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Funny that on the TV I heard on the new 24 that Richard Hammond lives his life in full throttle. Somone told me exactly that to me....not that I have ever done the millions of things Richard did, but I did a skydive and bungee!
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I doubt that its the sort of thing that Hammond would say about himself.
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The two million pound contract is great news for everybody.
The BBC gets both the kudos and the presenter, and what's more he'll never remember to cash his cheques.
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Lol
His wife wont tho.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Quite an emotive article in the Guardian yesterday, link below:
snipurl.com/10dhw
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This link will work I hope:
tinyurl.com/y2k4gl
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"As Paige Mitchell, Co-ordinator of the Slower Speeds Initiative, points out, we know from the British Crime Survey that speeding concerns people more than any other form of antisocial behaviour"
I have never in my life read such a load of rubbish, bordering on blatant lies.
the results are here
www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs06/crime0506summ.pdf
Youths hanging around on street corners concerns people more than speeding when it comes to antisocial behaviour,
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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A perfectly understandable article written by someone that has suffered personally from criminal behaviour. It's a perfect example of why victims should not be the ones dispensing justice, and why checks and balances are so important.
She's missed the point completely. The scandal is that the driver doing 43 in a 30 and not paying attention was not hung out to dry. Few people would think that speed in the conditions she describes is justifiable. The law already exists to deal with such idiots, we don't need more draconian rules.
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That article is complete tosh. A shame really for the family of the lad who obviously get my sympathies.
Why these people feel the need to misinform, lie and deliberately mislead people is beyond me.
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Even people who drive cars don't usually understand what they are all about and how they fit in, or rather don't fit in very well.
People who don't drive cars and whose nearest and dearest have been hurt by them can be expected to adopt an even more unreasonable and bigoted tone. And lots of carp hacks and their organs are ready to print what they say.
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The thing is - if my son/daugter was killed by......a falling brick, I wouldn't be campaigning against houses and suggesting that people who build houses should be shot.
If they were killed by drinking too much, I wouldn't want to enforce prohibition.
If they were killed by choking, I wouldn't want to ban all hard food.
Why cars cop all the blame is a mystery. The focus on speed is getting annoying now too. Cars can mount pavements (shock horror) at under the speed limit! I know! Madness! Being at or under the speed limit - you're still dangerous - you're still driving two tonnes of metal and driving into humans is still very bad.
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Yeah but Adam, someone in a state who may not be all that bright might easily think all you have to do is crack down, put speed limiters in cars, have a 4mph limit and a man with a red flag walking in front (with beneficial knock-on effects on unemployment, obesity etc)... When they have had some bad luck with a bad or crazy driver they might think, well, there are ways of preventing anyone from being like that, let's just apply them.
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This is nicked from a public e-mail from Idris Francis to the Chief Constable of Surrey complaining of sloppy misuse of statistics.
www.statistics.gov.uk/STATBASE/Expodata/Spreadshee...s
reports causes of death in England and Wales in 2004.
We need to define, at least broadly, what "accidental death" means in this context.
Although for their own reasons the above report distinguishes between such problems as infections, pneumonia etc and "external causes of death and morbidity" within which "accidental death is a subdivision, I consider it appropriate in our context at least to show the figures for such medical problems - if only because catching pneumonia, for example, is invariably accidental rather than deliberate or inevitable.
You might like to consider these numbers:
Total deaths 514,250
Infectious diseases 5,751
Pneumonia 23,312
External causes 17,561 (Including all accidents below)
Accidents 11,233 (including the following types)
Land transport 3,108
Falls 3,010
Drownings 171
Fire and smoke 308
Accidental poisoning 706
Poisoning (all sorts) 4,551
Suicide 3,451
Assault 1,026
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Note that differences of definition between DfT and these records result in minor discrepancies which are not large enough to affect then argument presented here)
On the basis of the above figures, and if we assume that catching infections is a form of accidental death, the following figures emerge:
Deaths due to road transort as proportion of total deaths (3,108/ 514,250) = 0.6%
(interestingly, this is little different from 1850, before the motor car was invented and when few people travelled further than they could walk)
Deaths due to land transport as proportion of accidental deaths (3,108/46,624) = 7% (all external causes, inc catching diseases and pneumonia)
Deaths due to land transport as proportion of accidental deaths 3,108/23,312 = 27% (all external causes, excluding diseases and pneumonia )
Many fewer die from road accidents than from poisoning (3,108 cf 4,555)
Fewer people die on the road than commit suicide (3,108 cf 3,451
Similar numbers die on the roads as from falls (3,108 cf 3,010)
However - while these comparisons show that the chance of dying in a road accident is extremely small, far, far less than catching diseases or pneumonia, substantiall less than being poisoned, less than committing suicide and broadly similar to falling.
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