Safe Speed Forums

I'm trying to dig out the document that I had a few years ago which contains many examples, but I can't find it at the moment. I'll post some of the accounts when I can locate it.


No, because a person has every right to accept or refuse medical treatment. And just how would one person infect many if all the others had been immunized?




Now there's a point for restrictiveness for a start. The law doesn't mandate the use of a 3-point inertia reel belt if fitted, it mandates the use of any type of belt if fitted. So yes, older types of belt do come into the equation.

Non-inertia 3-point belts which are adjusted to a snug fit are certainly going to restrict free movement, as are the locking reel lap belts of the type where as soon as they retract by the smallest amount cannot then be re-extended until wound all the way back again.

Your response is a circular fallacy. The fact that every person has the right is irrelevant; we're talking about the allowance/revocation of that right.

Also, it matters not about the minutia. I'm trying to ascertain if you would allow people the right of choice where the 'wrong' choice will likely result with needless pain/death of others. For the sake of argument, assume the effect of immunisation was temporary.


What did you think of the link I gave demonstrating the significant over-representation of non-belters in fatal accidents?

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

Aarrghh, the thread's come up for air again

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Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical, liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

I shall look forward to hearing them, if this document really does exist and ever surfaces. I shan't be holding my breath mind.



How about someone traveling to a hot zone for an infectious disease, is it their right to choose not to get immunised, and then to potentially bring the infection back to an unimmunised population?

I missed that; I'm interested; and I haven't been able to quickly find it.

Where is it Smeggy?

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I thought you had already passed comment on it; I want to know what Paul_1966 thinks of it. Anyway:



From here.

At risk of giving someone a chance to decimate yet another e forest, I think that the freedom to wear /not wear a seat belt - get vaccinated et all is encompassed in the words issued by a fictitious space person - "The needs of the many over ride the needs of the few " - or words to that effect.
In other words , wearing a seatbelt is a minor inconvenience to us ,a (perhaps nanny breach of our rights) , but then enforcement of this WRT children in the rear seats ,might just stop a few kids ending up as bits of mince after going through the windscreen .
IS THAT A BAD THING ??


In all our crewbuses , and those Transits converted by Clarke's there is a notice to rear seat passengers - "BELT UP" -- THE REASON , backed up in a RTA - the rear seat passenger killed the driver and himself in a low speed accident - he crushed the driver when he hit the rear of the driver's seat.15 stone at 30 MPH = a lot of force in a few inches of stopping distance.
Work it out for yourself ---15 stone = 210 lb.
At 30 MPH =660 FT LB.
For a seat to give 4 inches =1/3 ft =660X3 = 1980 lb ==close on a ton .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Oh! I know Clarke's - they're a good bunch. One of the very few van converters that actually take the trouble to make sure their conversions are strong enough for the job they need to do! (and as an "aside", 1 ton for a 15 stone bloke in a typical 30-into-a-concrete-block crash is pretty conservative - you could double that!

OH! and you forgot motorsport harnesses!!! Don't forget them - they're REALLY restrictive!! Of course, they're not actually fitted to many of today's roadgoing cars - but then, neither are the types of belt you just mentioned either!

I wish you'd stop trying to justify your arguments by always going for the tiny minority of oddball cases - it's the same when you go on about seat belts being "dangerous" because you've heard of people getting drowned when they drive into lakes. It's not untrue, it's just so rare as to not be really relevant to the argument! I suppose I should start banging on about how dangerous toffees are because I once head of someone who choked to death on one!

They may not be fitted to cars being manufactured today, but they are still in service on older vehicles and their use is still mandated by law.



But there are no laws making the consumption of toffees mandatory or a crime. That's the difference.

Point, well and truly missed.

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Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical, liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

Funny, that's what I thought.

Ooohhhh an 'I know you are but what am I' riposte

Very clever, I bet you slay 'em with your rapier-like wit at parties?

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Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical, liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

I'm not aware of any Killfile feature on this forum, yet it appears my posts are invisible to some users.

Perhaps they contain stuff that inconveniently destroys some users arguments. Its easy to keep going in the face of overwhelming oppositon when you choose to adopt the tactic of examining an elephant through a microscope.

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Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical, liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

O.K., I apologize for not getting back on this query before.



So according to this one-third of fatally injured occupants were not buckled up. That may or may not be true, I don't know. But as you are claiming it's all about numbers, how many people who do not buckle up have not been killed and have never been injured because of that? Furthermore, if one-third of fatalities were unbuckled, that means that two-thirds were using belts and still died anyway. Maybe they would have died without belts too, but as I've said before, it is all a game of "what if." There are far too many variables in accidents, and the evidence based on simple statistics such as this one doesn't make a case for belts by itself.

How do we know that there wasn't some other factor at work, for example? Of the cases used for this research, perhaps a much larger proportion of the unbuckled drivers who died were driving more recklessly than the majority, or more so than the typical belt-less driver.

Let's take the figures from your last link to the DfT site on belt usage percentages. Again, we don't know how or where these surveys were conducted, but if the figures are a reasonably accurate assessment, then as has been stated here before, wearing rates for front seat passengers took a huge jump when the law was introduced January 1983. (Actually I wouldn't be surprised if the true jump was considerably more; perhaps it varied by region but 37 to 43% usage for 1982 seems high from what I recall of the time.)

So given this huge increase in percentages, where was the large drop in overall road fatalities which would be expected if belts were as effective as claimed? (Remembering to take into consideration the fact that the new law coincided with a massive campaign against drunken driving.)

You've misunderstood the implications of the figures. Theres very little 'what if' on a system-wide level, which is the boon of large sample-sets.

Think of it this way: system-wide, only one fifth of occupants are not wearing their seatbelt at any one time (average figure for all occupant types of cars and vans for Oct 06), yet one third of serious injuries involve an unbuckled occupant. This is known as over-representation and, given the balancing effects of a large sample-set on extraordinary factors, points strongly to seatbelts being of positive effect to road safety.

No-one is suggesting that seatbelts are a panacea to all collision injuries, and so of course there will still be people who die despite being buckled. Given the massive over-representation of non-belters in the injury statistics, however, coupled with the complete lack of any reliable data on seatbelts doing more harm than being completely unbelted in any accidents, everything points to compulsion being worthwhile.

As mentioned before, it is pointless arguing the effects of the law in 1982, since that transitory time has passed, and we can only effect change from now.

It makes a much better case than anecdotal, 'I remember an instance where such and such happened but can't put my finger on it' evidence. As such I'm happy with the case for seatbelt legislation.

This thread has progressed much like the disputed Wikipedia article on Seatbelt Laws

Indeed, the discusson page contains the same sort of allegations against the article as appear here, i.e. it is weasel words and opinionated nonsense.

There is an interesting comment from an anonymous contributor at the foot of the above page:



Well, well well, where have we heard that sort of thing before

Funkysapien's retort is enlightening as well....



He goes on, but that's the salient part.

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Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical, liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

It seems clear to me that you don’t understand over-representation and under-representation. I could reply by saying:
how many people who do buckle up have not been killed and have never been injured because of that?
The fact is that, statistically, for 2005, there is an almighty correlation between non-belters and fatalities. Would you agree?


So much for risk compensation.
What you say could well be true and is happening to some extent (some drunkards forgetting to belt up), but the level of over-representation strongly suggest that behaviour doesn’t nearly account for it. Would you agree?


I interpret a fall within the trend spreadsheet Paul Smith gave earlier in this thread (for 1991 too). I repeat: seatbelt design probably wasn’t as good in 1982 as they are now; also, at that time people were being forced to doing something they didn’t usually do. Both these factors are less significant today. Would you agree?



Would you allow people the right of choice where the 'wrong' choice will result with needless pain/death of others?

The last - and only - car I had with non-inertia 3 point belts was 20+ years ago and was of 1972 vintage Hillman Avenger (with drum brakes all round!!). IIRC they disappeared in the early 70's when there became a requirement that seat belts could be put on with one hand.

There will be very very few daily runners that still have non-inertia and classic cars and US imports generally do a lot fewer miles. In terms of this argument it's pretty pointless discussing anything other than the inertia belts that just about all vehicles in regular use have. Otherwise it's like discussing house lighting and insisting we take gaslights, oil lamps and candles into account

Barkstar

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The difference between intelligence and stupidity is that intelligence has limits.