Mole wrote:
GreenShed wrote:
Oh here we go with the hypocritical commentary.
It was 7pm on a Saturday night outside of a school.
There are hundreds of comments on here justifying the variation of speed limits, examples would be:
At road works when the workers are not working
On all roads when the weather is good/bad
(Dare I say it) Outside of schools when the schools are not working
Now there are comments about this chap being a
law breaker as he was a disqualified driver.
Perhaps he could even be described as an "
otherwise law abiding motorist!"
The rider shouldn't have been riding, correct; this is no different from someone who was driving quite legally except for say, no seat belt, on a mobile telephone, exceeding the speed limit. Did his disqualification contribute to the collision? No it did not. Of course he wouldn't have been there if he observed his disqualification but contribute to the collision, ,I think not.
Do I have sympathy with he chaps family? Well yes I do, they have lost a family member to an early death. Do I have sympathy with him? Not really but I would prefer he didn't die even if he was unlawful. Do I agree with the plaudits he is receiving? No.
Where are you headed with this? You must surely see the hypocrisy and absurdity of your usual arguments. You can't pick and choose the laws you observe and when you want to ignore them; it doesn't work for anyone.
Even more importantly you can't lambaste this chap because he broke one law with tragic circumstances and then advocate the manipulation of the laws you see as OK to be ignored.
Fair points! BUT, I think there are two separate arguments getting confused here.
One is about danger, the other is the old "the law is the law" argument (which was something an old SCP member I used to see on another forum used to get quite hung-up about)!
It's about the manner in which he may have been riding up to this accident
I found the original story on a routine browse:
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/ ... hits_womanManchester Evening News - Monday 25th May wrote:
Biker dies as he hits woman
Paul R Taylor
May 25, 2009
A MOTORCYCLIST died after his machine ploughed into a woman on a pedestrian crossing and then hit parked cars.
Joe McCann, 25, is thought to have been riding a 1000cc Suzuki superbike which was involved in the horrific smash on Victoria Avenue, Blackley.
After hitting the woman in the 20mph zone outside a school, the bike slammed into a parked car so hard it shunted it into another vehicle, and erupted into flames. There are electronic speed warning signs for drivers near the crossing.
I have emboldened the report which suggests the manner in which the journalist alleges he was riding - based presumably on police comment to him.
It sounds like he was speeding and hit the brakes pretty hard - probably locking the wheel.
Mole wrote:
As has been said, we can't really comment on the "danger" side of things because we don't know the circumstances.
See above snip from the original article before the journalist discovered he was a banned rider.
Mole wrote:
As for the "law-is-the-law" argument, well, history is littered with good examples of the breaking of bad laws in order to get them changed or the breaking of other minor laws to draw attention to a cause. The people who did this (suffragettes, civil rights campaigners, faith groups etc) were often labelled "anarchists" (and worse!) but thanks to them y laws got changed.
You still have to observe the lolly signs though.
Sure - we can use a little discretion.common at times - but that also has its limits and would be judged solely on the set of circmstances as prevailed at the time. Somehow - I do not think this young man would have received any such consideration had someone pulled him up. Did he deserve to die? Well no. No one does - but our problem with these youngsters?
We've all spent hours over the past 5 years of this board's existence thrashing out in debate how we can get through to this type and how we can possibly educate effectively via appropriately fair carrot/stick
Mole wrote:
For what it's worth though, I (and I expect many Safespeeders) don't actually want to see speed limits scrapped altogether, We just want to see policies that recognise that exceeding a speed limit is not, in itself, dangerous! Automated enforcement of an arbitrary limit (with our without a tolerance!) will never achieve that.
I think most normally minded will see the logic of a speed limit - but this does not mean that "50 mph is the new 60 mph" It still means it's 50 mph
BUT...
I've said before - we can offer some professional judgement based on what is actually observed and take attitudes and inclination to learn from the experience into account. But our decisions will be based on safety/common sense/degree of the amount of "speeding" at the time within that officer's own professionally formed opinion - but we still will not allow any discretion on downright stupid. I agree that the cameras record in black and white - and you still have to be aware that all RPU cars are fully kitted with all the "toys! - which means - speeds are recorded"
Discretion though is a thin line - and we hope we have trained our RPU to adopt the rubric of "good fair practice".
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
Members
Fair points dcb. 
