Safe Speed Forums

Certainly not. The law on exceeding speed limits is a demonstrably bad law - a law which any independent analysis shows to be infective in its putative purpose and, by its very nature, so arbitrary in its application as to defy natural justice.
That is why it should be repealed not because 90% of a not very well informed public break it.


Of course I am not implying that exceeding the speed limit is always or even often to be equated with dangerous driving.


Neither. The OP quoted a Mr Simon Levine saying, of copying CDs, "The review pointed out that if you have a situation where 90% of your population is doing something, then it's not really a very good law," and went on to apply that statement to motoring law. Whilst I agree that it might be apposite with respect to the law on exceeding the speed limit it is demonstrably not so about the law on dangerous driving.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Throughout history majorities of generally sensible people have persecuted minorities - Jews, homosexuals, people with a different invisible friend. That did not make it right.


The fact that 90% of the population - or indeed any percentage - break a law does not necessarily mean that they disagree with the import of that law. Most burglars, for example, are very aware that they are doing wrong but think that they can escape capture. And, I think, many motorists who exceed the speed limit feel guilty about doing so. Certainly when I got a speeding NIP the reaction from motoring friends was, despite all of them admitting to breaking speed limits, that I had got my just deserts.


That is an inevitable result of a flawed electorally system called parliamentary democracy. Where the opinion of a mentally subnormal , moral degenerate carries the same weight as a professor of Jurisprudence; and opinion is driven by irresponsible newspaper owners who cannot see beyond their own bottom line you are always in danger of mob rule.


True, so thank the stars for the House of Lords; the only true bastion of our liberty.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

The persecution of religious minorities throughout the ages. Slavery. Refusal to admit women to Universities and professions. Persecution of homosexuals. Ethnic cleansing.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Now that is a man of straw considering that I said: "That is one reason why are our Members of Parliament are representatives"



The 1689 BOR actually says: "freedom from taxation by royal (executive) prerogative, without agreement by Parliament (legislators)"
But, then, it also says: "freedom from a peace-time standing army," - something which a man of your profession might not agree with.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

It is unfortunate that cunning propaganda, created by the authorities (acting on a lack of understanding, or trying to find a scapegoat) wrongly convinced those societies that it was right to persecute. This is the failure of the lawmakers.
There are many examples of the fallacy appeal to authority. People do want to do the right thing (do unto others as you would have them do unto you, etc), but often don't realise their moral compass has been skewed.


If I can point out the obvious: burglars don't make up 90% of society. In this world, burglary is generally seen as wrong, and burglars generally can’t morally justify their actions (they know they are creating victims and affecting them).
In backwards world, where 90% of burglars do make up society, then in that world burglary would likely be seen as acceptable or justifiable.


I strongly suspect that they do only because: they are looked down upon the pious few who claim to never exceed it, or fall foul of the propaganda surrounding the effects of speed, or because they don't want to break a law but they invariably do because the limit is set badly.

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

The fact that people are so easily manipulated by the "authorities" or, these days, the mass media, rather reinforces my point that the fact that 90% of people disagree with something is a poor basis for legislation.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

This reminds me of this article which I saw a couple of days ago.

Not on the discussion of death penalty, but onto the idea of e-petitions, which need to get 100.000 votes in order to be discussed in Parliament. I had a chat with my friend about it and we both agreed it was moronic - the fact that people do something, doesn't make it good, and the argument that 90% of people are doing the same thing thus the law should be changed is also ridiculous. The laws are there to PREVENT people from doing the things they do or want to do, not to follow them or change after them. If people were given the decision, marijuana would be legal everywhere (not to mention all drugs, maybe), there would be no politics, alcohol would be free, drinking or having sex in public places would not be illegal, all kinds of stuff. I thought the point of our SOCIETY was to have the certain ruling system which people have to operate within so that our society would continue to exist. I'm all for websites being legal, but what about intellectual property and author rights at that point? If I were an author, I wouldn't support this so gladly.




Agreed.

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"Just got back from a pleasure trip: I took my mother-in-law to the airport."
Henny Youngman

Now you're talking about unjust and immoral laws, which is the exact opposite of your original point.

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

Indeed. However, the failure of manipulating lawmakers doesn't mean the laws they create should be blindly obeyed. So this factor becomes redundant.

Furthermore, things are different nowadays (for us anyway) as folks can now have information from sources other than the authorities or mass media. Dare I say that people like us go a long way to redressing these fallacies (RTTM et al).

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

No. My original point was, to put it in simple terms that you can understand, that just because 90% of the population do something that does not necessarily make it a good thing to do. And that 90% rejection is not a good basis for repealing a law- for reviewing it, perhaps.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

You know, I was going to reply with a really patronising, gratuitous insult, but then I decided not to sink to your level.

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

I agree.
However, in the context of this thread, especially given the two main examples, an unlawful act that's merely "technically illegal" (as opposed to morally illegal), which 90% of the population does, without risk of harm or deprivation (not being over-represented in casualty stats), really is a badly set one.


If you really did mean "rejection" (as opposed to 'transgressing') then I disagree even more strongly. 90% of a population rejecting a law is a bloody good basis for repealing it. Referendum please!

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

I see you selectively omitted the clause "without the consent of parliament" from your quote. This is me being not surprised.

Furthermore, how is it that you think we are at peace?

Oh yeah, and this:



...is precisely what I said, unless you want to argue semantics.

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Regulation without education merely creates more criminals.

A binding referendum is letting the lunatics run the asylum.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

This is very interesting, and it highlights the fundamental difference of our opinions.

To confirm: do you really accept that others, not necessarily wiser than yourself, should fully control every aspect of your life, regardless of how well reasoned any of your disapprovals may be, and regardless of what portion of the populous concur with your reasoned disapproval?

Is that not the ultimate expression of the fallacy 'appeal to authority'?

Is such yielding behaviour by the populous not a temptation for abuse by authorities? Indeed, would that enable even worse 'lunatics' to run the asylum?

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

That you favour mob rule whilst I prefer to be led by wise men?



But that is exactly what you accept if you want decisions to be made by referendum. Whilst I may disagree with many of the decisions of this government, I equally disagree with the mass media formed opinions of a large part of the people who would vote at a referendum. At least most members of the government have some, albeit insufficient, understanding of the issue involved in running a nation and an economy.


Only if you define 'authority' in a peculiar way. You would appeal to the authority of the masses; I to the authority of a meritocracy. Are we both victims of a fallacy?


If by yielding you mean acquiescing then I would agree. Which is why our system has the checks and balances of an opposition, a revising chamber, Royal Ascent and the ultimate test of regular elections to deter governments from yielding to that temptation. A further check should be the electorates power of recall of its member of parliament.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

I am going to be away for the next week so, unfortunately I won't be able yo participate further in this debate.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

And of course they 'trust' the Law Makers who have all the data to hand, that they are making properly informed decisions. So they 'belief' what they are told at face value. When surveys are done this can show clearly the standard answers but start to ask people why, or how, they think that is right but then as what they genuinely do, and the reality changes, and their instincts and experience takes over.
That 'belief' in Gov becomes blind faith, until you start to look at the facts, and try to learn for yourself what the truth really is. We should never have to do this as we have tasked to our Gov representatives, to do this, but in a recent communication to Mike Penning, he informs me that they are leaving all these decisions to 'local public', and the Police, which I find very troubling, especially as they have vested interests in schemes which provide them with turnover or profits. Where is the governing, the advice, the responsibility of Office and consistent authority in that !?
And the (especially) Music Labels/Producers and Film Broadcasters have all agreed that rather than try and resolve this with Law it is better to recognise a new trend and alter then way in which the media is sold & distributed, thus resolving their old problem by embracing the new technologies. This then reduces the 'theft' by enabling the vast majority of people to act in a manner that is legal and morally better. That way to the legal system is not trying to resolve a massive problem that was going to be impossible to prosecute.

The argument that I have had both ROSPA and IAM state on air (within a brief debate) is that their belief is that if you are going more slowly (in the first place) then when something occurs you have more chance of avoiding an accident.
They failed to allow for the facts that :
1) when you make a motorist travel deliberately slower than necessary you STOP paying attention to the road ahead
2) distraction increases
3) the 10 secs prior to any incident are the most vital
4) setting speed slower (Globally) has only altered the free travelling speeds by 1%
5) speed cameras in total have only ever occupied just 3% of our road network
6) they regularly conclude all sorts of 'facts' by cherry picking and failing to look at the overall trends
7) they never allow for economics, traffic density not volume

But they are not and the Statistics prove it - we know that the vast majority of motorists are not having accidents, we know that the 85th-90th%ile speeds drivers crash least. Therefor we can conclude that the normal actions of a competent and responsible should be deemed legal. And hence how and why speed limits were set at the 85th%ile.
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/speed.html http://www.safespeed.org.uk/speeding.html

So by creating an environment for more responsibility is better than one of ever more (descending) regulation.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

Unfortunatley, this attitude was one of the largest factors in the rise of Nazi Germany, the populus at large saw Hitler as "A Wise Man!" draw your own conclusions.

I prefer to analyse the facts, and come to a conclusion based upon the facts, I guess this is where we differ.

How did you get to the conclusion that 90% of the population are driving dangerously from the above analogy between CD piracy and a thinly veiled reference to exceeding speed limits? I assume you're not making the schoolboy error of assuming everyone that breaks a speed limit is driving dangerously? That would be like assuming everyone that copies a CD is doing so to make an illicit profit.

And surely if 90% of the population of a democracy think ignoring a law is morally acceptable, it probably is?

Or should we let a small moral elite tell us what's right or wrong?