🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <33B19814.4D98@earthlink.net>,
Daniel Modlin  <dmodlin@earthlink.net> wrote:
>mark carroll wrote:
(snip)
>Oh please, you act like the polititians are actually controlled by the
>public. It is almost impossible to get laws changed, even if a large
>majority of the public is in support of it.

Why? Politicians generally go for whatever they think will get them
elected - elections keep them on their toes. If a large number of
people support something, it's pretty likely most politicians will too
unless it specifically hurts them a lot! If the public has any
difficulty in getting laws changed, it's because it's too stupid to
use the vote properly. I don't know of any laws that, say, more than
75% object to yet are still likely to be in force for the forseeable
future?

(snip)
>> Why are speed limits unjust, then? 
>
>Because they don't work!

They appear to work fairly well to me - people rarely exceed them by
ten to fifteen mph for fear of being picked up by cops. And, people
who routinely significantly exceed the speed limit are usually picked
up pretty regularly. Speed limits would work even better if there were
plenty of speed cameras about, so I'm in favour of them.

(snip)
>Where do you get your figures? The German government and Mercedes Benz
>both verify that the mortalaity rates are the same in both countries.

I don't recall - it was a BBC documentary a couple of years ago. What
_exactly_ are the figures you're using (seeing as you have them to
hand)? Of course, they're possibly not useful anyway as you need to be
fairly certain that there isn't some other factor screwing things
up. For instance, the German driving test is pretty tough compared to
most US state ones (or at least it was last time I checked), so one
imagines that German drivers might typically be better drivers.

It might be more instructive to look at the statistics for places
where there used to be a speed limit but now isn't, or vice-versa. I
don't suppose anyone has any to hand?

We can probably start by assuming that travelling at higher speed =>
higher likelihood of a fatality in a crash. Do you dispute this?

>It wouldnt be if they worked.  BTW, of course i'm only referring to
>highway speed limits.

Okay.

>> Surely people have the right to relatively safe travel?
>
>And the right to travel without Uncle Sam in the back seat.

Why? If they're keeping to the law, they've nothing to fear. (-:

-- Mark