In article ,
"Solar Penguin" wrote:

--- Ian Smith said:
On 16 Oct 2004 05:58:53 -0700, Silas Denyer
wrote:

(yes, lives - cyclist hitting pedestrian can and
does result in death).

How many per annum on average?

And how many would you consider acceptable? How many pedestrians per
annum do you think are expendable?

Apparently society thinks the answer is 'quite a few'. We could have no
pedestrians dying if we, say, banned vehicles or imposed 1 mph speed
limits everywhere, but we don't. Therefore, to society, however many
pedestrians die each year is the 'right' number given the advantages
vehicles offer. I'm not saying I approve, I'm just saying that tacitly,
society /does/ count some people as expendable.

Ian
--
My email address is invalid to prevent spam.
Real contact details are on my website at http://www.drianwalker.com

Solar Penguin wrote:

What makes you think this is an "Either/Or" question? Shouldn't we be
concerned about *ALL* pedestrians killed by *ALL* vehicles, not
nitpicking about numbers?


Well one assumes your priority would start with the biggest threat. As
has been repeatedly demonstrated, murdering a pedestrian with a motor
vehicle carries a fine and only if you are very unlucky a prison
sentence of a few months. If we were truly concerned we would see
neither speeding nor red light jumping and deterrent sentences for those
that transgressed. If you have the time read up on the case of Antony
Wakelin it gives a worrying insight into how seriously we treat it. 15
yr old Antony was killed in his home village by an unlicensed driver
with a string of driving convictions who overtook a number of cars well
in excess of the speed limit. He was given a fine and a driving ban.
Two weeks after his court case he was photographed by the newspapers
driving yet again (having never passed his test). In court he was given
- can you believe it - a two year driving ban. Now where's my petition
if we are in petition signing mood.

Tony

ningi wrote:

Well, cars don't jump red lights with anything like the frequency that
bikes do in London, so perhaps it does.


Only because the first driver who stops for the red light blocks all
those behind him, who would if they could, from jumping the light. Even
then and with very few traffic lights equipped with cameras, ~10,000
motorists a months are being caught in London by red light cameras.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3723726.stm


Tony

--- Tony Raven said:


Well one assumes your priority would start with the biggest threat.

Never heard of "triage"? The priority is to start with the threat
that's most easily dealt with and once that's out of the way, you'll
have more freedom to deal with the more complicated threats.

Silas Denyer wrote:
Personally I think the only solution is compulsory registration of
bicycles, with clearly-displayed plates, or perhaps compulsory
registration of the riders

How about compulsary shooting of every motorist who breaks the speed
limit.

Sod off you miserable crunt and don't cross-post to uk.rec.cycling again.

~PB

Solar Penguin wrote:

Never heard of "triage"? The priority is to start with the threat
that's most easily dealt with and once that's out of the way, you'll
have more freedom to deal with the more complicated threats.


Actually I have and I hope if you ever need emergency medical care they
don't practice your interpretation by dealing with the easy to deal with
patients while you lie dying on the trolley.

FWIW you might like to know that triage is sorting patients according to
their need for or likely benefit from immediate treatment. In the
disaster/battlefield scenario it is about maximising the number of
survivors. I would say either interpretation would leave cyclists sat in
the waiting room for a long time before they received attention.

Tony

On Sat, 16 Oct, Solar Penguin wrote:

--- Ian Smith said:
On 16 Oct 2004 05:58:53 -0700, Silas Denyer
wrote:

(yes, lives - cyclist hitting pedestrian can and
does result in death).

How many per annum on average?

And how many would you consider acceptable? How many pedestrians per
annum do you think are expendable?

Well, society believes about 11 per day, since it doesn't cause any
outcry.

You avoiding commenting on why you're so hung up about bicycles but
accept teh 3000 times worse motor vehicles record, I see.

regards, Ian SMith
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On Sat, 16 Oct, Solar Penguin wrote:

--- Tony Raven said:

Well one assumes your priority would start with the biggest threat.

Never heard of "triage"? The priority is to start with the threat
that's most easily dealt with and once that's out of the way, you'll
have more freedom to deal with the more complicated threats.

This is why you should never trust a penguin to adminsiter first aid -
faced with two casualities, one of whom has a paper cut to the little
finger, and one of whom is collapsed and choking on his vomit, they'll
go wandering off to find a sticking plaster.

They also have some funny ideas about teh meaning of certain words.

regards, Ian SMith
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--- Tony Raven said:

I hope if you ever need emergency medical care they
don't practice your interpretation by dealing with the easy
to deal with patients while you lie dying on the trolley.

Ok, maybe that was the wrong word. If it was, then sorry for any
confusion.

Anyway what is the right word? Where you start by solving the problems
that you *are* able to solve instead of wasting your time trying to
solve the ones that can't be solved until later? Whatever it's called,
that's what I was thinking of.

Ian Walker typed

Is anybody else's Troll-o-Meter twitching, or is it just me?

Mine is.

Please do not feed the trolls!

What is institutionalised about cyclists, praydotell? The CTC, whose
members generally do not break the law, maybe...

--
Helen D. Vecht:
Edgware.