[geeks] Stuff fo' sale

[Mike Meredith]

On Tue, 15 Aug 2006 12:02:36 -0400, Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> Fri, 11 Aug 2006 @ 22:43 +0100, Mike Meredith said:
> 
> > Authorities have been focusing on vehicle design, driver training
> 
> No doubt there have been improvements, but much of that was driven
> outside of government.  A lot of vehicular safety comes from auto
> racing, for example, and the industry often has to fight the

I don't know about US racing, but European racing was once notoriously
uncaring about driver and spectator safety. This only began to change
once F1 drivers threatened to boycott certain races.

> In any case, I was addressing local government focusing on revenue
> rather than safety, which does happen and is a big part of the problem
> with things like road cameras.

I've already pointed out that in the UK local governments do not receive
funds direct from speed cameras.

> > Of course the law isn't perfect but complain about the law and not
> > the enforcement of it.
> 
> No, complain about both.

I disagree ... if you break a law (even an unjust one) then you should
expect to be punished. Patchy enforcement of laws weakens all laws.

> > Same applies to those who claim cameras increase accidents of
> > course!
> 
> Not really.  The people making those claims are usually the ones who
> pick the bodies up off the pavement.

Funnily enough the people claiming that UK speed cameras help reduce
accidents and the fatality of accidents when they do occur *are* the
people who scrape bodies off the street. I'm not claiming that the US
reports that cameras are ineffective are wrong, and not claiming that
the UK reports that cameras are effective are wrong (both could be right
due to implementation variations) ... just that it's wrong to assume
reports are wrong just because they don't say what you want. 

> They have a vested interest in *NOT* having to do that.

As a bomb disposal expert I once had a few pints with (Portsmouth has
lots of oddball military types) said "It'd be nice to be unemployed"
(given the current rate that unexploded WWI ordinance is being made
safe, he's got a job for at least 900 years!).