Safe Speed Forums

A new book, soon to be released: Scared to Death

The chapter on speeding tells the Safe Speed story in glowing terms. I'm rather well quoted. I've just received a pre-release copy, and I have to say: 'Wow!"

I'm going to be working on it on the launch day - November 10th.

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

Apparently this book is now launching today, not on the 10th as previously advised.

Safe Speed issued the following PR at 03:24 this morning:

PR563: SCARED TO DEATH - An important new book supports Safe Speed analysis

news: for immediate release

In the major new book "Scared to Death", launching today (8th November 2007),
Christopher Booker and Dr Richard North reveal 'the anatomy of a very dangerous
phenomenon'. The phenomenon is the modern scare story - case after case is
examined where little more than fear has resulted in extremely expensive and
ineffective policy changes.

Chapter ten deals with modern road safety policy and provides substantial
support for the analysis that the Safe Speed road safety campaign has been
providing for over 6 years.

Paul Smith, founder of SafeSpeed.org.uk, said: "It's an interesting and
important book and I recommend it to all - especially Department for Transport
- perhaps it will help them to understand where they went so horribly wrong."

"It is perfectly clear that modern road safety policy founded on speed cameras
has failed and this book puts forward some of Safe Speed's evidence in a very
clear and compelling way."

"Speed camera policy is revealed to be a billion pound red herring that has
actually cost lives by distracting everyone from much more important safety
factors."

"It's almost five years since I realised that speed camera policy wasn't just
ineffective - it was actually dangerous. During those five years everything I
predicted has come true - and is revealed in the book."

<ends>

Notes for editors
=================

Amazon link to book:
http://tinyurl.com/3d7vw3



Launch PR from Platypus (forwarded with permission):

======================================================
PRESS RELEASE - LONDON WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 7TH (EMBARGOED UNTIL 0.01 ON
NOVEMBER 8TH 2007)

SCARED TO DEATH: From BSE to Global Warming - How Scares Are Costing Us The
Earth
By Christopher Booker and Richard North

512 pages £16.99 Hardback
Published November 10th 2007

For author interviews or further information your media contact is Jeff
Scott at PLATYPUS PR ­ phone him on 01273 692215 or email jeff@platypuspr.com -
alternatively please call Sarah Patel on 0207 922 0938 or email her at
spatel@continuumbooks.com

AUTHOR’S STATEMENT

Christopher Booker has released the following statement to coincide with the
publication of this book co-authored with Richard North:

"What our book 'Scared to Death' tries to show is how, in the past 20 years, an
endless succession of supposedly science-based ‘scares’ have become one of the
most damaging features of our modern world - and that these all follow a
startlingly consistent pattern.

What we should really be scared of is the ease with which bogus science and
media hype are being allowed to inflict immense damage on us all by promoting
scares which eventually turn out to be largely or wholly baseless - when we do
have all sorts of genuine problems to worry about. Indeed, as scary as anything
these days is the near-complete breakdown of trust in our politicians and their
seeming inability to understand what those real problems are.

Scared to Death focuses on all those peculiarly modern scares which rely on
fraudulent science. We begin with the notorious food scares, such as Edwina
Currie’s panic over eggs and the hysteria over BSE, which ended up costing
Britain £7 billion for nothing. We then move on to a wide range of more general
scares, focussed round topics as diverse as the Millennium Bug, lead in petrol,
speeding, passive smoking, asbestos, ‘Satanic child abuse’ and many more.

These were all panics originally based on misreading the evidence, aggressively
promoted by interest groups and emotive sound bites into a received ‘narrative’
that bore no relation to the actual facts.

Finally, most damaging of all, is the way again and again we have seen our
political rulers, in Westminster and Brussels. reacting to these scares by
dreaming up ill-conceived new laws for which we all pay a colossal price -
amounting to billions, even in some cases hundreds of billions of pounds."

Nothing has better illustrated the thesis of our book than the one-sided
manipulation of scientific evidence used to promote the belief in man-made
global warming, accompanied by the absurdly unrealistic measures our gullible
politicians are now proposing in response to it. The latest scientific evidence
shows that, while CO2 levels are still rising, global temperatures are at a
lower level than ten years ago and may even be falling. This could just turn
out to be one of the most damaging confidence tricks the human race has ever
played on itself."

"Even those not yet sceptical about the great crusade to ‘save the planet’ from
global warming might be shocked to see just how many parallels it presents to
the pattern of other scares before it, so many of which have now been
discredited."

About the Authors

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER was one of the founders of Private Eye and its first editor,
to which he is still a regular contributor. He has a weekly column in the
Sunday Telegraph and often writes on political issues for the Daily Mail. He
has published several books on contemporary history and storytelling.

RICHARD NORTH, a political analyst, has been a research director in the
European Parliament, and was formerly a nationally known consultant on food
safety.

"This brilliant exposé of some of the most destructive delusions of our time
should be compulsory reading for everyone (particularly journalists and
politicians)"
James Delingpole

"Booker and North turn an intellectual searchlight on the dark corners of our
society¹s irrational terrors and emotional outbursts in the face of media scare
stories. Meticulously documented and intellectually rigorous, Scared to Death
deflates and demythologises a long list of recent misreported and mismanaged
panics. One of those 'must read' books that is also a pleasure to read."
Anthony Jay, Co-author of Yes Minister

Scared To Death for the first time tells the inside story of many of the major
scares which have exploded into the headlines of the past two decades. Drawing
on thousands of scientific and other sources, it analyses the crucial role
played in each case by scientists who have misread or manipulated the evidence;
by the media and lobbyists who eagerly promote the scare without regard to the
facts; and finally by the politicians and officials who come up with a mass of
misconceived legislation which is no more than a ‘sledgehammer to miss the
nut’, for which we all pay an astronomic price.

Contents
========

Part One: The Food Scares

Prologue
Chapter One: Countdown to an Explosion: How Scares Became A Disaster Waiting
To Happen, 1981-8
Chapter Two: ‘Killer Eggs¹: The Great Salmonella Scare 1988-9
Chapter Three: Enter the Hygiene Police: Paying The Price 1990-4
Chapter Four: ‘Listeria Hysteria’: The Lanark Blue Case 1995
Chapter Five: Mad Cows and Madder Politicians: The BSE/CJD Scare 1996-9
Chapter Six: Officials Can Kill: Meat, Cheese and E coli 1998
Chapter Seven: The £1 Billion Blunder: The Belgian Dioxins Debacle 1999
Epilogue to Part One: The Rise of the ‘Health and Safety Culture’.

Part Two: General Scares

Prologue to Part Two: The Millennium Bug.
Chapter Eight: Sledgehammers To Miss Nuts: A Wider Look At The Scare
Phenomenon (DDT, Nitrate, Vitamin B6, Cockles).
Chapter Nine: The Modern Witch Craze: Ritualised Child Abuse
Chapter Ten: ‘Speed Kills’: A Safety Scare That Cost Lives.
Chapter Eleven: ‘We Love Unleaded’: How Confusion Over Lead Cost Billions
Chapter Twelve: Smoke and Mirrors: How They Turned ‘Passive Smoking’ Into A
Killer
Chapter Thirteen: ‘One Fibre Can Kill’: The Great Asbestos Scam.
Chapter Fourteen: ‘Saving The Planet’: The New Secular Religion
Chapter Fifteen: ‘Licensed To Kill’: The Scare That Never Was
Epilogue: A New Age of Superstition.
======================================================

I see that Amazon have it on offer at £10.49, down from £16.99 - that's a nice price... <click here>

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

Excellent - have ordered one.

_________________
I won't slave for beggar's pay,
likewise gold and jewels,
but I would slave to learn the way
to sink your ship of fools

Likewise - are you on a commission Paul?

I've emailed BBC Radio Cumbria to flag it for their attention, and the presenters comment was favourable.
Others might try the same tack!

_________________
Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

The Amazon link given provides a few pennies. Other than that, no.

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

Ordered a copy, it will be nice to have the facts to back up what I have generally believed about these scares.

_________________
Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

I ordered this a couple of weeks back now - hope this means it'll come sooner. I'm looking forward to giving it to my very labour-grandmother to stoke the debate we often have on government lies and deceipt

*sigh* just recieved this email

We wanted to give you an update on the status of your order.

Unfortunately, the release date for the item(s) listed below was changed by the supplier, and we
need to provide you with a new estimated delivery date based on the new release date:

Christopher Booker (Author), Richard North (Author) "Scared to
Death: The Anatomy of a Very Dangerous Phenomenon" [Hardcover]
Estimated arrival date: 28/11/07 - 12/12/07

We are sorry for any inconvenience this causes.

Four on order.

Solved part of my Christmas present problem.

Regards

Malc

My copy on order...

_________________
Magistrates rule #1: "Never let justice get in the way of a conviction."

Page bookmarked...
I have some shekels coming my way very soon and, apart from passing a few on to SafeSpeed, as promised, I will place a copy of this, by donation, in every secondary school in my area. I do not lie to the students at my school, which has got me in the political shit more than once. Let's see them sweep THIS under the carpet!

Josh

_________________
Aquila



Licat volare si super tergum aquila volat...

Far too modest, Paul. This book vindicates everything you have fought for.

Bloody well done.

_________________
Save a cow - eat a vegetarian

Message from Amazon; on Fri 09 November 2007

So much for the claimed dispatch date quoted when it was ordered: 8 Nov 2007, Delivery : 9 Nov 2007 - 10 Nov 2007

Global warming: Don't look now, Daily Telegraph, 12:01am GMT 10/11/2007

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jh ... boo110.xml

James Delingpole reviews Scared to Death: from BSE to Global Warming: Why Scares are Costing Us the Earth by Christopher Booker and Richard North

Imagine you could travel back to Britain in 1998. One of the amusing things you might do there - in between buying heavily into property and cheap gold - would be to pooh-pooh all those ridiculous panic-mongers wittering on about the Millennium Bug.

"It's just another of those modish, silly scares that never actually come to anything," you could declare with a knowledgeable chuckle on Newsnight and the Today programme.

No one would take you seriously, though. Why should they, when the prime minister himself - presumably with access to much better expert advice than you - had declared the Millennium Bug "one of the most serious problems facing British business and the global economy today. Its impact cannot be overestimated"?

But had the world listened to you instead of to Tony Blair, it might have been spared the estimated $300 billion it spent trying to solve this non-existent problem.

Add to that the many more billions squandered in the past two decades because of similarly groundless scares over dioxins, Mad Cow Disease, leaded petrol, asbestos, Listeria and salmonella, and you begin to understand the aggrieved tone of Christopher Booker and Richard North in their rather terrifying book, Scared to Death.

Why, the authors would like to know, are we so susceptible to doomsday scenarios which, on subsequent embarrassed examination, turn out to be a complete load of cobblers? And what, they ask in their longest and most contentious chapter, does this have to tell us about our current obsession with man-made global warming?

For a scare to take flight, they argue, it must fulfil certain basic requirements. It must be based on something true, which is then hysterically exaggerated into a major threat.

Its danger must seem universal (eg eggs, beef, computers). It must contain the right mix of uncertainty and scientific plausibility. And it must be talked up by the media and "remedied" by the government, usually at enormous expense to the taxpayer.

As a classic case of this, the authors cite the BSE fiasco, which began in 1996 when the health secretary Stephen Dorrell stood up in the Commons to announce the possibility of a connection between Mad Cow Disease and a horrendous new brain disease in humans called new variant CJD.

That night on Newsnight, Jeremy Paxman egged one of Dorrell's scientific advisors, Dr John Patteson, into agreeing that by 2005 no fewer than half a million people would have died through eating infected beef.

In the Observer four days later, the scare was escalated still further, with a prediction that by 2016 CJD victims would be dropping at the rate of 500 a week, the NHS would have disintegrated under the strain, and the French would have filled the Channel Tunnel with concrete.

In the wake of Dorrell's statement, the EU banned exports from Britain of all beef-related products. And for years to come - despite no scientist ever having said it was necessary - all British beef cattle more than 30 months old would have to be incinerated.

The cost of slaughtering these eight million animals would, of course, be borne by the taxpayer to the tune of £3.45 billion - or £57 for every man, woman and child in the country.

And for what exactly? Barely a year after his advice had set this hysteria in train, Dr Patteson was delivering his revised estimate of the number of deaths likely to result from vCJD. Not half a million but, er, 200.

A decade on, even the revised figure looks excessive. Incidence of vCJD has dropped to virtually zero, and the number of deaths has turned out to be little more than 100. And the evidence, say North and Booker, suggests that even those deaths were not caused by eating beef, anyway.

Most of the scare stories analysed in the book - with the authors' characteristically scrupulous attention to detail - follow a similarly depressing trajectory.

The one exception to the rule, they discover, is the organophosphate pesticides responsible for such genuine horrors as Gulf War Syndrome. No doubt the Government was greatly aided in its initial attempts to play down the problem by the scepticism of a public that felt it had been fed one health-scare story too many.

Surely the book's key chapter, though, is its devastating critique of the man-made-global-warming industry. Even if you'd like to disagree with the authors violently - and if your heroes include Al Gore and George Monbiot, you surely will - the chapter is well worth reading for the clear, methodical, well-documented way in which it analyses the growth of the phenomenon.

For "climate change deniers", it will be manna from heaven. For those in the opposing camp it ought, at the very least, to provide serious pause for thought.