Safe Speed Forums

Still do not see the point of bringing an "inconsequential" to compare with a "consequential" Surely in a "peer review" you compare like with like and those comparing your work are of similar academic standing to yourself My work is reviewed by other doctors. I review their work and Wildy's by doctors and other "toppest" scientists!

Right - wife is head scientist at her place of work. She's the brains behind some medicines - one in news at moment over a licencing delay issue. Why has she delayed the licence process and subjected to an urgent re-test - because when she looked at the data - she had one blip which gave her a doubt. This is definitely life and death matter and her work is not just dependent on her findings - she's also reliant on the doctor's understanding and adherance to doseage. One stastistical blip there - and that hell brew of hers may even kill the patient.!


My work? My lurgies evolve year on year. They attack different organs as well. If I blip on something - I have a better "get out" clause by the very nature of what I deal with - because I cannot predict how any virus will attack a human - once I've even identified it. I can also try different medications - and I have to be precise on history and dose as well as understand exactly what this drug is supposed to do - but I have a slightly better amount of "slack" than Wildy! in so far as an initial misdiagnosis will not kill my patient short term. Her blips can result in major litigation suits and so on if she brings something fundamentally flawed to licence.

Now - take the bmj paper. Pilkington explored the data such as he was given by the partnerships. He found it to be flawed - and we are talking life and death situation - he more or less lends credence to fact that these cameras are not as efficient as claimed. But we have a statistical blip here - figures which are not standardised to a control and it is not good enough. We also have three accredited persons suggesting "regression to the mean" as well in the three works Mountain/Baker/Pilkington - but each show a conflict as well a corelation with each other and are thus not 100% reliable. So it would be with Paul's work and bear in mind - his site is admittedly a jigsaw because it evolved rather than set out with prescribed aim at the beginning. Thus - he would have to spend some time formatting and jigging to more refined format before any review could take place. In the meantime - traffic accident stats will change - according to season, weather, population growth and movement - pluc new roads and roadworks and perhaps some re-stationing of the cameras as has been seen in Cambs by two different members of this over large family.

_________________
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safespeed prospers-smiles all round! !
But the real message? SMILE.. GO ON ! DO IT! and the world will smile with you!
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Some time ago, Richard Lyon made some comments on a page on my website which can now be found here:

http://www.richlyon.net/archives/2002/0 ... ding.shtml

This sparked a lengthy and stimulating debate including contributions from Paul Smith and at least one other regular contributor here.

It may simply be a question of removing comments when archiving, but it would be interesting if Richard could explain why all the debate has been deleted.

_________________
"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Right Rich - enough of these evasive analogies which quite frankly show you be a not so very smart ass!

Ted's already told you about his work and need for accuracy and his wife is one prissy Swissy

You make a reference to the LTA and statistical blips not being of consequence. Well - to a top seeded tennis player - can make him out of pocket on sponsorship deals and so on - and could very well end up in death of Wimbledon in ensuing law suits over it. But people don't die as a result.

You mentioned "flu jabs killing people." The Mad Cats pointed out that they could do if a mistake were made with medical history of the patient - so again a blip there can result in death and more srious illness if yuou like! Poor analogy really

You compare this site to opening a shop selling booze and fags next to a primary school and being held responsible if the kids buy these items from you. Well - you would be - and we'd arrest over it. But again this is irrelevant - because in that scenario - you are pyhsically supplying. If your gripe is an advert for a gadget - the gadget is legal to own and use in this country. A jammer is not legal - but a detector is - and since we all give site locations and even tell the BBC local radio about planned speed enforce zones - not exactly breaking any laws there.

So again - your analogy is flawed and a bit - well - irrelevant and pointless!

Now I see Ted has mentioned the BMJ report which partially supports criteria on this site in that it questions the reliability of the data supporting the camera claims and also mentions that regression to the mean should also be held into account - as does Dr Mountain's piece - and Rose Baker's work on the lottery aspect of a ping. Now they do not support 100% - but then they do not support the other side 100% either. All three reports contradict each other as well and all have been "peer reviewed" and none prove conclusively anything good, bad or indifferent about the camera policy if we are strictly truthful here. The same would no doubt hold true about the information on this site - which is regression to the mean at the sites. I do not drive looking at my speedo - nor does anyone in our extended families - but we do check when approaching a camera to make sure there's no drift - one glance and that's that really! But I am sure some do and equally sure based on actual driving that some (not all) people see the cams far too late and panic brake regardless of speed. That tells me that they are just not observing the road ahead - and that's how the accident happens - driver error - they do not observe nor are they prepared to learn from mistakes.


The issue of whether or the data be submitted for review is actually an issue for Paul alone to decide - and it will probably be in same boat as the others - some points valid and others requiring further research in reality - but it is not going to solve a here and now situation which my lads and lasses deal with on a daily basis - as in how the hell do we reign in that young early teen joy rider before he takes himself and others out with him? Or the bikers up in Teassdale and Weardale. any more than the cam van we use will.

But regardless - since you bring up daft analogies which are hardly in the same league and thus cannot be compared even for sake of argument - when I and my team investigate an accident - we pick up every trace on the road and examine it. We look at medical and autopsy reports to get the health of drivers and victims, we measure the road and the damage to the cars - including looking at trypes, windscreens, wipers, wash levels, and mechanics general to try to establish what when wrong. If accidnet was similar to another accident on same road - we look very closely to establish a link as this may suggest a recommendation for engineering or some cam van activity and patrols there But botom line is - you comapare like with like! I could not compare a colision betwen wtwo cyclists to a collsion between a biker/biker or biker/cyclsit or car/cyclsit/bus etc - because they are just not the same -= nor is the impact the same. So if you want to make analogies - keep like with like and stop trying to fudge the issue by tryiung to compare a life'death with a nother issue because you will not win the argument by doing so!

In any case - as pointed out - whilst the LTA stat error does have consequences - it affects seedings and ratings and for a professional tennis player - this does indeed take on a life and death urgency!

_________________
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Could this be a copy of the page including the debate?
(All available versions of the page can be found here ).

The page was written in December 2002. It was one of the last pages added to the site while it was still a hobby activity. In fact the deadly loss of trend highlighted on that page was a major factor - probably the biggest single factor - in my decision to run the campaign full time.



And of course 5) Cause in common An external factor caused BOTH the loss of trend in fatality rate AND the rise in camera convictions.

I believe the causal relationships to be as follows:

* The availability of speed cameras caused a change in thinking which in turn caused a change in emphasis in national road safety policy.

* The presence of cameras on our road distracts and misdirects driver efforts from more important safety factors. Thus this is a cause of part of the loss of trend.

* The new national road safety policy misdirects road safety efforts and messages to a minor safety factor and away from factors that were more important and more likely to effect beneficial change. Thus the cameras have a road safety 'opportunity cost' which is responsible for another part of the loss of trend.



Good point, although I think you meant 'disingenuous'.



As I said yesterday, yep. Quite right.



I'm not so sure about that - I went on to do that on a different page. <here> It's important to understand that I was on a voyage of discovery. I'm not very inclined to change the record of the voyage. I'm more inclined to provide a summary which dips into the historical material as required. Such a summary is available at:
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/againstcameras.html

What I really need to do is re-write the lot, possibly as a book. (So if there are any publishers reading this, you really need to give me a ring!)



Brilliant, Prof, thanks. Very helpful.

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

Do you know, and I mean this absolutely sincerely, I think the road safety information on the DfT website is far more dangerous to society as a whole than the roadracers site. The fact that the content of the roadracers site encourages people to think about how not to crash is highly positive.

Being safe is massively different from being legal. Some illegal behaviours are unsafe, but there are gazillions of ways to be (broadly) legal yet extremely dangerous. Some of these may well be judged to be illegal after the event (such as careless driving), but no amount of implorement to obey the law can prevent them.

Even the strictest legal compliance could not deliver even 5% of the road safety we already have. For evidence look at the crash risks associated with newly qualified drivers. They tend to be very compliant, but their crash risk is horrendous. Imagine the entire road network populated by folk such as these.

Anyway to get back to the original point, if I ever find Safe Speed information being misused, I shall demand that the misuse ceases. I would be likely to be able to be effective in this citing copyright law. To date I have seen no such abuse.

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

Rich,

You have lost the argument comprehensively. Nothing in your original assertions has any standing left in the light of replies and explanations provided in this discussion. The open review policy has worked and has worked admirably.

I am coming to dislike your style of argument. You have ducked and dived and have introduced endless angles and red herrings. You have failed to answer contrary evidence time and time again. And there's rather too much innuendo and not enough solid foundation for my liking.

However, you have the intellect, the background, the interest (apparently?), the communications skills and the general ability to become an extremely valuable contributor. I urge you to take a couple of steps back and consider where you want to go from here. I expect you have been surprised by the level of debate and the general soundness of analysis that you have found here.

I'm looking for a positive way forward, and I suggest that the next step, should you have the interest, is for you to study the case properly. I offer this link for the 3rd time: http://www.safespeed.org.uk/againstcameras.html

I would be absolutely delighted if you found a flaw. Go for it!

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

It is a time honoured tradition for the owner of a Single Issue site to invoke his powers to terminate a discussion who's direction he dislikes with words similar to "You have lost the argument comprehensively, ...".

But Paul, please don't imagine for a moment that my intention was to engage with the members of a Single Interest group, or with its owner who - by his own admission - depends for his livelihood on the success of the group, in the hope of gaining their acknowledgement that I had "won" any argument!

My purpose was simply to calibrate for myself the standards for honesty and accuracy that were being set, which I have done.

I have attempted to maintain what at times was up to 7 different and difficult conversations, with some measure of composure and grace in the face of some fairly unpleasant treatment of a guest. Nevertheless, you feel at liberty to assert that I have ducked and dived, and to express your dissatisfaction in the tone of my argument. I'm less concerned at your lack of grace, and more concerned by the failure it indicates to appreciate the challenges faced by anyone who is not "of your group" and yet who you claim successfully and dismissably provide the intellectual challenge your theories need for wider respectability.

Even more serious, however, is the fact that I feel unable now to summarise the impressive array of evasions and defects in the arguments that have been deployed in this thread, for fear of providing an excuse for you to delete either this post or the entire thread. This is the clearest evidence of how utterly skewed and compromised this so called "open review" policy of yours is when it takes place on a site the owner pays for, derives his livelihood from, and controls the "delete" button on! It also shows why the only place for intellectual challenge to take place is on neutral ground, and how meaningless any claims for an absence of the lack of challenge is when made by the owner of the "delete" button!

The only point I have pursued, and the one that still stands, is that for as long as you police your own work, and set such low standards for accuracy, you will never gain intellectual credibility. I've had very little reassurance (tip of the hat to the Proff and a few more) that that is likely to improve any time soon. However, that is not to say that, in Britain, your theories will never become popular!

I think you will find the task of assembling your work into a form that survives external scrutiny extremely challenging. Large sections of your argument will have to either disappear or undergo wholesale transformation. From my perspective, this process is either going to kill you or cure you, and I'm OK with either outcome (why should I not be?). So between that, and having had the flaws I've found for you so far met with a sort of "Liar! Liar! Pants on Fire!" kind of debate, you'll understand if I respectfully decline your invitation to find any more for you for now. I may rejoin the debate after that has taken place to discuss what has survived.

Take care and Happy New Year.

No it hasn't, it has failed appallingly for all the reasons I keep harping on about
This unfortunately is the way we treat everyone who comes along making a criticsim. Rich has put a few noses out of joint here, particularly amongst a few who thought they were pretty smart themselves and yet ended up arguing the wrong point


No he hasn't. You have the comfort of being surrounded by a large 'gang' of individuals who are predisposed to belive your POV and not someone like Rich's. With the metaphorical crowd behind you going 'what he said' you gain the illusion of having 'won' the argument.

If this is the best we can do then you may as well put up a sign saying 'if you don't agree go away' as the invitation to come on in and discuss things sensibly and openly is merely a honeypot and the entrance to the bears cave.

IMHO the last two posts [edited - Rigpig pipped me - the two before his] were an unfortunate conclusion to this thread.

However correct the deduction in Paul's opening paragraph, unless there is strong reason for discontinuance, disliking the style of argument is IMHO all the more reason to continue the debate to logical conclusion on the terms of the proponent.

Paul evidently believes the argument was concluded with his earlier summary. He may be right. I would personally have liked to have seen Rich's more detailed final take on the debate.

I've personally not witnessed an array of evasions. I did note two "rant" posts from a banned member were deleted. They were deleted because, as is usual, he went "off on one". The context of those deleted posts refer to history of the site where, in the early days, there were some hints on here that bordered on how to evade responsibilities. These were deleted a long time ago. Accordingly, one of (I think) my statements above - that "..there is not and has never been.... to break the law/encourage disorder" is actually wrong. However, there has not been for many years - since SafeSpeed "grew up" if you like, and no member to my knowledge is condoning that behaviour now. Has anything else been deleted in here? I do'n't think so, other than self deletions typically as "thought the better of it" edits (principally Rich himself, but others also).

I would personally love to see Rich continue here if he feels he can spare some time. Among other things, he has sparked Prof into providing what to me was an invaluable critique of a very early piece on the website. Whilst it is by inference that his (present) belief is that speed cameras are a good thing, he has been careful not to let that openly influence his contributions here, which has generally kept the pantomime "oh no it isn't/oh yes it is" type rejoinders at bay that so often debates on websites degenerate to. I cannot believe that such a summary would be deleted unless it was ad hominem or in itself libellous. Why would Paul want to do that? If it was "damaging" to his current premise, but specious, the follow-ons would tear it apart. If it was damaging but credible, it would be evaluated and if necessary, the errors/fallacies on the website corrected with appropriate acknowledgement to Rich.

Would this thread be deleted? No, no and no. It may be re-filed/locked if an accuracy query was vindicated and dealt with, but not deleted and certainly not obscured from public view.

I have to agree with Riggers and Roger here.
Paul, no offence, but you do come across as being heavy-handed at times - sometimes unjustifiably so - and it does you no favours.
I'm finding it quite bizarre that you put up with the likes of BW for so long, yet you attack Rich for the 'style' of his argument.
If I'm out of order, I apologise - but I'd like to see 2006 starting out on a good footing.

_________________
Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

I wasn't trying to prevent further discussion. And nothing is going to be deleted.

I just honestly believe the process has worked and the argument concluded. I'm somwhat surprised that others disagree. So be it, they are entitled.

Let the discussion continue!

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

Noted, Pete, thanks. I'll try harder.

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

You said this earlier – voting for this government’s policies – because you believe in them und think majority think as you do. Only statistics on turn out show majority abstained either through apathy or fact that none of them are really suitable anyway. Poll after poll reveal dissatisfaction with current policies in every field from health to education to road safety hence I think you are gullible und und unable to form your own opinion without some politician or academic making it up for you. Who I voted for in end ist matter between me und ballot box und my conscience anyway - but I do not trust any politician as they are only concerned with NUMBER ONE regardless.




You continue with a nonsensical analogy (one of many und all irelevant as the criteria is different as ist burden of accuracy und burden of proof in civil und criminal law ) as anyone who know anything about medicine und research know - we set out with specific aim und ist also greatest danger we look for thing which support initial supposition. We have one drug in circulation which does what it say on label - but team I was working with at time did not set out to cure that illness - we found in trial it treated something else better und with modifications - became mainstay of a treatment for something else





There ist still little relevance to an analogy to flu vaccination analogy. In fact –we do not know if death increase as the strain the vaccine work with ist not the one it treat. Its prime function ist to lessen symptoms if new strain invade body – but each person react differently und we can still have fatals regardless.


As said earlier - criteria und method were be more stringent in case of meical trial und burden of accuracy in other field may not dictate same stringency und allow bit more "slack." Thus - your analogies for comparison are a nonsense really und if you run away because this ist pointed out to you thinking I und Ted have not been nice to you....

Come back und fight like a man!

Now if you look at case for cams – in early years – they whacked up a camera und as people were pinged und remembered where they were sited – they started to either avoid the road or slow for camera – speed up und have accident somewhere else. But this government looked at those early findings und came to conclusion that “death not happening at this site now – therefore camera save life.”

Ist same jump from A to B without the COAST drive in middle - und still not valid claim.


We still have not proven this! Und there have been no peer reviews only government und partnership claims! If you claim you believe these without a "peer review" und just partnership claims - then you are not being honest with yourself Liebchen!

People believe figures like these - und they really cannot be correct. Any more than lieber Kevin stating 70% fall in death over three year period on radio - yet you do the Math per his site und come up with 7% drops overall

Shall give you example und in March - click onto the Cambridgeshire Parnership site Mid March - around 18th-25th week inclusive.

We are very large family - have far too many cousins und siblings und in-laws But one of them live near Cambirdge und he married in March many many year ago und he hold biggest bash on anniversary.

We drive down each year und just to be aware - we look at location und timetables for speed traps. Not that we - er speed - but we like to be aware of all hazards und would want to be aware of big white van blocking parked on double yellows!

Check it out - they claim to justify a mobile on two roads there that 484 died at these spots 2001-2004. This run at 100 per year und one SI every 15-20 minutes.

We sent FOI for information - to date non received only standard e-mail that they want to stop 100 needless death at these sites.

Our problem in believing this figure? We have been on that road on that very day in history every year for past 20 odd years on way to big party und with size of this family - about 58 others on road at time too. Non of us held up in aftermath of any incident, none of us saw any incident, no mention in papers of half a jumbo jet load of casualties....und given most at this party work at the hospitals in this area - not one was called out to deal with it.

Claim ist not accurate und if it were - rather think 100 deaths on one road on one dat in history going back three years need some explaining as in public inte rest to explain. They have not backed it up - supplied proof und are downright evasive when asked.

Also - they claim these death also occurred in 2004 despite the mobile as the same information was given when we look on site at same time in 2004 (last three year to 2003) We have print of this in map books .. can scan but check for self this March!

Und asking folk to believe this ist a bit like asking folk to believe in Father Christmas as know ist really my Mad Doc dressed up in case he wake up youngest kittens! (you would like life bei uns )


These figures by the way have not been subject to "peer review" und even Pilkington found problems getting information to subject this data to scrutiny - ist on Mad Doc's link.

So - you have problem Liebchen if you only accept what ist peer reviewed Nothing really prove case for nor against - only reality of real life!

We also have, as Pilkington pointed out some rather iffy data backing this – data which did fail a peer review as pointed out by Mad Doc – which I see you have not referred to in this – presumably because it does not say what you want it to say – because it cannot und does not find cameras save lives – only that the data appears to show this but conclude that this data needs more stringent collation – which in turn prove that a camera per a "peer reviewed article" cannot be held to save a life.

So peer reviewed or not peer reviewed – we cannot prove one thing on either side to be correct –only that each side has one set of conclusions which show some similarities in accepting role of regression to mean – but subjectivity get in way of rest.

However, we can prove by reality of life that bad driving, inexperienced driving, “under influence driving, driving defective vehicles, driving whilst tired und ill (und believe me the last two are too darned personal to me ) cause accidents – und we can also establish from stats in the two areas which have not gone down the automated route and blended real cops with in-car doo-dahs are reporting less doom und gloom on their roads.



Thus Rich, mein Lieber, stats, academia, scientific research are not all cracked up to be are they - und not one prove conclusively the true state of affairs und this applies so who makes whatever claim - peer reviewed or not peer reviewed In fact - we find we have to review findings und conclusions all the time. Heck - I just cost my company a fortune by taking something out of licence procedures because I read something in my own report which gave me kitten bumps!

But to place such faith und base whole road safety policy around a speed camera because early evidence appear to show drop at site without looking to wheher drop ist dtown to changed driver behaviour or route change or regression to mean ist plain stupidity. Especially when total annual casualties have not dropped in proportion to these life savings at these sites.


More lives would be saved if we spent more time,money und effort in engineering out the hazard, investing in training, encouraging life long learning as in our professional workaday lives und bringing back our on road - und making sure they all have cute bums of course!

It help concentration on road ahead Tongue ist in cheek! Of course

_________________
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!

Hmmm.

Well, the sensation of being exhorted to give my argument my best shot, and then in the same post being told I'd lost my argument before I really felt I'd finished making it, takes a bit of getting used to. It would be too snarky to say it reminds me of St. Anselm the Randy's prayer: ("Lord, make me celibate ... but not yet"), so I won't.

Instead I'll accept I've as much responsibility as anyone else to accommodate the limitations of an imperfect medium and rejoin, as principle heretic, an enjoyable inquisition.

But I have gone as far as I wish to go in pursuing two of my points -
(1) that the item of "proof" submitted to me by Paul Smith originally as a principle argument is no more than an inaccurate confection of wishful thinking (ref [1], [2], [3] and [4]), and that
(2) since arguments concerning matters of life and death require unusually high standards of accuracy which SafeSpeed is currently failing to meet (ref [5] and [6]), by failing to take reasonable precautions to limit how the these inaccuracies are used by others (ref [7] and [8]), SafeSpeed is acting irresponsibly.

We've reached the point where I'm saying "in your argument you are saying 2 plus 2 equals 5" and your saying "no I'm not", and successive iterations aren't resulting in any advance in understanding. There is nothing left but an Appeal to Authority, and neither of us (under "open review") have one. So I'm happy to leave others to judge - to do otherwise is simply to increase the size of the scalp of which Paul can boast, which while in my view has no substance, carries currency with those unwilling or unable to invest time researching the substance underlying his headlines.

~~~~~~~

[I split the second part of this post to a new thread: http://www.safespeed.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5393 because it is an entirely new subject. ]

Rich

I'd like to say again that whilst you have made some valid points, you have shifted your arguments from peer-review, to quantitative approaches, to logic in a somewhat "convenient" manner.

I reviewed the piece of Paul's you objected to (fairly I though) in

http://www.safespeed.org.uk/forum/viewt ... 9769#59769

(Paul has since responded to my criticism in this thread)

You have not however, answered the points I made about the neccessary place of qualitative methods (widely used in respectable academic work) in:

http://www.safespeed.org.uk/forum/viewt ... 9722#59722

and the points about the imperfect nature of peer review (or Appeal to Authority as you have since referred to it as) and its place and value in public debate in the same post and in:

http://www.safespeed.org.uk/forum/viewt ... 9619#59619

and

http://www.safespeed.org.uk/forum/viewt ... 9527#59527

I'd welcome more direct comment on these last two issues?


As I final aside, and given the articulate nature of most of your posts, can I ask why you have occasionally used gobbledegook in your posts?

For example, from your last post:



and in a reply to me:



(Again - apologies for any typos)

Prof Beard Liebchen - Bravo for all of above post Und snipped down to this



Rich, Liebchen - do look at the Cambs claim - mid March - they seem to have been a bit enthusiastcally careless in counting these SI victims - half a jumbo jet - und no one in A&E actually treated any one of them at the time.

As for the photo you mention in the link - ist an airbrushed flash. Even BBC has used this image in past! It perhaps symbolises dissatisfaction with a gadget that flashes .. as opposed to inciting whatever you see in the image. Ist a bit like my sister ticking off cyclists on a cycling forum last year - they posted in sort of chant that "cars are crappy - chuck rocks at them" und she went off like like a ballistic missile over it. They replied "just banter" But to me - ist far worse thing to have said on a forum as that ist endangering other people

Und about the cameras in motorway - I am sick und tired of people braking at bridges if someone ist parked on one! It cause wavey jam 20 mile back!




Things offered up for Turner prize are bad taste too - but peer reviewed arty mags see them in whole new light!

_________________
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!

Hello Proff. Cut me some slack, as they say. There is one of me and about 400 of you. What to you is a shift of arguments is to me an attempt to steer a course through a kaleidoscope of opinions while trying to adhere roughly to the thread topic. My apologies if what I think that constitutes differs from yours, but I can't imagine you expect me to answer all of the points made to me in equal detail.

As to my gobbledygook, well shit that's just the way it gets typed, I suppose. Often, when I'm trying to reread something I've typed, I find standing up helps.

And as for not replying to your last (excellent) post, well I got shutdown, remember? (and I've a hangover from last night's excellent New Year celebration).


I genuinely thought I had. There is nothing that I disagree with, and in fact you state it far better than I have when you point out that "What the peer-review process does achieve is ensuring that references cited are valid and pertinent, that methods employed are understood, and that conclusions are justifiable. But - justifiable does not necessarily mean correct - the conclusions of much research are hotly contended - merely that it is reasonable to draw them from the arguments employed (other conclusions may also be reasonably drawn)."

My (complementary) point I thought followed directly from yours, that until you have ensured that the arguments employed support the drawing of any conclusions, the nature of those conclusions and the likelihood of any particular peer review of them being biased, is irrelevant.

However, the issue, surely, is not whether peer review is perfect. It's about whether it is more or less perfect than self-review? My question about the limits of what can be assured by "open review" on an owner-occupied website attempts to explore that issue.

[re. my gobbledegook on roadside corpses. I've just re-read your post. Your omission of a comma between "You mean" and "I hope", an absence of any quotes, and a complete misreading of what you said on my part lead me to think you were being snarky, which prompted (unforgivably) a bit of snarkiness from me. Not my finest hour. What can I say.]

you are not own your own richlyon, but i got lost by the end of the first page

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now retired

Rich

Is your argument about the peer review thing or the link to the adevert which shows an image of a camera exploding in a flash of light?

Please bear this in mind - there has been no real investigation into veracity of the camera claims either as such. We have little really to go on - apart from the reality of conditions out there - and contrary to popular belief and legend - police controlled areas are tougher that cam controlled ones as fas as pulling drivers is concerned - outcome as stated many times depends on professional judgement at time


You appear to be trying to smart-aqlec your argument by making irrelevant analogies to stats which have a whole different measuring criteria and burden of accuracy as Mad Cats have both pointed out to you - and from many of the other comments of yours I have simply skimmed through at some speed - - as I come off duty tonight - you have two areas of concern - one of which seems to taint all on this site as persons who would vandalise property or even encourage it. (Not true incidentally - far from the truth. All persons posting to this site post legally and make fair points about driving and dangers - and seek to improve matters however they can in their own drives and rides - on basis that good driving practice may just beget or encourage good driving practice - and we may even prove by this that the moon's made of cream cheese yet !

Now please explain which concerns you the more - the adverts with the rather unfortunate photo or the peer review issue - and also take into account the partnership side and other official statistics - including the efficiency of Durham and N Yorks against other Forces has not beeen subject to academic review - only to some kind of league performance table which is about as reliable as the schools one - given we all have different areas of excellence and whilst we show up well in some areas against colleagues - we have a poorer record in others - and like football teams we have good seasons and off seasons

But if your beef is really about the photo - well I watched a recording of the New Year's Concert from Vienna (my wife is thoughtful as she knows my New Year's not complete without this) and some of the paintings on the ornate ceiling would offend the "politically correct" A photographic image or still life art form or painting of a scantily clad cherub from the Habsburg Golden Era or photo of a airbrushed image of a flashed out Gatso on another site does not necessarily constitute "irresponsible" or incitement to vandalism...

I would need a lot more proof than that

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Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.