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You are probably right that my comparison to civil rights is extreme and unnecessary, but I feel that my point stands: that the government sometimes makes laws that are not based on facts, evidence, or the good of the people, but rather on politics, money, and popular sentiment. I feel that there is compelling evidence that speed limit laws are often of the later group. A lot of other laws are too, even the drunk driving limit of .08 is not based on evidence (and I would argue is debunked by evidence) but it makes intuitive sense to people and it certainly looks good for politicians to support, so why not? Is this stuff a big deal? I think so.
Did you know that a London study (from the '60s or 70s I think) showed that the best way to predict if kids would grow up to be criminals was by whether they had a refrigerator in the household or not? I understand about correlation/causation, which is why I tried to present two situations, one where fatalities increased with time and the other where they decreased with time. Of course, I'm not 100% certain higher speed limits are safer even in specific situations, but the evidence is at least interesting.
There actually is an organization that supports motorists rights, you can check them out if you like at http://www.motorists.org I haven't looked at anything of theirs in a while, but they usually have some interesting points.
I actually don't have a wife to run stuff by (I'm pretty young yet). This probably also explains the free time on my hands- don't even get me started on the insurance industry or John Ashcroft!
Oh, and as for hot McDonalds coffee, my understanding is a little different. It turns out that McD's had coffee machines with unregulated temperatures, which on occasion could cause the coffee to get so hot that it could melt through the provided cups, which is exactly what happened in the lap of the woman who sued, leading to a burn where you really don't want one. Most restaurants don't use such a system for safety reasons, now McDonalds doesn't either.
Like I said, things are rarely back and white, but I guess we'll just have to disagree on speeding, and disagreement is, of course, just fine.
Craig
'87 9kT 268k
posted by 12.93.2...
, Sun, 7 Sep 2003 09:17:58, Sun, 7 Sep 2003 12:49:32
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