In car distractions

Nigel wrote: Just a little exercise for those that wish to join in, give me your reasons why you think speed cameras should be removed, and let me play devils advocate with you

Because they are such a big distraction (you pay such close attention to them and your speedo while passing them) that it's the equivalent to driving 10MPH over the speed limit because you're not looking at the world around you.

I know it's wrong for me to do this, but I do it. I can't help myself.

I read of a case in the paper where the coroner said that this had contributed to someone's death in an RTA and that the camera in question should be removed.

Our current government is one huge lie. Take all the money off the motorist, penalise us for all sorts of ridiculous new legislation then claim it all in the name of 'road safety'. The fact of the matter is that Smiley Bliar wants to get as many cars off the roads as possible and get everyone shoehorned onto the inadequate buses and trains - possibility of working in central London, but perhaps not so applicable in the Scottish highlands? Never thought of that one did he?

As someone pointed out recently in a classic car magazine, why should the owner of more than one car be made to pay out two or three times for tax and insurance? Surely road tax covers our right as individuals to use the public highways, not each car. Also could insurance companies not set in place a scheme where an individual is insured not the car? No, and here is why. 25 million vehicles on the roads of which perhaps 10 million are a second car in a household. 100 quid each lost in tax and there goes a billion pounds for the government. Same for insurance companies. Its all about money.

Hilarious quote from DfT website

The tables published reveal that for 743 locations, casualties increased rather than decreased. However, this does not mean that cameras have not been effective at all these locations:

They then go on to offer all sorts of statistical method-related comment, while denying drivers' organisations the right to make any comment on their own statistical methods...

Vote the pond scum out -- you know it makes sense!

skull wrote: plod are too busy checking numberplate sizes and bike exhausts to worry about anything that may kill a motorcyclist

That would be the traffic department.

Im afraid they lose their power of arrest once they get into their big comfortable motorway car. Its a known phenomenon.
Motorbike exhausts are a lot more interesting than chasing a burglar

Nigel wrote: Just something to make you smile Toby. I have a Tom Tom Go sat nav system, a snooper radar detector, and a road angel gps camera detector, it was pointed out to me recently, by one of my collegues who doesnt like these devices, that all three units are mounted so as to be within the sweep of my windscreen wipers, making all of them illegal, well the mounting of them anyway !

Your dashdoard must be on a parr with that of the Nebuchadnezzar(Matrix ship) Nigel.

So many buttons to press, so little time eh?  ...

<Snooper S5i - "beep beep beep beep">  - "Damn, false alarm, it's only a pelican crossing!"

Put mine on Ebay last month, was doing me blinking nut in.

I think the safety nazis are waaayyyy out of control in this time and place. You can't do this, you must do that, what a load of BS. Especially when you compare the amount of emphasis given to bashing drivers and making our lives unbearable.

I don't really like it when people use their mobiles, it definitely distracts people a lot more than most other things, and I don't really know why. You can almost always tell from someone's driving when they're on a mobile, they slow down for no apparent reason and tend to drive without any clue what so ever.

However, picking on someone for taking a swig out of a bottle or having a fag is ludicrous.

Here is an interesting statistic: did you know that hospital acquired infections from the government-managed NHS directly kill nearly twice as many people as all the traffic accidents in the UK? And that they contribute to the deaths of 5-6 times as many people again?

If you look at actual accident statistics and not the Big Lie of 33%, then speed directly kills only about 7% of all the traffic accident victims and contributes to about another 5% (my numbers are hazy but I think I'm in the right ballpark)

All this means is that for every person killed on the roads, where excessive speed was in any way a contributory factor, the NHS directly kills more that 100 people through not taking care of the hospital superbug and contributes to the death of 300 more people. So, in other words, for every death that excessive speed contributes to, the NHS contributes to the death of 400 others.

Now: I don't advocate people dying in traffic accidents, and I agree that accidents should be reduced, but I wonder about all the publicity given to punishing us for speeding because it kills versus actual government work on eradicating the MSRA superbug. I'm also not having a go at any people working for the NHS, let's be clear about that.

But the bottom line is that millions of individual motorists are persecuted for causing 0.25% of the preventable deaths that an institution, under direct government control, is responsible for. And then I'm not even including any other thing that the NHS might be doing wrong systemically or through the fault of its employees.

It just seems to me that the emphasis is wee bit misguided.

I agree it has all gone a bit mad at the moment, although I don't think people should use mobile phones while driving. I've been behind someone who all of a sudden slows down and started to drift around a bit, then I noticed they were on the phone! I only tried to use a handheld phone once while driving and found it impossible to concentrate on the road, some thing I have no problem doing while talking to a passenger, eating an apple, smoking a fag (when I used to smoke).

Skull your right, no ones interested in actually addressing the real causes of accidents anymore. I got my first speeding ticket yesterday, for doing 38mph in a 30 zone. It wasn't a built up area however, it was a temporary speed limit for road works on a dual carridgeway. I musn't have slowed down quickly enough. I wouldn't car the limit comes into force anout 1/2 a mile before the road works. �60 and three points

On the subject of smoking while driving

Why dont the people get pulled over for flinging the fag end out the window?

I mean dont they have ashtrays in there cars!!

 

How about the story of a bloke in the good 'ol U S of A that was pulled for having a tv fastened to the bonnet of his pick-up.

Just something to make you smile Toby.

I have a Tom Tom Go sat nav system, a snooper radar detector, and a road angel gps camera detector, it was pointed out to me recently, by one of my collegues who doesnt like these devices, that all three units are mounted so as to be within the sweep of my windscreen wipers, making all of them illegal, well the mounting of them anyway !

Edited by Nigel