®i©ardo wrote:
> Doug wrote:
>> On 15 Aug, 17:21, "nightjar" .me.uk>
>> wrote:
>>>> On 15 Aug, 08:58, "nightjar" .me.uk>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> At long last they are starting to take notice that road killings are
>>>>>> just as bad as any other kind of killings and that the car can be a
>>>>>> lethal weapon like any other. Problem still is though that we live in
>>>>>> a saturated car culture where the police and the courts are
>>>>>> predominantly populated by motorists with an inevitable bias. How do
>>>>>> the police turn up to road crashes? In cars of course
>>>>> Have you actually seen what equipment goes into a Traffic Police car?
>>>>> Unpacked and standing alongside the car, it looks as though the car
>>>>> has
>>>>> to
>>>>> be related to the Tardis to get everything inside.
>>>> The point you are missing is that merely being car users themselves
>>>> the police are predisposed to take the side of the motorist except in
>>>> extreme cases.
>>> My cousin used to work in a motorway control centre and had a thing
>>> for men
>>> in uniform, so I used to get to meet a lot of traffic police. An
>>> ex-traffic
>>> cop also taught me to fly. To a man, they had a very low opinion of the
>>> average motorist and definitely were not predisposed to give them any
>>> leeway.
>>>
>> What makes you think that the police do not also have a very low
>> opinion of the public at large, including cyclists and peds? The mere
>> fact though that they themselves are mainly motorists will inevitably
>> tinge their opinions.
>>>>>> and they usually
>>>>>> blame the vulnerable ped or cyclist victim first, as frequently
>>>>>> witnessed on TV.
>>>>> I don't recall ever seeing Police atending an accident involving a
>>>>> pedestrian or cyclist on TV.
>>>> Watched one last night with two incidents involving injured children
>>>> victims. In both cases the police blamed the kids instead of the
>>>> motorists who hit them.
>>> As I said, we must have quite different viewing habits. Nevertheless,
>>> however spontaneous it might appear, anything that the Police say to
>>> camera
>>> has almost certainly needed several takes and quite possibly has had
>>> to be
>>> passed by a senior officer, if not the Police Force lawyer. If they
>>> blamed
>>> the kids, it probably was their fault. If it were not the comments would
>>> severely compromise any chance of charging anyone over the incident.
>>>
>> Its the old, "They ran into the road from behind a parked car,
>> officer." So why are cars allowed to be left at the side of the road
>> as a danger to kids? The reason is simple, motorists are allowed take
>> priority over more vulnerable road users.
>>
>> So how do you try to justify the motorist who was fully exonerated by
>> police after hitting a kid but who admitted to putting his foot on the
>> accelerator instead of the brake?
>>>
>>>>> I think most contributors here would think that a good move,
>>>>> although it
>>>>> would probably be better to police the careless driving better in the
>>>>> first
>>>>> place and avoid the accident.
>>>> It could be argued that now faced with imprisonment most drivers will
>>>> take more care to avoid killing people and avoid the distractions
>>>> which cause the crashes.
>>> That is obviously what the proponents of this Act hope, but, most people
>>> adopt the 'it can't happen to me' approach. Unless the careless
>>> drivers are
>>> caught before they have an accident, they will continue to think they
>>> are
>>> somehow different from all the other people doing stupid things while
>>> driving.
>>>
>> Road deaths are dropping, obviously due to all the many safety
>> measures which have been introduced over the years and despite the
>> ongoing proliferation of vehicle journeys on our roads. I am sure that
>> the mere threat of a mandatory prison sentence must modify driving
>> behaviour.
>>>> An interesting point made on TV this morning
>>>> was that roadside advertising billboards are such a distraction so
>>>> such commercial graffiti should obviously be removed in the interests
>>>> of safety
>>> That problem was first addressed in the 1948 Town and Country
>>> Planning Act
>>> and Councils have the power to refuse or order the removal of any
>>> advertising hoardings that may distract drivers.
>>>
>> So why don't they? It could be argued that if Councils don't remove
>> them they are complicit in any deaths they contribute to by causing
>> driver distractions.
>>
>> --
>> World Carfree Network
>>
http://www.worldcarfree.net/
>> Help for your car-addicted friends in the U.K.
>>
>
> Would you include road signs in this?
>
> They are obviously designed to attract attention and, as such, would be
> failing in their purpose if they didn't distract drivers from their
> driving.
>
Er, Doug, you don't seem to have responded to my post. Is this going to
be another Dougwash, like Vince's report?
--
Moving things in still pictures!
