On Sun, 08 Jun 2003 19:15:34 +0100, Paul Smith <
[email protected]> wrote:
>>>Speed cameras do require substantial police resources, but are not delivering road safety
>>>benefits - rather the opposite, as you would know if you actually studied the subject.
>>So anybody who has studied the subject *must* reach the same conclusion? That's extrordinarily
>>arrogant. Many people have studied the subject in very great detail, and most have clearly not
>>reached the same conclusion as you.
>Thing is Guy, these's no independent research. All the research you can read is either a)
>hopelessly flawed, b) designed to support a pre-defined conclusion or c) both. What little
>independent work there is all agrees with me. (And don't go putting claims I haven't made in
>my mouth.)
Independent research exists. There are studies available from countries around the world, many of
which have been peer-reviewed (which your claims have not). You apparently regard these studies as
useful when you want to use them to make a point (cf. the risible 12mph page) but not when it comes
to accepting their conclusions.
Your judgement of what's "hopelessly flawed" seems to rest entirely on whether it supports your
argument. You require a standard of proof in your "statistics challenge" which your own claims
manifestly fail to reach. A report is not "hopelessly flawed" because some speeding apologist in
Scotland says it is.
It is the nature of scientific research that very often one sets out to prove or disprove a
hypothesis. Someone setting out to prove a hypothesis may or may not succeed. The measure of whether
they have suceeded is whether, following peer review, their evidence is considered credible by their
peers. In the case of evidence for the danger of speeding, for exampple, there is ample and strong
evidence which has been reviewed and published in a variety of journals.
>There's nothing of any substance to support the road safety benefits of automated speed
>enforcement, and there are some very unwelcome trends in the figures.
Which trends are almost certainly unrelated. Any half competent statistician knows to be wary of
confusing subsequences with consequences.
>>I am sure that your PhD thesis in road safety was a tour de force of speeding apologia, but those
>>others have at least equal claim to understanding the issues.
>PhD? Don't make me laugh. I'm a practical man not a cosseted academic.
The call of the bar-room philospher.
>My Campaign includes writing to government. I don't much care if they like my logo or not. You do
>realise it's "Safe Speed" in a speed limit sign do you? Could you ask for a safer approach?
The letters SS have a certain resonance, of which you can hardly fail to be aware. If you want to
continue to be written off as a loony before they have read the first word, by all means continue
with the Schmidt Staffeln logo. It is, to be honest, a matter of coplete indifference to me. I
merely pointed it out as one writer-to-government to another.
>>>speed cameras cost lives
>>An assertion to which you cling with the tenacity of the True Believer despite the fact that you
>>have yet to advance a single credible[1] argument in its support. The Church of the Mobile Death
>>Greenhouse must be proud of its acolyte
>Don't blame me if you can't see the truth.
Ah, well, it is the nature of Revealed Truth that it very often looks like delusion to the
unenlightened.
>How come our roads were the safest in the world long before we had automated speed enforcement?
Safest for whom? Our rates of cyclist and child pedestrian fatalities, for example, are certainly
nothing to be proud of and never have been.
Guy
===
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