Nuxx:4e35d908$0$2527$da0feed9@news.zen.co.uk

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!goblin1!goblin.stu.neva.ru!txtfeed2.tudelft.nl!tudelft.nl!txtfeed1.tudelft.nl!dedekind.zen.co.uk!zen.net.uk!hamilton.zen.co.uk!shaftesbury.zen.co.uk.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <4e35d908$0$2527$da0feed9@news.zen.co.uk> From: Nuxx Bar  Newsgroups: uk.rec.cycling Subject: OT: "Speed Not the Main Cause of Crashes" (AA of NZ) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2011 23:36:56 +0100 Lines: 34 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.7; rv:5.0) Gecko/20110624 Thunderbird/5.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Organization: Zen Internet NNTP-Posting-Host: fa0d637d.news.zen.co.uk X-Trace: DXC=45Ugg53\o7O?^_NgbTl@QNnok4Z\<mH4IhDU:2=XKPkHC]cT1R1o3hHEn<S9LLeaZMhLH8:[n[0IO X-Complaints-To: abuse@zen.co.uk Bytes: 2798 Xref: perfectly-safe.chapmancentral.co.uk uk.rec.cycling:848286

The AA of New Zealand tells it how it is regarding silly speed limit reductions which are designed solely to discourage driving:

http://tinyurl.com/3r9628e

If only the AA here was equally supportive of the motorist instead of going along with "speed kills" and a lot of the other assaults on the motorist that we now have to put up with, none of which is ever properly shown to improve safety (no-one ever even tries to show that...I wonder why?)

The (UK) AA even run (and profit from) the "speed awareness courses" which "safety" camera partnerships are now abusing to fill their coffers (since they're not allowed to keep fixed penalty cash anymore). A disgrace, and it's sad that the organisation which was created to warn motorists of speed traps has changed sides and these days has a cozy financial relationship with the parasitic anti-car camera operators.

It's high time that the (UK) AA, and the RAC, stopped working against the motorists who are their customers, and started being honest about the real reasons behind the obsession with "speed" and its utter failure as a "safety" intervention.

I'm fed up with motorists being seen as fair game in this country, even by those who have them as their customers. Time for some gratitude and some real service. Motorists should be treated with the same respect as anyone else, instead of being treated as selfish, subhuman and deserving of punishment simply because they drive. Cars are extremely beneficial overall, and mass car ownership is one of the greatest improvements to the standard of living in the last century. Those who refuse to accept that are entitled to their opinion, but they are not entitled to force everyone to stop driving, and anyway they'll never manage since it's so useful, so they might as well stop trying and do something worthwhile instead.