🚀 go-pugleaf

whorning@pipeline.com (Walt Horning) wrote:

>>No true professional driver is going to endanger others for the sake of a thrill. 

>No? Then why do their racing cars sometimes go flying into the stands
>despite retaining walls?

Good point.  Maybe those are the ones that aren't professional. :-]
Professionalism isn't necessarily a permanent thing.

>Both the cops and courts are the wrong forum. Politicians are to blame
>for higher deaths by not raising limits to the optimum.

In OK they were raised to the optimum in December 1996 and our
fatality rates went right up with them until we increased our seatbelt
compliance. 

>Former
>Governor Shaeffer even posted his opinion in newspapers as to why he
>vetoed the law to raising limits in MD. Then the next governor passed
>the law. Guess what? Death rate actually went down.

And enforcement went up.  There you go.  A good argument for strict
traffic enforcement.

>Traffic dynamics is dynamic, not static.

And crashes are caused by law breakers, not law abiders.  That one
fact has remainded constant for decades.

whorning@pipeline.com (Walt Horning) wrote:

>Well I agree that increases the chances of death. I do not think you
>have stats though that exceed 50% and thus your statement "more often
>than not" is just not true. It just sounds like an overstatement, to
>win your case.

You're right.  I don't have the stats nationally.  What I do have is
26 years of investigative experience which includes hundreds of
fatality crashes and here at least the odds are the driver causing the
fatal crash will not be the fatality victim when more than one person
is involved.

>Funny, hard statistics show red cars, regardless of type, get stopped
>more often than other colors. Some argue its the driver. Some argue
>its the car color.

That argument is typically used by someone in a red car who got caught
and won't admit the real reason.  Why an officer would rather ticket a
red car over any other beats me.   Lots of cops own red cars.   This
reminds me of the guy who in traffic court accused me of stopping him
solely because of the kind of car he drove.  I let him rattle on then
causually mentioned I owned and drove an identical make and model.
The judge fined him the max.

>Then what kind of risks are those people in "low performance",
>gas-misers taking when they are being tailgated by an 18-wheeler.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the original statement. 

>Yes, I agree that at higher speeds death is more likely in an accident.

Bingo!  That's the only point I'm making.

>But here's one for you. If 55 is "safe".

You digress again.  It's no safer or dangerous than we motorists make
it or any other speed limit.  Speed limits are regulatory laws just
like stop signs and signal lights.   If you can speed 'safely' then I
can run stop signs safely and I dare you to criticize me for it.
After all, if I'm hurting no one what's the harm?


efaubion@oklahoma.net
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Prairie/6123/