS an important strength. I didn't say I was pushing evolution forward as a philosophy to live by-rather as something to be studied as an inevitable consequence.

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Smokebelching,CO2 making,child murdering planet raping,granny mugging,politically incorrect globally warming (or is it climate changing now it's getting colder?)thug.
That's what the government want you to believe of me. If they get back in I'm emigrating.

Herein is the problem - they DID pass the defect onto their child - with tragic consequences.
OK the child wont be able to propagate that defect but I would hope that others close to that situation are touched enough to ensure their own offspring will not have that defect.


Intelligence can be can be developed, it can also be diminished. I think this more likely to be an issue of nurture; in this case it would seem the child was simply misguided by poor parental influence.