catgate Posted July 27, 2008 Report Share Posted July 27, 2008 Slightly off-topic, I think catgate. :DNo, I don't think so.The point I am trying, and apparently failing, to make is that the legislation on road safety is, exactly like all our legislation, ill conceived and, as the current saying has it "unfit for purpose",If I am driving at 25mph in a 30mph zone and I hit someone, the fact that I was under the arbitrary limit, set by official bumbldom, is absolutely no defence. I am guilty of causing an accident (leaving out why someones grandchild had dashed into the road). I am supposed to adjust my speed according to prevailing conditions. It was part of the driving test and is covered by the highway code. I am required to drive with due care and attention and and at a speed compatible with the rest of the traffic. (I failed my first driving test because I did not exceed 25mph driving around the centre of Harrogate). Now someone somewhere has decided that at no time will conditions in this zone be be such that it will be suitable for me to exceed 30mph. That someone can not possibly know this. Traffic on this bit of road may be virtually zero from 10 pm to 6.30 am and yet it is still not up to me make my own judgement about speeds above the limit, although I can make my own judgement providing I am below 30mph. This silly state of affairs exists in every speed limit zone. The driver is supposed to drive with due care and attention but must ignore any conditions that would allow him to safely go any faster than the limit set arbitrarily by someone in bumbldom who can not know what current conditions are. This applies to 20mph areas near schools which are justified "if at all" for only 95.5% of the time.The point I was trying to get across was that this silly state of affairs also applies to smoking whilst driving, telephoning whilst driving, listening to the radio whilst driving, changing gear whilst driving, eating an apple, nose picking and/or blowing whilst driving. etc. There are conditions under which these things can be done quite safely whilst driving with due care and attention,, and obviously the reverse too, but bumbldom in it's overbearing and all knowing way sees fit to lay on another layer of law to prevent you breaking an already existing law (and also raise a copper or two). So silly is it that I can be complying with the law by driving with due care and attention, and yet although I am on the spot, and can see that there is not another car, person or even tom cat for hundreds of yard yet the speed camera knows better and I am fined for breaking a law which is there because it fills a political need. It panders to "Concered of Tunbridge Well" , it helps fill the collecting box, and it helps with the creation of guilt. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irene Posted July 27, 2008 Report Share Posted July 27, 2008 Well thanks for that, catgate.Lots of good points.I have personally rested my case. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Watchful Posted July 27, 2008 Report Share Posted July 27, 2008 Slightly off-topic, I think catgate. :DNo, I don't think so.The point I am trying, and apparently failing, to make is that the legislation on road safety is, exactly like all our legislation, ill conceived and, as the current saying has it "unfit for purpose",If I am driving at 25mph in a 30mph zone and I hit someone, the fact that I was under the arbitrary limit, set by official bumbldom, is absolutely no defence. I am guilty of causing an accident (leaving out why someones grandchild had dashed into the road).I am supposed to adjust my speed according to prevailing conditions. It was part of the driving test and is covered by the highway code. I am required to drive with due care and attention and and at a speed compatible with the rest of the traffic. (I failed my first driving test because I did not exceed 25mph driving around the centre of Harrogate). Now someone somewhere has decided that at no time will conditions in this zone be be such that it will be suitable for me to exceed 30mph. That someone can not possibly know this. Traffic on this bit of road may be virtually zero from 10 pm to 6.30 am and yet it is still not up to me make my own judgement about speeds above the limit, although I can make my own judgement providing I am below 30mph. This silly state of affairs exists in every speed limit zone. The driver is supposed to drive with due care and attention but must ignore any conditions that would allow him to safely go any faster than the limit set arbitrarily by someone in bumbldom who can not know what current conditions are. This applies to 20mph areas near schools which are justified "if at all" for only 95.5% of the time.The point I was trying to get across was that this silly state of affairs also applies to smoking whilst driving, telephoning whilst driving, listening to the radio whilst driving, changing gear whilst driving, eating an apple, nose picking and/or blowing whilst driving. etc. There are conditions under which these things can be done quite safely whilst driving with due care and attention,, and obviously the reverse too, but bumbldom in it's overbearing and all knowing way sees fit to lay on another layer of law to prevent you breaking an already existing law (and also raise a copper or two). So silly is it that I can be complying with the law by driving with due care and attention, and yet although I am on the spot, and can see that there is not another car, person or even tom cat for hundreds of yard yet the speed camera knows better and I am fined for breaking a law which is there because it fills a political need. It panders to "Concered of Tunbridge Well" , it helps fill the collecting box, and it helps with the creation of guilt.That's exactly the point I was trying to make against silly, unnecessary laws catgate. Thank you. (concerned of Tunbridge Wells) ;) Make sure you drop the collection box on your foot and then you can claim for damages :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catgate Posted July 27, 2008 Author Report Share Posted July 27, 2008 It is not just driving that is involved with this daft legislation over kill.There is a law that says it is not permissable to kill another human being, nor attack him/her.That being so there is no need for a law to ban guns from being carried or even owned. Likewise knives, or baseball bats or bricks etc. They are all reasonable things to carry for a legitimate purpose, and since the law prohibits murder and attacks on others, the prohibition of the carrying of these things and others (like dustbin lids, garden forks, railway engine wheels, buckets of cold hard porridge etc) is all rather pathetic. The problem is that the law, and retribution, are so watered down for many nonsensical, and often corrupt, reasons that we finish up in the state we are in today. Where we have prisons bursting at the seams but we can not put the prisoners to work to quarry stone and build larger ones, because it will infringe upon their tenuous claim to "human rights".All those committing crimes should receive appropriate retribution and should be required to compensate the victim, or the general public, in an appropriate way rather than being told not to be naughty and receiving a sentenced of a short period retirement in relative comfort.It is noticeable though just how much the legal profession gain from the current wishy washy grey indistinctness of our laws. They make a fabulous living out of "interpreting" and "presenting" things which can be conjured out of this greyness. So much so that one could almost think that these laws were drawn up by the lawyers !!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan2273 Posted July 27, 2008 Report Share Posted July 27, 2008 Cherie Blair and Chakrabbiti, two small cogs in an enormous wheel, that cost the taxpayer millions a year through interpreting these arcane laws brought about by do gooders and meddlers who think the average person has no sense at all, so must be protected from everything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tankus Posted July 27, 2008 Report Share Posted July 27, 2008 got a speed ticket recently ..have we .....cats ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catgate Posted July 27, 2008 Author Report Share Posted July 27, 2008 got a speed ticket recently ..have we .....cats ?No, never had one.I started on a motor bike in 1951 and have been driving various things ever since. I have been very lucky, up to now. Although I try to help my luck by trying to stick to their silly limits. I find it easier, physically, now that I have cruise control, but I am by nature a driver who can see no point in dawdling along at 50 mpg when I am in a 60 mpg zone and I get quite irate at the country's safe ultra slow dawdler drivers, who have never had an accident...but who have caused a few...when they troll along at 45 mph, with the nodding dog on their back parcel shelf going out of his mind with boredom.We went over to the Skipton area yesterday to visit managements aged father. On the way back we came upon just such a prat about seven miles west of Wetherby on a small country lane. There was ample room to pass him, had pulled over to his left slightly, but he didn't. In fact he never looked through his mirrors all the time we were behind him. He maintained a steady course at about 45mph and upon reaching the 30mph sign on entering Wetherby he continued on the same steady course at the same 45 mph. Where he went I know not because I dropped to 30mph as he blythly sailed away...still driving "safely".The only reason I brought up the speed thing was because it is a perfect example of the stupidity of our nanny state's attitude towards those it is supposed to be serving. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tankus Posted July 27, 2008 Report Share Posted July 27, 2008 seen over on guido's . it struck a chord with me The Anglo Saxon Code: No crown but ours shall govern here, No strangers rule with gold or fear, No plow but ours may slough the loam, No prow but ours slash the spume, No hand but ours may bind our kin, No gods but ours proclaim a sin, No law but ours may stay a blow, No hand but ours may draw a bow, No men but ours may hunt the land, No sons but ours bear sword in hand, No word but ours shall we trust, No flags be flown except of us, No land but ours do we demand, No more than what we have farmed, No strangers slaving on our soil, No man unpaid or forced to toil, No heroes praised but ours alone, No other kin but our blood and bone, No strangers to tell us who we are, No obedience to any foreign laws. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catgate Posted July 27, 2008 Author Report Share Posted July 27, 2008 That is wonderful.It should be printed in every newspaper in the country and learned off by heart by every British child in the country.Just where abouts on Guido did you find it? I must have missed it somehow. Is it an old item? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tankus Posted July 27, 2008 Report Share Posted July 27, 2008 Its a post in the last gordo post today on the weather, the source is here ... I think Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catgate Posted July 27, 2008 Author Report Share Posted July 27, 2008 I missed that somehow. I must pay more attention. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tankus Posted July 27, 2008 Report Share Posted July 27, 2008 heh ...... think I might photo chop it with some anglo saxon images print and hang it on a wall ..... not often a work resonates with me like that ...another one was the ballad of peter grimes, turned into an opera by Britten, but I prefer the Crabbe original innit ..worrying thing though ...I didn't quite suss it was a poem about repressed homosexuality, until well later (english lit O level back in the early 80's , I now realize my teacher batted for the other side , but ...there you go !,) ....... good stuff..... anyways...... evokes an image of times past with relevance today , bit like the Saxon one .. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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