Well your track record and the realities of the situation make the subject too difficult, so what else has he got?
Often the way with the we-must-legislate it types, the realities of the situation that do not fit their model must be discounted and ignored rather than understood; the realities that do must be amplified and used to scare the public into unquestioning obedience. Just look at some of the speed kills campaign ads.
"A shark on whiskey is mighty risky, but a shark on beer is a beer engineer" - Tad Ghostal
While its awfully tempting to say ‘fuck the gubbermint and the panty waisted autocrats telling us horny handed sons of the soil what to do on mah own lawn”…. The fact remains that every time there is a serious accident and quite apart from the terrible personal consequences, the self same gubbermint (and us tax payers) end up with a stonking great bill.
Like it or not it the downside of having useful things like SAR, Police, Fire Services, helicopter rescue services and ambulances, hospitals and the like is paying for the darn things. We live in an age of medical miracles where injuries that were untreatable 100years ago are now minor and the early deaths/amputations/disfigurements etc of previous generations are increasingly rare. Communications technology and freely available cheap mechanized transport has changed our world. Unfortunately all this medical/rescue stuff uses pretty darn expensive kit compared to the price of say a quad. Ie its increasingly cheaper to get out there and get into trouble and more expensive to get you back if it goes pear shaped.
People’s expectations of rescue have also grown and thus in this increasingly connected and covered world our collective ‘fiscal responsibility’ towards each other is increasing. While its easy to say ‘let those who face the risk decide’ the reality is that those who pay the bills will want to have a say as is proper. Imagine the howls of protest from Federated Farmers if ACC said that you now have to register each quad and farm vehicle to cover the costs of any accidents… (they well may do I don’t actually know I’m just forwarding an argument for the other side for the sake of good form)
Individual responsibility is a fine thing and needs to be encouraged but does that mean we don’t go to the aid of idiots? ‘Oh? Your 6 year old is injured because you were drinking and overloaded your quad??? Well that’s really stupid and irresponsible of you so no we wont send an ambulance this time but here is the address of the nearest medical centre…” Nah – it wont work in any reasonable society.
There are solutions but they require a less selfish attitude and a co operative mood in society. Exactly the opposite of where we are headed…
Again, more data is needed. Divide the accident figures into three categories:
Machinery at fault
Rider skill at fault
Rider attitude at fault
Without at least knowing the distribution across those factors it seems misguided to focus legislation on fixing just one or two.
"A shark on whiskey is mighty risky, but a shark on beer is a beer engineer" - Tad Ghostal
Poor post. Farmers are notorious for ill-equipped gear/unsafe machinery. With their quads they drag big heavy shit around stretch the frames/kill the welds ect making the bike unsafe, not fit to be used . Nope that still does not stop the bike being used by all. Those in the industry of fixing Quads will know well what I am talking about.
Farmers and farm hands are human and will take the bike to the edge, trouble is most have never had a real good fright to finding that edge and when they do sometimes it is too late.
Introducing some sort of WOF process for farm bikes would be a start.
How is asking what the actual proportions are burying my head in the sand? Quite the opposite I would have thought.
You're sounding a bit like Headbanger, why question the realities of the situation when we can just bang through some legislation backed up by some 'scary' anecdotal evidence?
Its gotten like the boy who cried wolf, so much BS safety legislation that the worthwhile stuff is not well received either. I suspect this one falls into the BS category, but if some factual data comes out I could be swayed.
"A shark on whiskey is mighty risky, but a shark on beer is a beer engineer" - Tad Ghostal
So what? ACC is managing just fine on the revenue it takes as it is, and if you take your premise to it's natural conclusion there'd be no stairs, for example, 'cause elevators is safer. There used to be things called Safety Engineers, their role was to quantify major project risks in terms of human life. Budgets were generated and risks mitigated based on their reports. One day someone died on the job, and the papers were full of the "sickening practice of putting a price on human life". So we don't have Safety Engineers any more, what we've got is a bunch of corperate/govt speak: "There's no such thing as an accident, "Every accident is preventable", etc.
News: there is a price on human life. It's that which each individual is prepared to pay for his own. Nobody else has the right to do that, not even if they're responsible for patching people up after an accident. Think of it as the ultimate self sesponsibility. 'Cause that's exactly what it is.
What the fuck for? WOF's do nothing to improve road accidenty stat's, what makes you think they'd make any difference on a farm?
Go soothingly on the grease mud, as there lurks the skid demon
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