Safe Speed Forums

Both sides of the arguement have some credence

However no one appears to address the fact that radiation damage is cumulative

If even a small amout of radiation damages cells, I am informed these cells will never recover

Ask any radiologist, why do they stand behind lead glass

So whereas these devices may be safe in isolastion, one has to ask what is their effect over a long period of time.

This could apply to camera operators

I do not know the answer, but I was involved in a study, in the 60's where we were given Dosimiters to wear and a check on the level of radiation we were exposed to.

Most of this was "Back Radiation"

After one month the study was stopped as the cumalitive levels were off the clock

If one is to consider any risk factor then an proper assessment must be carried out and the long term accumulative levels taken into consideration

I got to wondering about sat navs today. How much "radiation" do they emit when they beam their position to satellites all those miles away?

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

Stephen Fry thought that was the case. He got a right roasting for it.

"GPS receivers" ... receive
Wiki

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

Is it important to distinguish ionising radiation from non-ionising radiation?

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

Well one immediate difference is that you tend to point the TV remote at the TV, not directly at someone’s face or eyes. That said, there is Infra Red in natural daylight and especially sunlight. I know this from my work and have an I/R detector which goes ape when I point it out the window.

For myself, I just don’t like or approve of saturating the environment with ever more ‘invisible’ demons bombarding us which we’re told are safe. I think of it a bit like the radiation levels at Sellafield, which for some reason have a high/er rate of cancer or children born with two heads etc. But they say it’s safe so that must be true eh? (Let me know if that’s libellious)

Whether it's I/R or any other part of the spectrum, I’d rather have nothing trying to penetrate me than something someone tells me is safe, although I realise in today’s world that is idealistic not realistic..

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

Speaking as someone who lives far closer to Sellafield than is sensible, I had a quick head count this morning and found that all my kids have the correct number of heads! I think the childhood abnormalities / leukemia rates for the surrounding area have been the subject of several studies and were found not to be significantly different from any other part of the country with a similar demographic. In other words, they may have been higher than (say) Manchester, but no higher than (say) somewhere in Wales with a similar population. It's one of those things where the statistics need really careful interpretation, because aside from living near a nuclear dumping ground (er, sorry "re-processing facility"), they also have a gene pool with very few genes in it because the population is low and everyone has been marrying everyone else's livestock for the last 10 generations!

(Now TAHAT's libellous)!

Hold still Tone... this won't hurt a bit.

Tone, you make me laugh!!

We were quizzed when my premature son was being treated in Manchester in 1997.
We were asked if we feared living so close to Sellafield.

I don't.

Firstly Cancer clusters appear all over Britain, most at sites where their is no obvious cause such as a nuclear site.
Secondly, natural radiation crops up in many forms - sunlight, and radon - a gas given off by certain rock types.
Thirdly, there are huge numbers of radioactive isotopes out there in the public domain. Smoke detectors, luminous watches, weld testing apparatus, and hospital X-ray devices!

While my son was in hospital in Manchester - proud to call itself a "nuclear free zone" (despite the smoke detectors, x-ray machines, etc) there were conjoined twins born at Pendlebury, and I saw a two headed daffodil growing in the hospital car park!
It is all a question of risk. Even taking Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Chernobyl into account, more people have died from peanut and other allergies, than have died from radiation poisoning over the same period!

Most of us are happy to be strapped into a steel box, with several gallons of highly inflammable liquid on roads where accidents are a regular occurrence - yet fear being anywhere near a source of radioactive activity with no proven affect on health!

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

O/T -but that remark reminds me of a sketch ( I think) ,with a medical theme - doctor says "it's only a little prick" to get Paul Daniels in medical get up race across the set with a large syringe.
Back on topic -I remember an article on BT engineer getting some form of cancer in brain area ( supposodly) from an overdose of mobile phoning . An other cases of liver kidney cancer as they moved the phone to a belt and used a mike/earpiece .
Not surprised the medical profession ( not including Tone) haven't decided to break down mobile use into units ( as they've done with drink) and tell us that we can only have a safe limit of two calls per day,and a call to text -it's safer( ) . Next thing -we'll get patches for those addicted to long calls .
Now as to the topic - of gatso's frying brains- I wonder if perhaps some of the advocates of cameras ( from some of the claims) ,have not stood too long in the firing line . I once heard a tale of one of GPo's mobile lot up on a flat roof on a building ,and start to get hot . Being a member of Raynet ( or as we jocularly called them -"Hairnet") -he had a look around ,to spot a microwave dish to his rear -no wonder his ears were burning . And it wasn't chucking much out .

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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

It’s just that I’m just very cynical when it comes to things wot are safe or allegedly do no harm; only to find out later they do. (I thought you had six fingers on your one hand Mole and webbed feet? )

All the evidence to date would have us believe GM foods are perfectly okay for instance, but I wouldn’t want to ingest them when I can eat food in the form nature intended. My point being that in the same way I’d rather have a bobby flag me down for speeding than have something shooting ‘safe’ I/R at me.

Having said that, I have been using leaded solder all my life and it’s meant to have a cumulative bad effect which sends you doo-ally but there’s nothing wrong with me. (I heard it! ) So yes, we are in danger of becoming paranoid but without thorough research it could be like the early misuse of X-Rays, Thalidomide, luminous paint, asbestos, wrong grade of rivet on a ship...

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

The difficulty in finding the truth, is that those who would have you believe one thing in an attempt to prevent it, use outrageous arguments to support their heartfelt desire to get their own way.

Consequently, the other party resorts to secrecy, or a well funded campaign of it's own to try and negate the adverse beliefs that result from the first party's invective.
They become protective of their work, leading to a grain of suspicion even from otherwise well informed observers.

Somewhere between the two arguments lies the truth - and one way to identify it, is to look to other well informed sources, or opinions of many experts in the field.

Climate change is one area where each party tries it's hardest to have their view accepted, while experts are trotted out by both sides.
The nuclear industry is another such area of controversy. On our local newspaper forum, I often engage with a local anti nuclear campaigner - and to be honest, the rubbish she trots out remove any possibility that the real facts she occasionally uses are believed!

She recently appeared on BBC Radio Cumbria, and refused to address a question outright, while trying to recite a whole lot of worthless anti nuclear propaganda. The presenter eventually cut her off!
When I brought this up, she failed to see what she had done wrong, instead accusing the presenter of being ill prepared, and "got at" by the pro nuclear guest in the discussion!

Those defending the possibility of Infra Red radiation being dangerous, seem to be ignoring the fact that the IR spectrum is like the visible spectrum - it is a wide number of frequencies, with a range of effects in practical use.

I personally do not believe there is any real risk, unless it is to somebody predisposed to some reaction to IR through another factor - and those people will usually be at risk anyway in some situation or other. But the "experts" who argue this must be more open and explicit about the ranges, power and use of such radiation, before they attribute a simple dismissal to ALL infra red.

Tone, you are displaying a better developed sense of worry that you are being tricked than some - a symptom of our age I believe, where it seems common to put the fear of God into the public with no good reason. If a child think they have been lied to regarding Father Christmas or the bogey man, without a reasonable explanation, they lose respect for their parents.
I approached it by asking if my two sons had ENJOYED the experiences they had each Christmas - which they agreed that they did - so I asked why not continue to bring that same degree of happiness into their own children's lives when the time came - and they accepted that it WAS right and proper, and not a despicable act!

I haven't made it any easier for you to accept nuclear power have I Tone!!
Think of it as a form of vaccination - there IS a small risk, but the alternative is even riskier!

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

It's only when you pick your teeth or stir your tea with it constantly, that you get problems ....

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

Given the alternatives I think I'm convinced It's the disposal of toxic waste with a half life of a million years which bothers me, but relatively speaking I'll be long gone by then. What about our great x10*1000 children though!


I remember from my bodybuilding days learning of the chelating process whereby two or more vitamins may not be nearly as effective, (or pernicious), individually but together have a much more profound effect. We don’t know what any two factors may or may not do if we look at them on an individual basis and it’s almost impossible to mix and match everything we do in life to find out. More often than not, especially in medicine, we find out through serendipity.

So, for instance, in this case I/R may be harmless on its own at the relatively low level from a TV remote control but how do we know that for all circumstances at higher levels? As you say Ernest, it could be that someone predisposed to a certain medical condition or prescription is more susceptible. My concern is that it’s all too easy to make a case for introducing something based on little evidence, Bias On Selection or pure ignorance. It wasn’t that long ago in history that smoking was deemed good for you - and promoted by athletes of all people!

If I drink water and Severn Trent over time keep adding things I doubt whether my life would be shortened if every month some different chemicals ‘for my good’ are added. Fluoride is good, right? We all know this as an irrefutable truth don’t we? But excessive amounts starts to affect your teeth in a bad way and over a lifetime may lead to increased likelihood of bone fractures in adults. It's in our food and yet more in toothpaste. How do they know how much we already get from these sources? They don't but they add it anyway. There’s something many wouldn’t know and what’s worse no-one put it to a public vote.

It doesn’t always follow that if a small amount isn’t harmful, or even good for you, more must be better. Okay, I admit it - I’m paranoid.

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

Strange - way back in the 60's I and others raised a safety issue on GPO solder , which in use gave off a lot of fumes . At time, welders lung was on the agenda - so we thought it relavent . Answer came back -no problem . But I suspect that for the last 50 years I've been using the same stuff ( or similar, as I always use additional flux,and dad's mate ,my mentor,and GPO engineer , always kept me supplied in solder as a kid,in pre GPO days) and never the new fangled lead free solder , I've not noticed any problems ( but then Tone -we'd be last to notice ).

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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