Nuxx:2aba813e-80f5-40ff-a86c-32b914881e73@by6g2000vbb.googlegroups.com

Path: num2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!num1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!number.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border3.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!postnews.google.com!by6g2000vbb.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Message-ID: <2aba813e-80f5-40ff-a86c-32b914881e73@by6g2000vbb.googlegroups.com> From: Nuxx Bar  Newsgroups: uk.rec.cycling Subject: Re: Helmets: Chapman Should Put His Money Where His Mouth Is Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2011 06:40:06 -0800 (PST) References:  <8ta8kfF4qtU1@mid.individual.net>  Lines: 42 Organization: http://groups.google.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 82.71.49.124 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: posting.google.com 1299249606 13908 127.0.0.1 (4 Mar 2011 14:40:06 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2011 14:40:06 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: by6g2000vbb.googlegroups.com; posting-host=82.71.49.124; posting-account=7_6kYAkAAABD6HrjM0VxehwvZOKMxm4g User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.2.14) Gecko/20110218 Firefox/3.6.14,gzip(gfe) Bytes: 3784 Xref: perfectly-safe.chapmancentral.co.uk uk.rec.cycling:801094

On Mar 3, 10:33=A0pm, "Just zis Guy, you know?"  wrote: > > My limited past experience of stacking rationality up against emotive > "think of the children, if only one life can be saved" bullshit has not > left me with any great desire to try it again. Basically Lee says (in as > many words, if memory serves) that anyone who is not an advocate of > helmet compulasion is an advocate of children dying and being seriously > brain injured. There is no way of debating wiht that kind of person.

Simply amazing that you apparently can't see that the likes of Mary Williams use *exactly* those kinds of dubious tactics in their hysterical, hopelessly oversimplified advocacy of scameras. Your normally healthy scepticism, which is spot on when it comes to the likes of homeopathy, seems to have a gargantuan blind spot when it comes to the hated roadside devices. After all this time I still can't see another explanation other than a dislike of cars on your part and a desire to punish motorists whether or not it improves safety. The only question in my mind is whether it's subconscious, and you really have kidded yourself that cameras work, or whether the whole thing is indeed an exercise in deceit, despite the fact that lives are at stake.

If you at least said something like "Yes, Mary Williams is hysterical and emotive, but as it happens, cameras still work, just not in the way that she says", that would be one thing, but I simply refuse to believe that someone with your analytical ability has no issues with the claptrap that she and her ilk come out with. Mary Williams and Angela Lee are very much two of a kind, and surely that can't possibly have escaped your notice.

I hope that one day, you'll accept that motoring has a significant value to society, and that therefore road safety should always exclusively be about acknowledging cars' usefulness and accommodating them as safely as possible, rather than being more about punishing people for driving at all, which by definition can't also be the optimal road safety solution (you can't optimise two different things at once after all, unless they happen to coincide, which these things most definitely don't). Let's stop campaigning for spiteful, punitive, unnecessary restrictions and be more open-minded about the sorts of novel ideas suggested by the likes of Matt B. Cars are here to stay, so let's accept that and try to make them as safe as we can.