Zak64

You will never pass a law capable of protecting people from their own stupidity. Can't be done. If someones an idiot they're an idiot. No amount of laws or 'Elf 'n' Safety fascism will ever change that fact.

The Darwin Awards

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If anyone complains about unlimited mass immigration we call them a racist - it's our culture!

Mikeuk

Of course not. I'm an anti-racist myself.

However, you do have to be PC to get worked up about problems that have nothing to do with you. I get very angry about the EU but I've never lost a moment's sleep over racism.

Question. How many great Englishmen of the past were anti-racists?

If you haven't got beyond the fingers of both hands maybe you'd like to suggest why this might be?

BonnieDundee

Because there aren't that many great Englishmen?

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"It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state."
-Bruce Schneier

How to Overthrow the System: brew your own beer; kick in your TV; build your own cabin and p*ss off front porch whenever you bloody well feel like it.
Edward Abbey

Leopold Kohr.

The Bear

I would agree that it’s impossible to provide legislation that is 100% effective in protecting people from their own stupidity, I would even say that t should not even be attempted, but there are cases whereby degrees of protection can be significantly improved by sensible legislation and in such cases, especially concerning road usage, it has been and should continue to be done.

How many people would wear seat belts if there was not a law that penalised the non wearing of them, and how many lives have been saved and serious injury avoided because of this law?

How many lives have been saved and serious injury avoided by the introduction of breath tests where the very knowledge of the test and what then follows?

Or unroadworthy cars taken off the roads by MOT tests?

Or all the other road safety legislation that is in place.

Because it prevents fools from overt foolishness and punishes those who do so anyway is that a reason to decry such legislation? Or to find it in the least bit funny that some idiot acted in an idiotic manner all in the name of a “joke”?

As I wrote, if there had been an accident as a result of the loss of control that the behaviour that forms the start of this thread because of such stupidity then the people in the car would have had the book thrown at them.

So why should they not be penalised for the same stupidity just because fortunately on that occasion there was no accident. The same stupidity was there nevertheless, simply the outcome was different.

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I am an old man. I have eaten much salt.

BonnieDundee

The point is it is overbearing, it goes too far into nannystate territory like the smoking bans do.

__________________
"It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state."
-Bruce Schneier

How to Overthrow the System: brew your own beer; kick in your TV; build your own cabin and p*ss off front porch whenever you bloody well feel like it.
Edward Abbey

Leopold Kohr.

The Bear

I'm inclined to agree except that our roads are now so awful that there has to be far more control over what freedoms people have to use them.

I passed my driving test 46 years ago and can remember AA motorcyclists saluting you(!) and roads that you could really put your clog down on.

The first time I did “the ton” was in an old Riley on the M1, and my Triumph GT6 went like the clappers most of the time, but times have changed.

I detest the nanny state. I really do. But we are where we are and sad to say there now has to be a degree of oppressive legislation especially since the actions of New Labour, they’ve really ruined the country.

A few weeks ago at a social gathering that I regularly attend the discussion got around to Laura Norder, and the British prison population being so huge.

One guy (who from his position in society really should know) commented that Blair had turned the whole bl**dy country into a prison with people having different privalages.

There’s a lot in that I think.

As for the safety cameras, I really do believe that with the roads as they are, and the driving standards and attitudes as THEY are, safety cameras are a must and prosecution for stupidity should take place irrespective if an accident resulted or not quite apart from the other good functions they serve.

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I am an old man. I have eaten much salt.

BonnieDundee

Two wrongs don't make a right as they say. I think it is far more dangerous in the long term to continue down this path. The UK already has the most CCTV per capita in the world, we don't need any more intrusion.

The problem is the knee-jerk reaction with these problems where the state always wants to enforce more controls on the people. In Australia for instance they have recently been going on about the binge-drinking problem and without a second thought the state decided to embark on several new controls on the citizens behaviour.

__________________
"It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state."
-Bruce Schneier

How to Overthrow the System: brew your own beer; kick in your TV; build your own cabin and p*ss off front porch whenever you bloody well feel like it.
Edward Abbey

Leopold Kohr.

g hall

We're not debating these points and it could be argued that some deaths have occurred when people have been trapped by their seatbelts
As regards breath tests you may have noticed a reduction in traffic officers brought about by the wholesale introduction of the speed camera hence there are not so many patrols to administer them or indeed watch for law breaking drivers

or become unroadworthy one one day after the test and then not seen for a year

All those nice new ideas like heavier cars which pushes up fuel consumption and thicker pillars to restrict vision


Perhaps at the time of the incident they where observing the road and and confident and able to do what occurred

If the government where interested in road safety they would start engineering our road system properly instead of the half assed attempts they do know
for example the new black top which is being used is slippery and Norfolk CC have recently resurfaced parts of the A146 and A143 and have had to put up new signs advising slippery road conditions
This is better then Suffolk CC who have just resurfaced and will like you blame irresponsible drives for the poor use of materials

Did you bother to go to the sites I suggested ?

Where you the driver I saw last month in front of me who never indicated at any roundabout and who only exceeded the posted limits(20,30, NSL) when they failed to see the 20 limit and carried on doing 25 - this is the driver who should be targeted they didn't have a clue about road awareness

I also suggest you spend some time in a lorry cab and learn a bit about driver awareness

__________________
"That government is best which governs least."
"This is a sharp Medicine, but it is a Physician for all diseases and miseries".
"To be "matter of fact" about the world is to blunder into fantasy --and dull fantasy at that, as the real world is strange and wonderful."

Zak64

I don't think you can protect fool from their own foolishness either. I haven't decried any road safety legislation, have I? I'm sure there is lots of it I'd agree with 100%, and lots I'd disagree with 100%. I don't agree with speed cameras. They don't do what it says on the tin.

Speed isn't everything. I can do 70 MPH on a motorway covered in black ice, and I'm not speeding.

As for the non accident not caused by the mooning incident, I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill. Lighten up!

(Moons at the Bear)

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If anyone complains about unlimited mass immigration we call them a racist - it's our culture!

The Bear

LOL!

And Bear moons back!

However since I'm probably a lot older than you MY moon is BIGGER than YOURS!

Have a nice day, I'm going out! (NOT to moon either!)

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I am an old man. I have eaten much salt.