AAA Study: Cost of Crashes Tops $164.2 Billion Each Year

On Mar 31, 8:21 pm, Fran > wrote:

>
> Really, if the government were spending its resources trying to keep
> Americans safe according to the actual and prospective morbidity and
> trauma stats, road safety would be way ahead of Defence or the "War on
> Terror", the "War on Drugs" and a whole bunch of other stuff.
>

No question about that. Criminal driving is the biggest problem we
have in america and the most correctable. But the idiot americans have
been brainwashed into ignoring it.

>*Notice how a crash that
> kills 8 makes national news, but 8 crashes that kill 1 each don't? *Same
> number of deaths, they're just scattered out and not as "spectacular" as one
> massive crash killing that many.

So what? I don't hear about stabbings and gun fire in Davey's
hometown in Colorado, so why should I hear about some fender bender?
In fact, the only murders that are ever reported are the unusual mass
killings rather than the daily drug related hits.

The fact that anyone even argues about absolute number of deaths
without talking about the millions of miles driven just shows the
agenda of said people.

> Even the crash that kills 8 gets scant coverage and NEVER leads to
> calls for stiffer penalties for criminal drivers. The media is paid
> very handsomely by the auto industry to call all deadly crashes
> "accidents" and then move on to something else.

lol! The auto industry doesn't have enough cash to buy a butt
scratcher let alone pay off any media.

In article >,
Brent P > wrote:
>
>It's difficult to have revolution when you can't assemble. It's hard to
>assemble when you can't travel freely.

It's difficult to have revolution when most people are like Fran and
agree with every restriction on freedom to come down the pike.
--
There's no such thing as a free lunch, but certain accounting practices can
result in a fully-depreciated one.

On Apr 2, 12:23 am, (Brent P)
wrote:
> In article >, Fran wrote:
> >> I am not sure what you are getting at. The war on drugs and the war on
> >> terror is rather intrusive, much of it unseen to most people, but once
> >> you experience it the intrusiveness is quite obvious. Or maybe you meant
> >> the ones for road usage aren't... to that, they are more than bad
> >> enough.
> >Neither. I was saying that a lot more resources are devoted to
> >prosecuting the 'war on drugs" or "the war on terror" than on policies
> >that would reduce road trauma.
>
> Both those have been far more effective in destroying the protection of
> our rights. That's not to say the would be police state has not been
> attacking road use, because it has. The checkpoints can make anyone who
> grew up in the 80s feel like the US lost the cold war.
>


I read recently that about a third of people suffer from paranoid
impulses.


||||
Dr Freeman said the results suggest that paranoia was a quite normal
emotion: "In the past, only those with a severe mental illness were
thought to experience paranoid thoughts, but now we know that this is
simply not the case."


Paranoid experiences were more common among people who were anxious
or
worried before starting the experiment, and among those with low
self-
esteem. "Paranoid thinking is a topic of national discussion given
increasing public attention to threats such as terrorism," Dr Freeman
said.

"It sometimes seems as if the one thing that unites the diverse
peoples of the world is our fear of one another.

"Worries about other people are so common that they seem to be an
essential - if unwelcome - part of what it means to be human."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle3655498.ece

||||

In your case, it seems to be 'the government'. Sure, there is no
shortage of examples of nasty government, but I'll bet there are no
shortage of examples of poor doctors or wicked stepmothers either. One
should resist the tendency to generalise, and even bad and nasty
governments aren't necessarily out to get everyone at the same time.
Some are incompetent -- no better at controlling the population than
delivering any other 'service'.

> >> >> Do you really want to have a
> >> >> TSA type checkpoint to pass through on your drive to work or to the
> >> >> supermarket?
> >> >Personally, I'd favour a road usage charge that was based on the tare
> >> >of your car, its emissions, the traffic volumes at the time of usage,
> >> >your driving skill and risk profile, the risk profile of your vehicle
> >> >and the availability of transport alternatives along your route(s).
> >> Nice little control freak world there. Soon only the favored people of
> >> the government get to drive and you have to wait 15 years and befriend
> >> and bribe the right people to have a chance at permission.
>
> >There's absolutely nothing to stop that happening right now, aside
> >from the fact that most people wouldn't put up with it. Actually, if
> >you think about it, it makes perfect sense from a market perspective.
>
> Heaven forbid people don't want to be treated like slaves or livestock!
>

I don't believe in heaven, or hell.

> >Instead of paying large lumps of money to cover third party insurance,
>
> That's because of the insurance lobby.
>

Oh I see ... so the insurance lobby is exepmpt from the evil
government's machinations? Maybe they control the government?

> >and road taxes for vehicles that are heavier than yours and do more
> >damage or based on vehicles that are taking up scarce but luxuriantly
> >maintained road space while you're driving on some potholed low
> >traffic road, you pay according to what you use and your risk to
> >others. If you don't drive much, or drive off peak, or use a car that
> >is fuel economical or are an excellent law-abiding driver, then you
> >should pay less than someone who isn't.
>
> Law-abiding... nobody driving a motor vehicle on the road is
> law-abiding. Why? Because the laws are set up such that everyone is a
> violator.

Actually because too few think that in practice, they will suffer a
sanction, right up until the time they do.

> First they post the speed limit so low that almost every
> driver exceeds it,

No, actually they post speed limits that any driver could comply with.
If real time tracking of vehicle speed were effected, it might be
possible to have speed limits tailored to each driver, vehicle and
road condition combination. You could have your advice sent to you in
real time. That way, instead of having ridiculously low speed limits
when the road surface and visibility were good, and you, an
accomplished driver in a well-maintained car travelling in light
traffic were in a hurry, you could have a more generous one. At the
moment though the desire to effect compliance -- results in one size
fits all. One size doesn't fit all of course, but having tailored
speed limits would be too confusing.

> then there are a variety of laws regarding impeding
> traffic and profiles of criminals and DUI drivers that driving the speed
> limit or less makes one fit. Just the other night I was driving under
> the posted limit and picked up yet another officer trailing me, running
> my plate.
>

So?

> >Another advantage is that every car that gets off the road creates
> >more space for those on the road, improving the safety and amenity of
> >the roads for those who don't have good alternatives. Sure, you pay
> >more per unit of distance, but you get a better quality service, and
> >your car suffers less wear and tear, and your vehicle's property
> >insurance charge declines. You get some of your time back each day,
> >and time, as they say, is money.
>
> It doesn't work that way. Instead it just costs more and the congestion
> is worse.

You have some evidence of this? Where?

> What you controlers don't realize is that most of the trips
> are not optional. That congestion by itself is more than enough
> encouragement to move optional trips to other times of the day or not
> take them at all.

They would be if there were an adequate suite of public transport
options. It wouldn't suit everyone, but it might suit a substantial
proportion -- perhaps even a majority. I'd be thrilled if even 30% of
the existing road traffic passengers were on rail or in buses or
carpools. That would be a huge step forward.

> Driving has to be made to really suck for someone to
> take a complicated three hour transit trip instead of what is now a one
> hour drive.
>

Which simple means that we need better tailored transport solutions --
but for as long as road transport continues to be subsidised and
there's this urban angst about 'taxes' and public debt, people will
continue to make millions of seeming sensible individual transport
decisions that hurt themselves as a class.

> >> >Some concession could be made for where you live. Your driving
> >> >behaviour would be tracked in real time, and when you threatened to
> >> >exceed speed limits or approached a traffic control signal rather too
> >> >quickly, or crossed an unbroken road separation line or overtook too
> >> >close to a crest, you'd be given a warning. If you actually broke the
> >> >road rule, you'd get an on the spot (but modest, scaled, fine). Your
> >> >licence could be suspended in real time, and your car shut down on 5
> >> >business days notice. Police could shut you down on the spot. I'd
> >> >abolish all other charges on road usage or fuel or taxes on cars
> >> >however.
>
> >> Even more control freakism. What drives you people? Seriously, why do
> >> you think such control over people's lives is a good thing?
> >You might as well ask, 'why do you think control over thugs in the
> >street is a good thing?' 'Why should lunatics be kept secure from the
> >public?'
>
> Thugs on the street? The only thugs on the street I know of are the ones
> with a government issued badge.

Oooh ... the government ... Look, I'm no fan of the police. They
should be a lot more accountable. But someone has to do the job of
ensuring that everyone plays nice. In a utopia, everyone would have
pretty much the same view of what that meant in practice, and there'd
be no excuse for the coercive functions of the state. People could
leave their windows and doors open. Small children could frolic in
parks unattended. People would work out of a desire to serve the
community and people would all get what they needed when they needed
it. And with all the money we'd saved on armies and police and courts
and in people getting injured in car accidents and whatever else, we'd
all be able to lie about communing with nature and each other or
reading poetry or doing what we liked for whichever half of the
existing work week suited us.

Don't get me wrong. It sounds lovely. I'm all for that. But until
pretty much everyone on planet Earth shares my vision, we are going to
need government. Most people either don't share the same view of
playing nice, or don't think it applies to them in all cases.

> They are the ones out there shaking
> people down for money. There is the occasional and rare car jacking,
> I've never seen one of those... I have seen countless incidents of
> police robbing motorists on the side of the road.
>
> >Freedom is a good thing. I want to maximise it. As perverse as it may
> >seem though, when one person's freedom comes at the expense of
> >another's expanding the first person's freedom does nothing for
> >freedom in aggregate. Indeed, if you force people to compete for
> >limited freedom, they might both finish up with less than if they came
> >to an amicable arrangement.
>
> How 1984 of you. Freedom is slavery, war is peace, yadda yadda.

Oh yes ... just evade the question with a slogan.

> The
> rules of the road already govern that. Central control telling people
> where and when they may drive is not freedom.
>
> >> All
> >> governments go bad sooner or later,
> >That's true. What I think of road safety though is unaffected by that.
>
> It's difficult to have revolution when you can't assemble.

Exactly how many revolutions has the US had over the last 200 and
something years of freedom to assemble? The largest chunk of the
country thinks that the Democrats or the Republicans are the only
conceivable governing parties. You all stumbled blind into a war in
the middle east on the basis of total malarkey.

Face it, the current laws are not restraining revolution, and if
people really wanted a revolution, even the toughest road laws
wouldn't restrain them.

> It's hard to
> assemble when you can't travel freely.
>
> >> why do you want to hurry the process
> >> along so and make it that much worse?
> >The question is begged: does what I propose 'hurry this along'?
>
> The controling of our movements.
>

No, the *monitoring* of driver movements, *while on public roads and
committed to respecting road rules*. Big difference.

> >> Do you operate under the illusion
> >> government won't use the power against you?
> >What power? The government ALREADY licences vehicle use, but in a
> >slipshod and at times arbitrary manner, which imposes a high
> >compliance cost with little compliance benefit. This makes good
> >political sense but little sense in terms of 'the greatest good for
> >the greatest number'. What I propose would lower the compliance cost
> >and increase the scope of compliance benefits.
>
> There is no benefit to government control except to the controlers.

Actually, it's of doubtful benefit to them. They get a lot more
responsibility. If someone screws up, they can be blamed.

> I
> do notice that you think more control is justified by the fact there is
> already some control. Sorry, but that does not fly. This 'greater good'
> thing of yours has been used to justify all sorts of evil and government
> control over centuries.
>

So have a lot of things. The question is whether what I'm proposing
makes matters worse or better.

> >> Or is the joy
> >> more perverse, sticking it to people you don't like?
> >I like the vast majority of people I'm aware of, or am, at worst,
> >indifferent to them. I take no pleasure in the misery of others. I do
> >object to the behaviour of those whose self-seeking harms others, and
> >likewise to policies that encourage such anti-social conduct.
>
> Anti-social conduct.... ahh that term so used in the UK to justify
> cameras everywhere. I've come to learn that term is just used for people
> that are not liked.

Yes ... people who have decided to beat someone to death for a laugh.
People often discriminate against such people unfairly. Some of them
film their violence on mobile phones, post it on the internet, but
government surveillance -- outrageous. There's a study going on in the
Netherlands in which street cameras are fitted with sufficient audio
to detect human distress sounds or mishaps such as motor vehicle
collisions. In a number of cases already, incipient street conflicts
have been broken up *before* someone has been hurt.

> People who refuse to join in and go with the herd is
> enough to be labeled anti-social. the 'harm' to others is usually some
> sort of over reaching stretch as well. The rules of the road already
> govern the interaction on the roads in a fair manner, or at least they
> did before control freaks started messing with them. No new laws or
> controls are required, merely restoring the rules of the road, first by
> making them respectable again by forcing government to set speed limits
> and light timings per best known engineering practices.
>
> >> Using government as
> >> bully against people you don't care for? What drives this sort of
> >> control freakism?
> >It's only your assertion that this amounts to 'control freakism'. I'm
> >not even sure what you mean by that. I don't favour unnecessarily
> >intrusive control over human activities.
>
> Could have sworn you were favoring a control grid where the government
> tracked and monitored everyone's travel and restricted it as it sought
> fit.
>

I said 'unnecessarily intrusive'. Some intrusion while in public space
is defencible.

> ?On the other hand, when human
>
> >activity stands a very serious prospect of harming the legitimate and
> >especially the compelling interests of others, it's clear to me that
> >the best thing is to take steps to foreclose such harms, if necessary,
> >at the expense of the discretion or personal space of those increasing
> >the harm. All civilised societies follow this principle, although each
> >draws the lines in different places. No society I'm aware of, beyond
> >the days of hunter gatherer existence, has every been totally
> >indifferent to the social behaviour of its members. Indeed, even
> >hunter gatherer societies have some loose rules and obligations. The
> >world is headed in the direction of 9 billion people by about 2050,
> >when one 100,000 or so years ago there were probably 4000 human
> >beings. How do you suppose 9 billion people can live together without
> >metaphorically and literally treading on each others toes? The
> >resources and the space for each of them to act entirely as they
> >pleased simply don't exist, and the attempt to approach that state
> >would cause enormous hardship.
> >So we have to find a way of reconciling the resources and the space we
> >have with the work that has to be done so as to provide the freedoms
> >we think we'd like.
>
> It's called the rules of the road. It's rather very simple. It doesn't
> not require number plate scanners, tracking, permissions of movements,
> oppressive taxation of movement, or anything else of the kind. All it
> takes is not monkeying with it for government control or profit. Once
> the system is perverted for those purposes people no longer see it as
> being about the fair use of a resource, but rather government's game to
> steal money from them.
>

I'm beginning to understand that it's this trait more than any other
sets Americans, especially (but not exclusively) the Bush fellow
travellers apart from most people -- this obsessive and morbid fear
that the government wants to steal your money, when oddly enough, you
are amongst the least heavily taxed people in the world. I am
continually amazed at how bothered so many of you seem to be about it
-- as if the few pennies extra you might conceivably be returned if
you wiped out what welfare or public infrastructure you had could buy
you something equally good in return. You're not troubled by the
increasing numbers of people in your cities sleeping rough or
dependent on charity or that your hospitals are under-resourced or
that your schools are often like low security prisons. One has to
shake one's head at the boneheaded stupidity some of you show.

> >> You use the words 'right' and 'privilege' together. They incompatible.
> >> Either we have a right to use the roads or it is a government granted
> >> privilege.
> >We have a qualified right, which means it's not an absolute right.
> >Each of us has the absolute right to try and live another day. Life is
> >a *compelling* interest. Nobody ought to impinge on that right, and
> >each of us who asserts that right is ethically bound to come to the
> >assistance of those doing no more than asserting that right.
> >The qualified right to use the roads is a *legitimate* interest. Road
> >space is limited and so we must negotiate with others who also have a
> >legitimate claim. How do we work out who gets road space when two
> >people want the same piece at the same time? We have a set of rules
> >and usages which are ultimately enforceable by those appointed by us
> >for the purpose. Their job is to consistently ensure that whoever has
> >the more legitimate claim, gets it. That way each of us gets as much
> >but no more than that to which we lay legitimate claim.
>
> The more legitimate claim... some people are just more equal that others
> in your universe.

But that's just it ... in *my universe* everyone gets less unequal. In
the world you inhabit and defend, people are radically unequal and
stay that way, although large swathes of them do get to suffer equally
at the hands of the privileged.

> No wonder the rules of the road, the simple rules of
> right of way that go about bringing equal access are not enough for you.
> I've sorry, I don't want to have to lobby local government just so I can
> get from point A to B.

You wouldn't. You'd drive it and pay the charge, or share a car with
someone else and come to terms, or get onto a bus or a train.

> Your system makes every trip something that
> government has to approve.

No, it doesn't. No trip is government-approved. Please cite where I
said this, in your opinion.

> Government isn't fair, just, or anything
> else. There is no 'claim' to the road, no joe's trip is more legitimate
> than bob's.

That's right. We leave it up to Joe and Bob to work it out for
themselves. If Joe and Bob want to share the road space, then they
both pay the relevant charge. Some of that money goes to providing
alternative transport options, precisely so that Fred, Martha and Jane
can make other arrangements and Joe and Bob can have more road space.
Since Fred, Martha and Jane are not all taking their cars out, the
roads are less crowded and Joe and Bob pay less than they would if
Fred, Martha and Jane were on the road. In short, the system provides
a framework for people to work out what they need, encouraging road
use only when cost-effective alternatives could not be provided in
practice. It's also dynamic, because the more people that use
particular roads at particualr times, the more money is garnered for a
complementary and parallel public transport service.

> The simple rules of right of way are all that is needed. Not
> central control deciding who gets to go where and when.
>
> >> If it is really the later and I don't believe it is, then
> >> government can tie anything it likes to the privilege. Of course people
> >> now believe it to be a privilege because that's what the government
> >> schools taught them. However, if one looks back into the history of the
> >> automobile, it's not a privilege, it effectively became one because of
> >> mass belief, but that's all it is, belief.
>
> >> > extended to those who make it their business not to
> >> >infringe the safety of others. It's not every person's right.
> >> Then the infringements are where the government comes in. Not making
> >> something a privilege where government can tie anything it likes to the
> >> use of the road. Just think, maybe the government decides that one must
> >> take a loyalty oath to GWB to get a driver's license.
> >That would be stupid, and I don't propose it. It's not relevant to
> >road safety and wouldn't pass any fair test of utility.
>
> Government doesn't care about tests of utility.

That's true in one sense -- the utility they are interested in is
threshhold public support rather than what is in the public interest.
Of course, that has to change.

> It will already take a
> DL if someone owes child support under the privilege concept. It's the
> privilege concept that your proposed control grid of the state deciding
> who's trips are more legitimate functions under. The privilege concept
> can easily be used for loyalty oaths and much worse.
>
> >> How gracious of you. However to believe that government gets to watch
> >> where we go, when, with who, by what path and all the other assorted
> >> tracking and controls you suggest is incompatible.
> >Well if you don't fancy that, you can always take the bus, or the
> >train, or ride a bike, or walk, or car pool, or take a taxi and
> >totally avoid the big bad government.
>
> bus, train, air travel, etc are all subject to ID checks, searches, etc
> under the 'war on terror'.

There's little doubt that these days, a degree of checking is
necessary. Nobody wants to be in a plane hijack of train bombing. Mind
you, I don't favour intrusive checking.

> Walking and biking are anti-social,

Oh ... so you have your own view of what it means to be anti-social?

> its not what the herd does.

You like the herd after all?

> The
> last time I was stopped by police and searched was walking home with
> my dinner, so don't tell me walking is free of government
> interference. Plus there have been calls to track bicyclists. Once
> government gets a taste of tracking it won't permit anything it cannot
> track.

Well I don't see that as practicable or needed.

> Taxis are also very controled by government regulation. It would be
> trivial to force an ID check and tracking there as well.
>

Do you have any idea how hard it is to make sense of the masses of
data you're talking about?

> >> That sort of watching
> >> and control is what is behind the logic of the drug war. Ever see the
> >> movie, "Refer Maddness"?
> >Yes ... nasty
>
> That's the argument you are making for road controls. People will go
> wild and hurt others.... It's the refer madness argument more or less.
>

Not only them but people who are perfectly level headed have hurt
others. They do it all the time.

> >> >Some things are best done by the government -- and reconciling
> >> >divergent and conflicting claims over scarce and essential resources
> >> >is one of them.
> >> Um, no it's not. The political process does not allocate resources best.
> >That's a sweeping generalisation. Sure there's no shortage of examples
> >of inefficient and ineffective and at times corrupt government
> >provision, but business is every bit as likely to misdirect resources.
>
> There is no shortage of it, because it occurs every time.
> Show me one instance where government hasn't mismanaged something it has
> taken control over? There isn't an single instance I can think of. Not
> one.
>

Well most of our public services here in Australia are no worse than
private organisations of comparable size. Some are better. The ABC,
which runs public broadcasting, accomplishes a great deal on very
little funding.

> >While it's probable that retail goods and services are probably best
> >organised by resort to the usages of markets, even these require a
> >degree of state oversight, if only to protect consumers from shoddy
> >and at times dangerous merchandise and services.
>
> The best protection is research, the internet makes that pretty easy
> these days. Most government product and business regulation is actually
> designed to stifle competition. That is one business or group of
> buisnesses, sometimes worker groups, lobby government to put in controls
> that are harmful to the competition. That will drive the competition out
> of business. One recent example is the animal ID act. This act is a huge
> burden on the small farmers that is favored by the big corporate farming
> companies. The FDA is even worse by making it illegal for
> someone to get treatments they want. Government decides what is best for
> you, not you. Government regulation is a tool to drive your competition
> out of business, it doesn't really offer consumer protection.
>

You're all over the shop here. If the government drives your
competition out of business, that's good (for you) right?

> > And would you really
> >want emergency services run by private businesses? That was tried with
> >fire fighters in ancient Rome. The results weren't great.
>
> However, when it comes to wild fires in CA, the private services are the
> ones saving homes while the public resources just decide who's home they
> are going to save and which ones they'll let burn. Someone out there
> would be silly not to have insurance that doesn't contract with private
> fire fighters.
>

Hmmm amusing.

> >The odd thing is that if all roads were privatised, you'd very
> >probably have people charging for all usages. Right now, roads are a
> >kind of middle class welfare.
>
> If roads were privatized there would need to be competing systems.
> Instead what we would see in the US would be government granted
> monopolies.
>

It's the only way you could have it because of the sunk cost of roads
and the huge contracts that would be needed to maintain them. Better
to have the government control the lot and have them charge on the
basis of some reasonable cost recovery. Then they outsource the actual
maintenance. Governments can borrow at a fraction of the cost of most
businesses because they have access to reliable income streams.

> >> It results in mismanagement, shortages, long lines, high prices,
> >> corruption, theft, and other horrors. Every resource government attempts
> >> to manage ends up like that.
> >No, it doesn't.
>
> Name where it hasn't. That's going to be a short list. The last attempt
> in the US were nixon's price controls and other nonsense that resulted
> in gas lines.
>

Well here in Australia, government supplies water. The cost is going
to go up, because we are needing to build new water capture
infrastructure, but overall, the supply of water over the last century
has been good, the quality high and the cost low -- perhaps too low,
with hindsight.

> >> > The ways in which people get from A to B demand oversight. It's that
> >> > simple.
> >> government screws everything it touches up.
> ><sigh> oh here we go ... right wing populist rant ...
>
> Name something it hasn't screwed up? BTW, the 'right wing' in the US is
> just another set of big government control freaks.
>

Sorry, but you're part of the right wing too. There are differences of
opinion on the right. Some favour corporatism and some favour ripping
up public infrastructure which gets you back to cartles and monopolies
by another route.

> >> Of course the answer is
> >> always more government intervention.... Federal reserve causes a housing
> >> bubble with all its cheap money and then the bubble bursts the answer of
> >> course is to give the fed more control!
> >Well duh ... they left credit providers to make up the rules as they
> >went along, and now they can't work out how to put 1.7 trillion or so
> >of doubtful quality debt back onto bank balance sheets without scaring
> >everyone into hiding from the fall out.
>
> Um... the federal reserve fixes interest rates. It caused the problem.

No, it failed to regulate lending practices, and the result was
underpriced risk.

> Fractional reserve banking and fiat money is the problem. It is what
> requires the the control. Real money and allowing the idiots who loan
> poorly to go broke is the only effective control. And, it was your
> government regulation that encouraged, even forced the bad loans.
> Remember, if you didn't loan to deadbeats that made you racist, etc and
> so forth.
>

What nonsense. They wrote loans not because they were liberal on
ethnicity but because they could bundle them up in "SIVs" and
essentially print money, relying on rising property values to take
care of the differences in debt quality.

> >So now they are stuck with handing out even cheaper money precisely
> >because they don't want the backwash of letting everyone go toe to toe
> >on who owes whom what.
> >Had they regulated these markets effectively, there wouldn't be the
> >uncertainty that now exists and the proportion of bad debts and whose
> >they were would be plain.
>
> The answer to government screw ups is more government! The regulation
> and interference made things worse so the answer is more regulation and
> interference. The answer is always more control when attempts at
> control don't work out. It's absurd. We are all poorer for it.
>

You need more AND different regulation.

> Government protects the privileged, the connected at the expense of the
> disconnected. Government protects the big banks and other interests that
> give the right people money at the expense of the many. That's how
> government regulation and control works. That's what you are seeing
> right now with your calls for more control.
>

Of course, it need not work this way. The answer is not throw up your
hands and say 'government sucks' but to change how it works and who
drives its processes.

> >> You're using the same logic.
> >> It's insanity, doing the same thing and expecting different results.
> >> More government intervention is not the answer. We'd be better off
> >> following the safety based engineering principles instead of controls
> >> and enforcement.
> >Safety on the roads is only partly related to have safe vehicles and
> >safe road design. It's also about how many people are using the road,
> >and how intensively. That's why during a recession, road trauma
> >declines by a lot more than even the best designed road safety
> >campaign. People stop using their cars. Given that the realtionship
> >between traffic volumes and road trauma is logarithmic, reducing road
> >usage and closely regulating the road usage you have in real time
> >gives you enormous safety payback. You change the culture around road
> >usage to one based on safety and efficiency rather than some mad
> >expression of commuter angst or the man on horseback conquering the
> >west.
>
> >Everyone wins then.
>
> No most everyone loses. The connected win. The elites win. The masses
> lose. We get to pay more and more but are permitted to do less and less.
> Instead of being free we become subject to control.
>

No, the masses win, because the elites are forced to pay for their
road usage and the public transport of others instead of being
subsidised by the others to drive their large heavy polluting cars
along the roads.

> Seriously, you people will be sorry you let government take all that
> control, all that power.

Actually, as a matter of practice, it would be a small step in the
masses taking back some of the power

Fran

On Apr 1, 7:19*pm, (Matthew T. Russotto)
wrote:
> In article >,
>
> Brent P > wrote:
>
> >It's difficult to have revolution when you can't assemble. It's hard to
> >assemble when you can't travel freely.
>
> It's difficult to have revolution when most people are like Fran ...

Hmmm. That's an interesting phrase.

The false claim that follows it isn't interesting at all, but this
part is.

The irony is enough to LOL...

E.P.

In article >, Fran wrote:
>On Apr 2, 12:23 am, (Brent P) wrote:

>> Both those have been far more effective in destroying the protection of
>> our rights. That's not to say the would be police state has not been
>> attacking road use, because it has. The checkpoints can make anyone who
>> grew up in the 80s feel like the US lost the cold war.

>I read recently that about a third of people suffer from paranoid
>impulses.

It's clear you are unable to discuss this a civil or rational manner.
After this first line of yours it is clear that it is not worth my time
to read your 600 plus line post. Good day.

On Apr 3, 3:40*pm, (Brent P) wrote:
> In article >, Fran wrote:
> >On Apr 2, 12:23 am, (Brent P) wrote:
> >> Both those have been far more effective in destroying the protection of
> >> our rights. That's not to say the would be police state has not been
> >> attacking road use, because it has. The checkpoints can make anyone who
> >> grew up in the 80s feel like the US lost the cold war.
> >I read recently that about a third of people suffer from paranoid
> >impulses.
>
> It's clear you are unable to discuss this a civil or rational manner.

LOL. The irony is hilarious.

E.P.

On Apr 4, 9:45*am, Ed Pirrero > wrote:
> On Apr 3, 3:40*pm, (Brent P) wrote:
>
> > In article >, Fran wrote:
> > >On Apr 2, 12:23 am, (Brent P) wrote:
> > >> Both those have been far more effective in destroying the protection of
> > >> our rights. That's not to say the would be police state has not been
> > >> attacking road use, because it has. The checkpoints can make anyone who
> > >> grew up in the 80s feel like the US lost the cold war.
> > >I read recently that about a third of people suffer from paranoid
> > >impulses.
>
> > It's clear you are unable to discuss this a civil or rational manner.
>
> LOL. *The irony is hilarious.
>


Who was it who said Americans don't do irony? Someone ill-informed,
obviously.

Fran

On Apr 4, 9:40*am, (Brent P) wrote:
> In article >, Fran wrote:
> >On Apr 2, 12:23 am, (Brent P) wrote:
> >> Both those have been far more effective in destroying the protection of
> >> our rights. That's not to say the would be police state has not been
> >> attacking road use, because it has. The checkpoints can make anyone who
> >> grew up in the 80s feel like the US lost the cold war.
> >I read recently that about a third of people suffer from paranoid
> >impulses.
>
> It's clear you are unable to discuss this a civil or rational manner.

Is it? What's uncivil about hypothesising that you are suffering from
paranoia? The article makes clear that this is something that is
widespread. Each of your posts contains strongly suggestive evidence
that you suffer from fears of persecution that are unrelated to any
clear pattern of behaviour by government. It seems that you are
willing to infer much from very little.

> After this first line of yours it is clear that it is not worth my time
> to read your 600 plus line post. *Good day.

That's a matter for you, though of course many of those lines were
yours. It may well be that you don't like your paranoia being
challenged and the propositions that governments are inherently
oppressive of individuals, desirous of maldistributing privilege,
incompetent by comparison with private business and so forth are
articles of faith -- the things from which you draw your identity.

Far be it from me to demand that you lose your grip on what it means
to be you. I need not envy your world to recognise your right to
wallow in it. Go and be well with yourself.

Fran