🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4h6719$r69@dingo.cc.uq.oz.au>, Bernard Walsh
<walsh@sun.mech.uq.oz.au> writes
>Peter <think@world.net> wrote:
>
>>My impression of a democracy is that when a majority of peoples of a 
>>nation act in a certain way it is a governments duty to ensure
>>that laws are enacted to provide people with the rights to continue 
>>to act in this way
>
>A (partially) valid point.  However, people are always pushing the
>limits of what they can and can't do.  And if we let those that
>transgress get away with it all the time, the less adventurous ones
>will think, "Hey, no one cares if I do X" and will go do it.  Soon,
>everyone will be doing it.  To see what a scary scenario this is, just
>think of a few examples of limit-pushing that aren't really beneficial
>to the majority, such as shop-lifting, or some of the less social
>behaviours espoused by many of the younger people around today.
>
>Oh, and don't think I'm an old fogey or anything - I only turned 23
>last month.
>
>>Wern a majority of all road users exceed the speed limit, (prove this for 
><snip>
>>motorway or freeway in Australia), the law is wromg not the people and to 
>
>The law is there to protect drivers who are not trained to drive at
>high speeds.  Even at 60 km/h, the distance a car will travel between
>the driver sighting a hazard and pulling to a complete stop can be in
>excess of 50 metres, or about eight to ten car lengths.  Now, who here
>can honestly say they keep an eye on what's happening even five cars
>in front when cruising through city traffic?  All the time.  Even at
>6pm on a Friday, after a difficult week at work/uni/etc.
>
>
>>You will find in  places like Germany responsible infrastructure spending 
>>that has allowed the building of cars capable of travelling at speeds 
>>approaching aircraft velocity in a safe manner. 
>>Imagine if you could tavel Sydney to Brisbane at 200 kph on a road 
>>designed for it!! 6 hours!! Why would you take a plane???
>
>Driving for six hours straight is not safe.  Driving at 200 kph for
>six hours straight is almost suicidal.  Not only will your reactions
>slow down due to fatigue, but if, for example, a 'roo hops onto the
>road (yeah, I know, it'd be fenced off, but hey, fences have a habit
>of falling down) in front of you, say 200 metres.  Well, you'd have
>about three seconds to react and stop before you hit it.  If you're
>driving at night, visibility is not really any better than about that,
>even with high beam - you have to be able to recognise an object as a
>threat, and not just a shadow on the road.  So you could be driving
>right at, hey lets be imaginative, a dead cow.  At 200 kph.  Now, lets
>say you've got *really* good brakes, and good ABS, and can pull the
>car to a stop in, oh, lets say 50 metres.  Which is asking a lot, at 
>about 3 g's, especially considering a fast stop from 60 kph pulls
>about 1 to 1.5 g's.
>
>But if you could stop that quick, you'd still only have a little over
>2 seconds to assess the hazard, and decide what to do about it, and
>lift your foot off the accelerator, and depress the brakes.  If you're
>fatigued, expect at least 1 second slower reactions.
>
>Now, what happens if we assume a 1.5 g decel?  Stopping distance
>increases to a bit over 100m.  Leaving you with just 1.7 seconds to
>react and hit the brakes.  And if you don't, well, I imagine you'll be
>blessing the person who invented airbags.  If you have them.
>
>Oh, and if anyone wants to dispute my figures, well, if you can come
>up with some more accurate ones, that's fine - I just pulled these off
>the top of my head, and off my trusty HP calculator.
>
>The sum of it:
>
>Speed limits are there to protect people who think they are immortal
>and are such good drivers that they can handle a car at speeds far in
>excess of what they can *really* control.
>
>Actually, no, they're there to protect the rest of us from people like
>that.
>
>Besides, consider what happens when a car has a mechanical problem,
>like a tyre blowout, or some other failure.  I knew a guy who was a
>bit of an idiot, and who thought driving at 150 kph was just normal.
>He had a ute.  Ute's tailshaft snapped just behind the gearbox.  No
>more ute.  If I recall, his mates reckoned it flipped end over end
>about seven or eight times, maybe more.  The guy himself doesn't know
>how may times it flipped; he's just glad he survived.
>
>
>One last point - who the hell wants to sit behind the wheel for six
>hours, when for not much more than the cost of fuel and maintenance,
>you can fly in comfort?
>I know which is safer.
>(Did you hear about the insurance company, who's actuarial tables
>listed meteor strike as a more probable cause of death than plane
>crash?) (No, that's not a joke.)  (Unless, of course, you're flying
>Aeroflot, or some of the Chinese carriers...:)
>
>Anyways, enough.
>
>Enjoy.
>
>Walshy.
>-------
>Bernard Walsh         walsh@sun.mech.uq.oz.au
>Dept of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Queensland 4072 Australia
>
>Don't let the world grind you down - make it hone you to a razor's edge...
>
May I make a point, I dont mind these people killing themselves because
of travelling at excessive speed, But I do mind when they try to take me
with them.
-- 
Bill Horrocks