Safe Speed Forums

Just saw Basingwerk's old thread that has gone way off course, but it's such an interesting subject that I wanted to start another thread, partly because of my thoughts relating to another thread about speed limiters.

The thing that triggered these thoughts was the talk that speed limiters wouldn't work because people would override them, disable them, pretty much do anything but use them for their intended purpose, and I've been thinking about why that view wound me up so much. I see this sort of attitude as very much symptomatic of a wider problem in our society, whereby people take the piss in all sorts of ways to further their self interest at the expense of other people. The simplest example is perhaps email spam. Email could be a wonderful system, but some people have to spoil it for everyone else by deluging people with spam. Or eBay, which started off as a great way for people to buy and sell stuff, and is now overrun with scammers. It becomes an arms race, with one side trying to find ways to prevent the abuse (spam filters etc), and the other finding ways to circumvent them.

I believe that the best way, in general, that people can further the common good is to abide by the law whether they like it or not, and campaign for it to be changed where they disagree with it. In the other thread, the view was expressed that authority must earn people's respect before they will obey it, but I don't agree with this, I think that people should obey the law out of respect for their fellow citizens, not out of respect for authority.

Take an example from my work, where we develop computer software. Many people have different ideas on how computer software should be developed. Something as simple as how to name variables will generate heated discussion if you get even a very small number of programmers together. The scope for people believing that their way is "better" than someone else's is endless, and if you left everyone in a team to do it their own way, you would have utter chaos very quickly. So it is generally recognised that a system must be imposed, and everyone must adhere to that system. The surprising thing is that it doesn't actually matter that much exactly what the system is. To return to the example of variable names, you simply choose one of the proposed methods, and everyone uses it. If it isn't your preferred method, you soon get used to it, and at least all the code you work with has variables named according to this method. The vital aspect is that everyone follows the system that is chosen, not because they like it, but because they recognise that it is essential for the collective effort that everyone does so.

Of course, a company can easily monitor and enforce the right behaviour, but I do believe that if we had more people who understood and followed this principle when it comes to society in general, we would be living in a better world. I suspect many people don't actually care about collective wellbeing, that's why they'll exploit any opportunity they can find to gain an advantage at someone else's expense, provided they think they can get away with it.

The other great aspect of everyone abiding by the rules is that it becomes easy to see whether something is working or not, so the rules can be improved to address genuine problems. Back onto speed limiters, as an example - if everyone used them and didn't disable them or whatever, we could quickly see if they reduced accidents or not. But if people start disabling them, then the powers that be will just say "well, they would reduce accidents, but we can't see the benefits because people are disabling them", and law abiding people could end up stuck with something that doesn't work, just because of a selfish minority.

To stop this thread going off course, please can you refrain from discussing the examples, and only discuss the subject in general. So if you have a general point to make, and email spam is a good illustration, that's fine, make the general point and illustrate it with an example, but please don't start discussing email spam as a subject in its own right.

An interesting post, and abiding by the laws of the land are an important part of our social fabric. However, exceeding an arbitary speed limit raises much more complex issues. For a start their are millions of examples of this law breaking every day with no clear victim. Of the top of my head I can't think of another crime that has no victim. Even copyright infringements have a clear victim, namely the organisation whom you stole interllectual property from which they have paid to develop.

Also, there have been several people on here who have posted the idea that it's the spirit of the law that should be adhered to, rather then the letter of it. Doing 80mph on a quiet motorway is still clearly complying with the spirit of the law, but you are still breaking it. Another example that has been used before is that a 16 year old boy having consensual sex with his 15 year old girlfriend is still in my opinion complying with the spirit of the law. The spirit being to protect her from older male nonces who may seek to take advantage of young people. However, the lad is still breaking the law. The difference is he is very unlikely to be prosecuted, but the driver doing 80mph could very well be as it's above the threshold speed.

You have also got to look at whether the punishment fits the crime. I do 75k a year, so obviously I have much more exposure to speed traps on the road. The chance of me missing a speed limit change and therefore being caught by a speed camera is high, but yet I get the same treatment as someone who does 1k a year. If I get 3 points on my licence I have to drive 225000 miles before they are removed. Is that fair? It would be 375000 miles before I can stop declaring them to my insurance company.

All this draconian over zealous enforcement can't even be justified either, the chances of a motorist causing a speed related accident with his or her speed being above the posted speed limit is so tiny is unbelievable - the stats are on here somewhere!

To recap - personally I think complying with the spirit of a law is the most important thing and not the letter. So long as we do that I don't think respect for laws in society will be diminished.

So basically you want a totalitarian socialist system then despite the fact that lessons in history shows us it isn’t plausible.
Its an ideal that looks great on paper but thats as far as it goes.
First of all I cannot see how a socialist system can work without it turning into a dictatorship, whereby forcing me into somebody else’s image of how they think I/we should all be living.

You’ve actually highlighted the very problem. Human nature shows you cannot pass law to make people more sociable and think of their actions, all it actually does is make people look for ways around it. There is the evidence that is human nature.
Educating people, teaching them better ways is the only way forward.

Then you assume higher officials have superior knowledge to us whom will never be corrupted.

Another point is if bad things never happened then where is the will to improve things for the better? You’ve just taken away the very motivation to strive for better.

Using the example of the NHS, Healthcare is "free" in the sense that it's paid for by taxes, but apparently some people (such as fat people and smokers) are putting more strain on the system than it can bear. The government has responded by proposing "healthy lifestyle contracts" that doctors would encourage their patients to follow as a part of treatment.
Naturally, this "oppressive" proposal had fat smokers up in arms.

This represents the tax-payers telling the poor that they need to take better care of their health. But, that's unfair! Well, it would be, except for the fact that the tax-payers are paying for the medical care these others consume.
It's just not possible for people to live however they want and have society pick up the tab by subsidizing the cost of dangerous behaviours. Because of economic realities, you have to pick: either you have freedom to make dangerous decisions and bear the cost for yourself, or society picks up the tab for everything bad that happens but also has the authority and power to make many decisions for you.

I don't think anything I said implied socialism. You can reward individuals who contribute more - in my example of my work department, we reward people with a higher salary if they show that they can work in a way that increases the productivity of the whole department. If they work in this way, it will improve the company's profits far more than any amount of isolated individual work could. Nothing socialist about that approach IMO.


Yes, I agree, dubious motives from those in authority are a huge problem. But it may well still be better for everyone to follow their rules, unless it's truly extreme and harmful to do so, for example if they passed a law that said everyone must murder at least one other person each day.


I have to admit to being a bit confused by all this. I'm advocating individuals taking responsibility for their actions, not acting in a way that detracts from the wellbeing of society just because they can get away with it. People will always have the freedom to act in undesirable ways, anyone can take a big knife, walk out onto the street and stab the first person they see. I'm saying that it's people who do such things that are the cause of the problem. This view is independent of any view on who should pay for the medical treatment of their victim.

So, basically you want the government to program everyone according to specific variables.

Everyone must wear the same suit (something resembling a nehru jacket perhaps, but a bit more practical, with military style pockets and a fold over collar, what could we call it?)?

And if your name is in the first half of the alphabet you must bathe on a Monday, Wednesday or Friday, and if not on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

Regardless of whether there is a water shortage.

And everyone should buy a special monitoring device (approx £500) to confirm that they always walk on the left of the pavement (so that those closest to the kerb are facing on coming traffic) and the right hand side of the road where there is no pavement (for the same reason, except at bends where they must walk on the outside of the bend).

And cyclists should all wear hi viz vests with their NI number on it in large lettering (front and back) - only £5 if produced in bulk, so hardly a bind, is it, as well as having it on a couple of fluorescent plastic signs to clip onto frame and handlebars, again at nominal cost if they all had them.

Actually, might as well have the fluorescent vests for the pedestrians as well.

And those monitoring devices for the cyclists.

After all, if motorists can afford them on top of the costs of running a car, then surely cyclists, who are saving a fortune, could easily afford to.

In fact, given that, it would be only reasonable for the cyclists to fund monitoring devices for the motorists, after all, they will benefit cyclists more than motorists.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Ditto non car owning pedestrians.

And bus passengers.

Yes, they are heavily subsidised, so they can chip in too.

And we'd all have to obey the rules, because if we didn't all obey them, we'd never know if they worked or not.

And the government could say that they do work.

But they can't prove it because people aren't sticking to the rules.

I won't quote everything you said, lauren, but I don't believe I advocated that laws should be passed to control people's lives so much. My view is quite the opposite, I believe government intervention should be as minimal as possible. But I don't believe it is helpful for people to break laws that are passed, and I advocated campaigning against laws that you don't like, people in this country are far too reluctant to campaign against laws when it matters, which is before they are passed.

Until just a few years ago it was illegal to skip Sunday archery practice.

Can you confirm, therefore, that, given the above, you always religioulsy attended.

And, talking of religiously, they forgot to legalise one of eating Christmas Pud or celebrating Christmas, can never remember which.

Can you confirm, given the above, that you never indulged in either, and still refrain from the one that continues to be illegal?

Or are you continuing to "take the piss"?

So much?

You advocated:


So what's wrong with everyone having electronics to keep them safe?

In fact, I only discussed monitoring.

Now you come to mention it, of course the gizmos should be wired into your feet, or perhaps your brain, to keep you on the right track if you stray from the true path!



Apart from making motorists shell out for government intervention boxes to intervene in their use of their mobility and freedom boxes.



So, did you do your archery practice willingly?

Or under protest?

Capri2.8i made a good point about the spirit of the law. I think if we have a law that is not enforced and which the government has no intention of enforcing, then we can really only assume that it is an obsolete law that they haven't got round to removing from the statute books.

Are you saying, lauren, that you have no interest in whether anyone obeys the law or not? Would you be happy if someone burned your house down while you're asleep tonight, for example? If they did, they'd probably get away with it, it's unlikely to be fear of enforcement that would stop them, but fortunately most people have sufficient morality to not do an act like that just because they could get away with it.

There is also the slightly different issue that there are things that are legal to do, but most people wouldn't do because it's obvious to them that it would be irresponsible to act in that way. Excessive speed within the legal speed limit is an example of this. But when people do act in ways that really ought to be obvious to them as something they shouldn't be doing, they are a main cause of our legislative creep, where people take the piss acting in ways that are legal but highly undesirable, so we have to pass laws to be able to take action against them.

No, in another thread I said I would be happy to see the problem solved by the removal of all speed limits. But I've never been happy with a system where speeding drivers are arbitrarily and randomly prosecuted as we have at present. Speed limiters are something that I see as solving an awful lot of problems, but I would be reasonably happy to have no speed limits at all, at least I would if it were the case that people wouldn't spoil it all by taking the piss, like they do in most other situations where it's legal to act in a highly undesirable way. So we become stuck with the least of several evils.

That to me is totalitarian socialism in a nutshell.

Does every "problem" to do with speed perceived by you require more government action, more government spending, more taxation, more government programs, more laws or when the problems continue to grow, to you is this another excuse for yet more government action, more government spending, more taxation, more government programs, more laws. This resembles the reasoning of totalitarian socialism.

Have you actually considered the problem you perceive is actually a result of, or was worsened by, government action, government spending, taxation, government programs, more laws?

There are always going to be bad people, that is human nature. A system of limiting everyone in an attempt to stop a this just strikes me as using an absolutist way of using a bulldozer to crack a few nutshells.

We must have a different dictionary if you think I'm a socialist. My understanding is that socialism is really about classlessness, rewarding people regardless of merit. Nothing could be more diametrically opposed to my views. I've been called many things by people who know me in person, but never a socialist, it's really quite amusing. I didn't advocate more tax, more legislation etc, I simply advocated people abiding by the law. This is independent of any view on how much legislation we should have. I would greatly prefer it if people didn't cause the perceived problems in the first place, so there would be no need for legislation to address them.

Thing is Steve what happens when someone does not follow the internal coding standards?

We have a team of 6 developers, we have internal coding standards, and we expect developers to follow those standards.

To apply this, as you have, to speeding as an example, if I conduct a code review at the end of a project and find a developer has not followed the standards more than 3 times we would have to sack him. It doesn’t mean he is not good at the job, does not mean he can’t write good, efficient, easy to read, maintainable code, but the rules are the rules, so his p45’s on the way.

It doesn’t happen does it? No, we use discretion because that is the sensible thing to do. Certainly if the developer writes bad code or code that does not perform the function required, time after time, then perhaps letting them go is the best thing, but to me you seem to be advocating that an automated code analyser (Scamera\speed limiter) decides whether a developer keeps their job over a senior developer\project manager(Traf Pol) say so.

As a senior developer performing code reviews I know what I prefer, I would rather good coders than a code monkeys than just follow standards, that would be dangerous.

Cheers

Paul

If someone doesn't follow the standards, then no matter how good their code would be in isolation, it's going to present readability problems for other people in the team in the context of a code base that is all written to a different standard. The difference in conventions could even cause other people to introduce bugs by misunderstanding the intent of their code. If someone was intentionally repeatedly refusing to abide by the standards because they didn't like them and there seemed to be no prospect of them changing their behaviour, then yes, they would have disciplinary proceedings started against them and would eventually be sacked. The same would be true if they repeatedly showed themselves unable to write code that meets requirements, I want people who can do both, not one or the other. It's worth noting that such extreme uncooperativeness is exceptionally rare in my experience, most people want to do a good job and accept that writing code in the same way as everyone else is a necessary part of that, indeed they actively want the code they have to work with to all be written in the same way.

So, are the laws against running people down and killing them with a bicycle obsolete then?

Despite cyclists killing comparable numbers of pedestrians per passenger mile as drivers?



I have no interest in whether they obey "obsolete" laws.

Especially those that are obsolete from inception because they are pointless, or, worse, counterproductive.

Like inappropriate speed limits.



I fail to see the relevance to a discussion about speed limits there.

I'd be happy if someone lit a match in the privacy of their own home away from any combustible materials.

I'd be happy if someone lit a match in the privacy of their own garden away from any combustible materials.

I'd be happy if someone lit a match on the road, or pavement away from any combustible materials.

If the postman delivered a letter and lit up as he was walking up the path I wouldn't complain.

And if someone tried to light up in my home I might ask them to smoke outside, but I wouldn't be particularly perturbed about the match being lit.

But if they burned down my house they would be doing me harm and that I would object to.

And would have a right to object to.

As someone said, your right to punch out stops an inch away from my face.

If someone is "speeding" but not causing danger, nor acting in such a way as to give me reasonable grounds to fear danger then that is not a problem.

Even if it's at double the speed limit.

But if the speed limit is at half the safe speed for the road and the conditions then there is something seriously wrong with society if people have to campaign for the strangulation of the road system, the arteries of the nation, through which the life blood of the economy is trying to flow, to be eased.




This is classic Transport 2000/Brake/Reclaim The Streets propaganda material.

If it weren't for "all you" drivers doing 80 through play streets whilst on drugs and several times over the limit then there wouldn't be any need for 20mph limits, speed bumps and speed cameras on every street in the land.

Absolute rubbish.

That makes as much sense as:

If it weren't for "all you" human beings murdering everyone there would be no need to shackle every single one of you to your beds.

And I know you said within the limit.

And the difference is?

All you are doing is demonstrating:

a) That speed limits are pointless.

b) That "they" will use any excuse to ban driving.

Such as?

HGV driver deaths rose when they introduced them on lorries.

And Belgium recently banned cruise control because it is dangerous.

Probably for exactly the same reason as speed limiters.

Yes - that's what I said - but it is handled with discretion do you not agree? Or on seeing 4 instances (this could be as little as a slip in member naming convention) of non compliance would you sack a coder, or would you point out the problem and tell them that it is an issue, and ask them to be more careful?

Stevei :Liebchen - was replying to you earlier - but crisis in kitten corner Long story but order now established ..

Now... think Mad Doc, Riggers and Basingwerks have already discussed the sheer selfishness of human race. We have the inquisitive gene - some say down to Eve and her apple, Pandora und her box...but eating this apple or opening this box - if true und not a myth - ist the curiosity gene. This gene ist one which makes us thirst for knowledge und understanding of everything - to try to make sense of world und work out how to make our lives better. Ist also a curse - legend has it that this ist why we women have monthly blues as well. Perhaps this ist also correct - as our gaining of knowledge means we have to readdress our code of ethics... the current ho-aha with the 3-D DNA und fertilising egg in same way as Frankenstein brought life to his "monster" (imagination was also one of the ingredients in the apple und the box ... has served us well ... we have music, literature, art, drama, theatre, science as result... of a human condition)

But this apple or box also unleashed the selfish gene into us if you like... und despite being toppest scientist - still like my legends und fairy tales.

The selfish gene is the worst human trait - ist the one which pitches demands - unrealistic demands - it make people think that just because we discovered something - there ist automatic right to have it. Life ist not like that... we have some squeamish ideas about allowing our organs being used as spare parts for example. We see as tempting fate maybe...und those who appeal for donor.... they ask for a life. Is a dilemma for us...nicht? If worst had happened ... would like to think my body helped someone anyway. Everything - per Ernest's signature has a cost und for some ... too high.... if you like...




Like car boot sales...hi-jacked .I do understand you.

People do spoil things .. The selfish gene.



Lived in East Germany for while..people had enough of draconian rule and took matters into own hand to change this. This action was out of respect for fellow citizens as law of land was not in best interests of well being… people disappeared…



Yes =- we have a civilised set of rules – but this set of rules should not inhibit und be open to negotiation. No two scientists or doctor agree – but negotiation lead to common goal. That ist progressive thinking.



But it still have to move with time und adapt to stay profitable. Also as working practice change – it adapts ..ist how we improve quality of life…



Sadly world has always been full of people who take mile if given an inch…. Usually these become the entrepreneurs und hustlers who keep the economy at edge of excitement too or those who invent to improve our lot. But ist tapestry of life – you judge wisely, are wary und make sure they do not get better of you…ist part of the mechanics of life und society…positive side und a negative side – which you protect und guard against.
.


Ist problem – people unwilling to change too. So we need these challengers to norm to shake out of complacency and move on.



Belgium has found that people engaged cruise control und relied on this thinking it would automatically stop collision. We cannot lose our dexterity by relying on some gadget – we need to retain our skill – and there is every danger that people will switch to “auto” and lose that “red alert” insitinct/.

_________________
Nicht ganz im Lot!
Ich setze mich immer wieder in die Nesseln! Der Mad Doc ist mein Mann! Und ich benutzte seinen PC!

UND OUR SMILEYS? Smile ... und the the world smiles with you.
Smiley guy seen when you read
Fine me for Safe Speed
(& other good causes..)

Greatest love & Greatest Achievements Require Greatest Risk
But if you lose the driving plan - don't lose the COAST lesson.
Me?
Je ne regrette rien!

It depends on the intent. If they have had it explained to them the first 3 times, and have deliberately continued to do it, then proceedings would be initiated. Most developers would probably love to have an automated tool that helps them to follow standards, much as a speed limiter would help people to follow speed limits.

The fundamental purpose of the law is to enforce social norms. But exceeding the speed limit is a social norm... Something wrong here...

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