Re: Law-abiding majority 'is a myth'

Hi,
I'm about to give up on this thread, the nutters appear to have
arrived in force, however there's still some sense prevailing:

On 27 Jun, 12:08, Peter Clinch <p.j.cli...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
W.Warbur...@xxxxxxxx wrote:
It doesn't, but public policy might choose one over the other. Given
a finite budget to inform and educate, should it be spent on health
education or road safety?

Or perhaps on an overall better understanding of personal
responsibility, for both yourself and others, which covers a lot more bases.

Yup, I agree with that.

Again- I'm trying to present context, not argue details. Perhaps I'm
doing it badly but I really don't want to get into a silly argument. I
probably come across as complacent, myself, but what I'm trying to do
is to point out that Joe Public's complacency about road safety,
speeding etc is grounded in a surprisingly rational assessment of the
risks involved and that we'd all be more effective if we acknowledged
that and tackled it differently.

I don't think it's nearly as rational as you suggest. "I am safe
because my car is top of the board in such and such safety test" is, I
think (admittedly based on only anecdotal evidence), why folk consider
themselves safe, not from any hard thinking about actual levels of
danger or approaches to responsibility beyond "I have bought a vehicle
with numerous safety features".

Yes, that's fair enough. "Rational" was the wrong word to use. My
point, if I may try again, is that the judgement that a substantial
number of people (voters, it should be remembered) is that they are
unlikely to kill or be killed if they drive a bit faster than perhaps
they should. This judgement may not be calculated but is nevertheless
surprisingly accurate- very few actual journeys result in serious
"accidents".

If anything, that people see it as mad for kids under 14 or whatever it
was to be out in the street on their own suggests an irrational feeling
in the other direction as regards safety: you're only safe these days if
you've got airbags and a steel cage, underlined by the massive rise of
"school run" car journeys required to keep kids safe from traffic!

Indeed- this supports my contention that we are a relatively risk
averse society, though we are ill-informed and inconsistant in our
aversity.

It's irresponsibilty that we need to address

Agreed.

I'm worried that
nannying drivers by focussing on speed limits reduces the imperative
to act responsibly.

I'm worried that portraying the road environment as really quite a safe
place will cause people to think there's not much need to be responsible.

I don't think there's much danger that my (apparantly contentious)
suggestion that the roads arn't generally suicidally dangerous places
to venture is likely to become a guiding force behind public policy.
I'm not advocating complacency (actually, I'm not advocating very much
at the moment), but I do think that it would useful to bear in mind
that much of the electorate are motorists, that they have observed
that a little light speeding generally doesn't do anyone any harm and
they are therefore unlikely to back policies that severely curtail
personal freedom and economic advantage to make a marginal improvement
in safety.

Please don't take issue with the technicalities, I'm sure there are
many readers who would like to see draconian measures to save as many
lives as possible, others that think we've gone too far already and
some that want to challenge the implicit assumptions in the paragraph
above. Before doing so, please understand that I am trying to
highlight that Joe Blogg's attitude that it always happens to someone
else is statistically not that far from the truth. We will do a better
job of making cyclists (and other road users) safer if we bear that in
mind.

Cheers,
W.

.

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