What is life without risk?

[swbarnett]

Forgive me while I wax philosophical for a moment but it occurs to me that it may be of some benefit to regale you with some of my thoughts on living, driving and the risks that are an inherent part of both of these vital activities.

Let me start by clearing up what I mean by living. I'm not talking about merely surviving. One can exist in a corporeal form with the sole purpose of pushing birth and death as far apart as possible or one can actually enjoy the time one has however long or short it may be. This is living!

The LTSA had a slogan (probably still do) - “Drive to Survive”. Sorry, wrong emphasis. I “Drive to Live”.

In all aspects of life there is an element of risk. There are two ways we as humans can handle this risk: We can cover ourselves in figureative cotton wool and wait to die or we can mitigate risk where it is reasonable to do so and embrace that which isn't. Evolution has programmed us for the latter. A life without suffucient risk is unhealthy.

This brings me to the subject of mitigation. Although a life without risk is mentally damaging a life with too much risk can be equally damaging both mentally and physically. The trick is to strike a balance. This is where things get subjective; how much risk is too much? This can only be answered by the individual. Noone has the right to impose risk on someone or remove it without the express consent of that person. This balance is sadly lacking in modern society. Some of the risk mitigation that is imposed on us by others will be appreciated (warning labels on poisons for example) but as far as it pertains to driving they have gone too far. What's the odd death or injury as compared to a society that bored silly and ready for revolution just for something exciting to do?

let's face facts, considering the number of kms driven every day is our road toll really anything to worry about?

There is another way to look at risk mitigation. There comes a point where the more we remove risk from peoples lives the less they think. If drivers expect the roads to be safe they stop looking for hazards (and us). The road toll will actually climb. We have to stop “improving safety” and acknowledge that people can actually think for themselves when given the chance. If you choose to drive, you accept the risks that are an inherent part of that activity. Don't blame others for proving me right.

Let me finish with a paragraph on speed limits. In essence the government is saying to us that anyone who drives at a speed higher than that posted is a murderer (“If you're prepared to speed, you're prepared to kill”). Consider this analogy: If a murder was committed at a party would you imprison everyone that attended? Of course not. Ticketing speeding drivers is exactly the same. You're penalising the innocent for the actions of a few guilty parties just because they fit into some arbitrary group. If your actions lead directly to the death or injury of another person you deserve to be “educated”. Otherwise, leave the rest of us alone.

[MSTRS:Me]

You've been spending too much time on KB. Great to see the site is working.

[yod]

welcome to the world of the mindless moral majority....

[shcabbeh]

Yeah good write up. I think a lot of people like living in their bubbles. They don't have to see the bigger picture so they don't.

Change is a natural process, that includes life and death. Those that live fast and die young tend to make more of an impact on others than those who putter along until they die. Funny thing is, it's usually the loss of the former that causes the latter to be dead ('scuse pun) scared of taking risks.

Oh and who knows, maybe some peoples' idea of risk = lobbying against thousands of angry bikers? :P

[Biff]

Ticketing speeding drivers is exactly the same. You're penalising the innocent for the actions of a few guilty parties just because they fit into some arbitrary group.

Speeding kills apparently. Far more often in fact than when people, on the whole, stick to govt imposed speed limits.

I for one feel much safer living in a country where the overwhelming majority of road users do so in a relatively predictable manner, largely thanks to imposed and enforced speed limits. With just the occasional arsehole hell bent on acting the prick and spoiling other people's days.

I've lived in places where there are no speed limits, or lax enforcement of any limits, it's nasty.

That doesn't mean to say I don't speed - I just don't get caught.

[Jantar]

I agree. You have taken a long way of saying:

"Some people are scared of dying. They are also scared of living".

[swbarnett]

Speeding kills apparently. Far more often in fact than when people, on the whole, stick to govt imposed speed limits.

Well, actually, it's not so black and white. According to an article in the July 2000 issue of "Investigate Magazine" the open road speed limit was dropped from 100km/h to 80km/h in the early 1970s. For the ten years prior the average road toll was 608 deaths/year. In the ten years after the average road toll was 707 deaths/year. They went on to talk about states in the US that had removed interstate speed limits all together. The death toll saw a marked drop.

I've driven on the German autobahn (no limit) and felt perfectly safe. I had a Merc honking at me for hogging the road in northern Italy - I was doing 170km/h. Never felt in the slightest bit unsafe.

I've lived in places where there are no speed limits, or lax enforcement of any limits, it's nasty.

Do you mind if I ask where?

I also must clarify that I'm talking primarily about open road speed limits. I'd like to have the urban limits raised for major connecting roads and lowered for quiet side roads (in Switzerland there is the concept of a child freindly road with a limit of 30km/h) but I do think a speed limit per se is needed in urban areas, just a more realistic one.

[Mole_C]

Im sure most people here would agree, hence why we all rid bikes and hate SUVs

However raising the speed limit in NZ isn't really an option. The majority or our roads are rural roads with driveways and other obstacles, such as poos and oil. You may feel safe speeding through these, it's your decision to risk hitting poo or oil but you increase the chance of the farmer pulling out of his driveway being hit. Many of these driveways are around corners and they just have to pull out and hope. Raising the speed limit in these places would impose a forced danger on these people. Without changing almost every road or driveway in the country to long straights before the driveways there is no way speeds in these places can be safely increased.

Motorway speeds could be increased but no where near the speeds of the autobahn. Our roading surface compared to theirs is simply put "shit". It gets munted as it is, is full of bumps, potholes and bad drivers. If you want to go fast on the motorway then go for it. As you say it is your choice to take the risk.

Making the speed limit faster won't improve our standard of driving. I heard some stupid bitch the other day say "I don't like to do head checks, it messes up my hair" You really want her to be allowed to go faster?

Anyway my point is that although i like to speed, that is my own choice. I choose to take the extra risk for the extra fun and will take the consequences. I have done adventure sports since i was 4 and still do, any risks and consequences are mine to accept. However increasing the speed limit is imposing greater danger on me from others and making my taxes higher

[MSTRS:Me]

.... the overwhelming majority of road users do so in a relatively predictable manner....

Being able to predict that cagers will act unpredictably is a motorcyclist's greatest asset in his bag of 'avoid being rundown/over' tricks.
Speeding is not the curse we are told ad nauseum. Failure to observe 99% of the other rules is....

[Grahameeboy]

This brings me to the subject of mitigation. Although a life without risk is mentally damaging a life with too much risk can be equally damaging both mentally and physically. The trick is to strike a balance. This is where things get subjective; how much risk is too much? This can only be answered by the individual. Noone has the right to impose risk on someone or remove it without the express consent of that person. This balance is sadly lacking in modern society. Some of the risk mitigation that is imposed on us by others will be appreciated (warning labels on poisons for example) but as far as it pertains to driving they have gone too far. What's the odd death or injury as compared to a society that bored silly and ready for revolution just for something exciting to do?

let's face facts, considering the number of kms driven every day is our road toll really anything to worry about?

There is another way to look at risk mitigation. There comes a point where the more we remove risk from peoples lives the less they think. If drivers expect the roads to be safe they stop looking for hazards (and us). The road toll will actually climb. We have to stop “improving safety” and acknowledge that people can actually think for themselves when given the chance. If you choose to drive, you accept the risks that are an inherent part of that activity. Don't blame others for proving me right.

Let me finish with a paragraph on speed limits. In essence the government is saying to us that anyone who drives at a speed higher than that posted is a murderer (“If you're prepared to speed, you're prepared to kill”). Consider this analogy: If a murder was committed at a party would you imprison everyone that attended? Of course not. Ticketing speeding drivers is exactly the same. You're penalising the innocent for the actions of a few guilty parties just because they fit into some arbitrary group. If your actions lead directly to the death or injury of another person you deserve to be “educated”. Otherwise, leave the rest of us alone.

It's an odd world at times.

The Govt receive taxes on Cigarettes which we all know are almost guaranteed to cause health issues or death and they put a Govt Warning on the packet and will happily pay for Health care when needed.

So the Govt's actions be allowing cigarettes to be sold can lead to the death of another person........are they murderers?

The Govt sell Motorcycles which can easily exceed the speed limit.....bit like selling a loaded gun.......they receive Gst on new sales and I guess on motorcycle clothing, yet it is illegal to exceed the speed limit and if you do and get caught we pay a fine.

Well you get my drift

[Sanx]

The Govt receive taxes on Cigarettes which we all know are almost guaranteed to cause health issues or death and they put a Govt Warning on the packet and will happily pay for Health care when needed.

So the Govt's actions be allowing cigarettes to be sold can lead to the death of another person........are they murderers?

It's in the government's best interests to allow people to smoke. Not only do they gain enormous revenue from cigarettes, but it reduces health care and other government costs into the bargain. I know this might sound daft, but let me explain.

Smokers, on average, die ten years earlier than their non-smoking counterparts. That ten years is, obviously, at the end of the lifespan when people are not in work, not paying as much income tax and receive a state pension. Smokers do get ill, obviously, but they tend to get serious life-ending diseases like cancer and heart disease, rather than long lingering illnesses that require constant palliative care.

If you take into account ten years of government pension and fewer chronic ongoing health costs, smokers put far less of a burden on the government towards the end of their lives than non-smokers do.

So why do they allow cigarettes to be sold? Simple economics; if they didn't, it'd cost the government a bloody fortune.

Speeding kills apparently. Far more often in fact than when people, on the whole, stick to govt imposed speed limits.

Unmitigated garbage.

The government claim that 'speeding' is the root cause of 30% of all accidents. However, Land Transport have two definitions for speeding, which are conveniently lumped together. They are: "Speed in excess of the posted limit" and "Speed in excess of what is safe for the conditions". The first definition of speeding is not inherently dangerous, which the second is.

So when you hear about a driver 'speeding', don't always assume he was going faster than the limit in force. 95kph of some rural roads can be regarded as downright bloody madness, altough technically it's legal. Should a person crash at that speed, the cops would still report that the death was speed-related and it would go into the politically-useful tally of speed-related deaths. Land Transport have been asked to seperate the two figures out, but they seem very reluctant to do so.

In 1995, the Transport Reasearch Labs in the UK (a wholly-owned subsidiary of the UK's Department of Transport, Environment and the Regions) conducted a widespread survery of KSI accidents; accidents where one or more people were Killed or Seriously Injured. They gave accident investigation forms to about 75% of the Police Forces in the UK and officers were required to fill them out at the scene. After six months, the results were tallied and made for very interesting reading.

They broke down causal factors into two categories: major and minor. A major factor was the main cause of an accident. A minor factor was a contributory cause. Cleverly, the survey compilers had listed 'speed in excess of the posted limit' and 'speed in excess of what is safe for the conditions' as two seperate categories. Speed in excess of the posted limit was found to be a minor factor in only 7% of KSI accidents, and a major factor in just 3%.

Of course, this kind of report made for scary reading for the UK government, being even more speed-obsessed than the traffic mullahs here. Shortly after, Transport Research Labs released another report which applied a new statistical methodology which re-interpreted to the results collected previously. They lumped together the two definitions of speeding and added in 'driving too close', 'unsafe overtaking' and a few other factors - based on the theory that to do any of them at speed was dangerous. Only by doing this could they get the KSI accidents caused by speeding up to the 33% figure the UK government had been quoting for years.

Essentially ... don't believe a word of what the bastards tell you.

[Biff]

Well, actually, it's not so black and white. According to an article in the July 2000 issue of "Investigate Magazine" the open road speed limit was dropped from 100km/h to 80km/h in the early 1970s. For the ten years prior the average road toll was 608 deaths/year. In the ten years after the average road toll was 707 deaths/year. They went on to talk about states in the US that had removed interstate speed limits all together. The death toll saw a marked drop.

I've driven on the German autobahn (no limit) and felt perfectly safe. I had a Merc honking at me for hogging the road in northern Italy - I was doing 170km/h. Never felt in the slightest bit unsafe.

Yup - hence my 'on the whole' caveat. I lived in Gernamy for a little over a year, and the autobahns sure are built for high speeds (surface, width, then there's policing, electronic monitoring of all vehicle average speeds) unlike NZ roads. And despite common belief, there are limits on the majority of the autobahns most of the time, but these are monitored from a central control room, and varied continuoulsy. Unless there's little traffic on the roads, then the outside lanes have no limits.

Do you mind if I ask where?

They include the US, Germany, certain countries in the Middle East, the Indian Sub-continent and south east Asia. Most of which either had poorly policed roads, or no limits on the open roads.


In an ideal world, where everyone was responsible, then I'd be happy for there to be a no limit policy on motrways etc. But the fact is the roads here and the quality of driving is relatively poor compared to many other 'developed' countries'. Especially Germany.

Unmitigated garbage.

Come on, be a little more open minded dude. Accept that speed is at least a contributing factor to the cause of some accidents at least, instead of refuting and all of the facts point blank. Sure the accidents could also be blamed on other factors - such as inexperience, bad decision making etc - but 'unmitigated garbage'.....really ?

[Sanx]

Come on, be a little more open minded dude. Accept that speed is at least a contributing factor to the cause of some accidents, instead of refuting and all of the facts point blank. Sure the accidents could also be blamed on other factors - such as inexperience, bad decision making etc - but 'unmitigated garbage'.....really ?

Well, you chose to quote the first two words I wrote, without refering to the following 423 words. I am open minded but I do not believe everything I am told without supporting evidence. I do my research and I read other people's research. You said, and I quote:

"Speeding kills apparently. Far more often in fact than when people, on the whole, stick to govt imposed speed limits."

Unfortunately, that statement has little in the way of supporting evidence behind it. There are official government figures, which on closer examination simply don't stand up. I explained why they don't. You ask that I:

"Accept that speed is at least a contributing factor in the cause of accidents"

I do. I quoted figures from a comprehensive UK study that showed that travelling in excess of the posted speed limit is a causal factor in accidents, but far less of one than a whole host of other reasons, including drink driving, driving whilst under the influence of drugs, failing to give way, driving without due care and attention, failing to observe, and most importantly, driving at a speed in excess of what is safe for the conditions.

Speed limits do not define safe speed. Conditions define safe speed. The government simply doesn't understand this and persist with the ridiculous opinion that 99kph on the motorway is safe and 101kph is dangerous. There are times and places in NZ where it's perfectly safe to travel at 200kph. There are also plenty of 100kph limit roads where travelling at 60kph makes you a bloody menace.

The government's continual brainwashing regarding speed, and their attempt to use legislation and regulation to replace personal responsibility, means a fair proportion of people now believe provided they're travelling at or under the speed limit, they're driving safely. Nothing could be further from the truth. Driving requires intelligence and assesment of ever-changing conditions. No amount of regulation and legislation can replace that. Should the government drop their obsession with speeding and start concentrating on driver education and risk assesment, they might find that the road toll starts dropping faster.

[Mole_C]

Driving requires intelligence and assesment of ever-changing conditions.

Which the majority of people do not have.

I agree that we need far better education and assesment but there still remains the fact that most of this education would be aimed at new drivers and we would have 50 years of drivers who are uneducated and find driving one of the the few thrills they still have.

Take away the enforcement of speed and they will think that it is now safe for them to drive faster and act like even bigger dicks on the road. Cars feel safe and comfortable at huge speeds these days. The majority of people, even with greater education would not know the limits of their own cars, let alone changing to a SUV or similar.

Im not saying that speed is a major contributor to crashes but taking away the limit opens up things like the heightened adrenaline from speed, greater sense of invulnerability and makes all the people who don't look or give way just that much more dangerous.

The government's continual brainwashing regarding speed, and their attempt to use legislation and regulation to replace personal responsibility, means a fair proportion of people now believe provided they're travelling at or under the speed limit, they're driving safely. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I would love a world where people could be responsible for thier own actions and actually have sense but we do not live in such a world. People are stupid and blame others wherever they can. As you know its not their fault when they don't see you to give way, its not their fault when they run a red light and it's obviously not thier fault when loose control at speed. People drive drunk and don't stop when they hit people, yet they still continue to do it regardles of the education and advertising telling them not to. You really think saying "Go as fast as you like but do it responibly" is going to make them listen? You will get more people not judging conditions correctly and entering corners to fast or coming to stop signs to fast. Not caused by speed but by bad driving. Sure, if people were responsible this wouldn't be a problem but they are not.

Education should be number one priority but until kiwis stop being such shit and irresponsable drivers i'd rather they were slow enough to dodge or get away from.

[Biff]

Well, you chose to quote the first two words I wrote, without refering to the following 423 words.

And you chose to write them.

So in summary - I think we're in agreement. Although I can't be bothered nor have the time to write (or count) 400+ words telling you why I think this. Maybe tomorrow.