Nuxx:6af784cf-3175-4d27-b005-513d9a68f4a6@z66g2000hsc.googlegroups.com

Path: number1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!postnews.google.com!z66g2000hsc.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Message-ID: <6af784cf-3175-4d27-b005-513d9a68f4a6@z66g2000hsc.googlegroups.com> From: Nuxx Bar  Newsgroups: uk.rec.cycling Subject: Re: One for Nuxxman. Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2008 13:51:51 -0700 (PDT) References:    Lines: 45 Organization: http://groups.google.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 88.105.217.66 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: posting.google.com 1213131112 18282 127.0.0.1 (10 Jun 2008 20:51:52 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:51:52 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: z66g2000hsc.googlegroups.com; posting-host=88.105.217.66; posting-account=7_6kYAkAAABD6HrjM0VxehwvZOKMxm4g User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9) Gecko/2008052906 Firefox/3.0,gzip(gfe),gzip(gfe) Bytes: 3816 Xref: perfectly-safe.chapmancentral.co.uk uk.rec.cycling:652587

On Jun 6, 10:25=A0am, "Simon Mason"  wrote: > "Nuxx Bar"  wrote in message > > news:deb01001-e178-47b9-8e3c-57692dca956c@t54g2000hsg.googlegroups.com... > On Jun 5, 5:53 pm, "Simon Mason"  > wrote: > by pretending not to understand someone's position is > pretty lame TBH. =A0If you want to attempt to explain why cyclists > shouldn't be punished for every little infraction, but motorists > should, then go ahead. > > On the contrary, I would like both motorists and cyclists to be held to > account for all lawbreaking, minor or not. However, it would be a change i= f > people accepted that they did wrong, paid the penalty and then *stopped > moaning* how badly done to they are.

Well, if you *genuinely* want both motorists and cyclists to be punished for every single infringement, no matter how trivial and victimless (potentially or actually), then at least (unlike the vast majority here) you're not guilty of discriminating against the motorist. But I think you'll find that most here do believe that cyclists should have common sense applied to them, while motorists shouldn't, "because cars are heavier" (or some such pathetic justification). They are simply anti-motorist for political reasons, and all this "safety" stuff is just window dressing. Still, if you think that motorists should always be done for speeding, *and* cyclists should always be done for absolutely every infringement, you are at least consistent, if (IMHO) dead wrong.

I can't understand why you would attach so much importance to the letter of the law, and you (apparently) find the idea of discretion so abhorrent. You seem to think that the law is an end in itself, rather than the means to an end. I think it's a means to an end, and if that end is not going to be achieved by enforcing the law in a particular instance, then why bother? There have been some incredibly unfair laws over the years, both here and abroad, and I'm sure you'd be the first to agree with that. Are you that confident that the law is so perfect now that it should be applied without exception? Or is it a case of "It may not be perfect but it should still be applied, no matter what the negative consequences are, because it's the law"? If you believed (and I'm not saying you do) that the proliferation of speed cameras was costing lives, would you still be in favour of them? Is "the law" more important than people's lives?