OT Ramblings, Musings and other OT Stuff -- WARNING -- OT

ORIGINAL: cyclefiend2000

people here have found methods to circumvent the downsides to loosing one's driving license due to a DUI. so that particular punishment is relatively ineffective now.

 
I agree with you Brad, it is relatively ineffective.  Apparently the penalty for DUI doesn't provide much of a deterrent.  I suggest a mandatory 6 month jail term and 1 year loss of license for first time offenders.  Second time offenders, mandatory 5 year jail term and they lose their license for life.  Third time offenders well, three strikes and you're out -- you spend the rest of your life in prison.
 
How's that for a deterrent?

I am not sure if there are any states that require a helmet for riders over a certain age.  That alone should speak volumes as to how effective helmets are at preventing injury.  You might look into an organization called ABATE if  you really have an interest in this subject.

NY State requires not only a helmet for ALL motorcycle riders, and it must be an APPROVED helmet. 

From NYS DMV:
To improve their visibility, motorcyclists are required to keep their vehicle's headlights and taillights on at all times. For protection, motorcyclists are required to wear approved helmets, as defined by USDOT federal motor vehicle safety standards (FMVSS21, and goggles or a face shield.

i am not a fan of the 3 strikes laws. but something does need to be done about repeat DUI offenders.

this was told to me by someone so consider it at best 2nd hand knowledge...in this state, you can file a "hard-ship" claim if you are caught driving under the influence. meaning that is a means to get your license back. i think this may only apply to first time offenders.

i have seen numerous people driving with really expired plates. not like it expired last month and they were late renewing, i mean sometimes years. so obviously that person has probably done something to lose their license. i have seen these same people speed by a highway patrol and nothing.

i guess the last resort for DUI offenders is to get the "liquor cycle". i see hundreds of these guys everyday. have even seen a guy on a riding mower driving down a 7 lane highway.

so i dont know how you stop a repeat DUI offender. i realize that sometimes things happen and people may get caught once and learn their lesson, but this doesnt seem to be the norm.

Billy & JJ's mom  here is just a little that I found regarding the MPH & helmets
[linkhttp://www.bikersrights.com/statistics/goldstein/goldstein.html]http://www.bikersrights.com/statistics/goldstein/goldstein.html[/link]

Quote:
 
This article evaluates the effectiveness of motorcycle helmets in accident situations. A latent variable model is developed and estimated. It is concluded that (1) motorcycle helmets have no statistically significant effect on the probability of fatality; (2) helmets reduce the severity of head injuries; and (3) past a critical impact speed [13 MPH], helmets increase the severity of neck injuries. Further analysis establishes the qualitative and quantitative nature of the head-neck injury trade-off.

 
Unfortunately I can't find anything else to support this, but I'm just breezing through.  Here is a pretty informative website:  [linkhttp://www.motorcycle-accidents.com/pages/stats.html]http://www.motorcycle-accidents.com/pages/stats.html[/link]
 
Here are some retty interesting facts:
23. More than half of the accident-involved motorcycle riders had less than 5 months experience on the accident motorcycle, although the total street riding experience was almost 3 years. Motorcycle riders with dirt bike experience are significantly under represented in the accident data.
25. Almost half of the fatal accidents show alcohol involvement.

owned means of transportation for school aged kids (school buses) do not have seatbelts. at least they dont in this state as far as i know.

doesnt that seem like an oxymoron or something? meaning if those same kids were in their parent's minivan and not belted in, their parents would be fined. but somehow it is ok for 50+ kids to be unbelted on state supported transportation.

 
Bradley,
The lack of seat belts on buses has to do with the fact that injuries are LESS likely to occur on buses due to the seating being more “compartmentalized” in nature. THUS there has been very little done on this front till recently. Now in at least SOME states the new school buses are requiring seatbelts to be installed. Not sure though about any plans to modify a lot of the OLDER school buses though.
 

Billy & JJ's mom here is just a little that I found regarding the MPH & helmets
http://www.bikersrights.com/statistics/goldstein/goldstein.html
quote:

Quote:

This article evaluates the effectiveness of motorcycle helmets in accident situations. A latent variable model is developed and estimated. It is concluded that (1) motorcycle helmets have no statistically significant effect on the probability of fatality; (2) helmets reduce the severity of head injuries; and (3) past a critical impact speed [13 MPH], helmets increase the severity of neck injuries. Further analysis establishes the qualitative and quantitative nature of the head-neck injury trade-off.

Unfortunately I can't find anything else to support this, but I'm just breezing through. Here is a pretty informative website:http://www.motorcycle-accidents.com/pages/stats.html

Here are some pretty interesting facts:
23. More than half of the accident-involved motorcycle riders had less than 5 months experience on the accident motorcycle, although the total street riding experience was almost 3 years. Motorcycle riders with dirt bike experience are significantly under represented in the accident data.
25. Almost half of the fatal accidents show alcohol involvement.

 
I saw that one..both of those sites actually...problem is that for every few you get saying one thing, you find another that says the opposite!  That is ALWAYS the case with injury prevention stats![]

I suggest a mandatory 6 month jail term and 1 year loss of license for first time offenders. Second time offenders, mandatory 5 year jail term and they lose their license for life. Third time offenders well, three strikes and you're out -- you spend the rest of your life in prison.

How's that for a deterrent?

 
I LIKE THAT!!!!!!!![]

they did a story on the news about it recently. their finding were seatbelts were not used because of expense. meaning that they could get more kids on a smaller bus without seatbelts. if they had to have seatbelts then they would have to buy bigger buses to serve the same amount of people.

compartmentalized or not, those seats do nothing in case of roll over.

compartmentalized or not, those seats do nothing in case of roll over.

True..and while I FULLY agree that it is WRONG to NOT require them on buses, there has been so few (statistically speaking) bus crashes (especially roll over style). SO it hasn't been given the same attention as car crashes. Unfortunately in this world unless A TON of people are dying or get hurt at SHOCKING rates, they don't pay attention...  
 
The interesting thing is that I cannot go speak to a group of elementary school students without at least 1 kid asking me “How come they don#%92t have seatbelts on school buses?”  Sad is what it is…[&o]
 

 
Billy, still trying to find info on the ineffectiveness of helmets in HIGH-SPEED cases, but I can#%92t seem to find much. I DID find 1 “anti- helmet” website that stated that they were ineffective at high speed, but there was no study to back that up. In the majority of the reports I am finding that give stats as to actual “crashes” they appear as though most of the crashes are occurring at moderate to lower speeds… which even if the “high speed” thing is true, still doesn#%92t show WHY you should not wear a helmet. Again, I can#%92t seem to clarify that info either way so I won#%92t debate you on that.  
 
Here are a few interesting stats I found though from one report:
 
10. Intersections are the most likely place for the motorcycle accident, with the other vehicle violating the motorcycle right-of-way, and often violating traffic controls.
 
12. Most motorcycle accidents involve a short trip associated with shopping, errands, friends, entertainment or recreation, and the accident is likely to happen in a very short time close to the trip origin.
 
16. The median pre-crash speed was 29.8 mph, and the median crash speed was 21.5 mph, and the one-in-a-thousand crash speed is approximately 86 mph.
 
44. Approximately 50% of the motorcycle riders in traffic were using safety helmets but only 40% of the accident-involved motorcycle riders were wearing helmets at the time of the accident.
 
48. Safety helmet use caused no attenuation of critical traffic sounds, no limitation of precrash visual field, and no fatigue or loss of attention; no element of accident causation was related to helmet use.

ORIGINAL: jones
They should, because there is a public disturbance aspect to closing time... noise, traffic, etc.

 
I am not sure I agree that a bar that closes at 3 AM, as they do here, is somehow less of an issue in this regard than a bar that closes at say, 5 AM.
 

But I don't think there's a lot of point is arguing this with you because our underlying political philosophies are really too far apart to sway either of us toward the other side.

 
Hey, I think we agreed on something...once.  []
 

 and sometimes it involves limiting total personal freedom in order to protect other or the stability of society in general.

 
The difference between our philosophies is that yours favors marginally more restriction on our personal liberty while mine favors marginally less.  But to your point, we will just have to agree to disagree.

And now to go totally OT, why is it that I can't walk into a post office and get ONE strip of packing tape to seal a package? I don't need a whole roll. I need one linear foot of tape, geez...

 
Whatever the reason, I am sure there is a liberal involved in it somewhere.  []

What is wrong with registering them? And what is wrong with writing a licence to aquire and own them? It protects the owners as well. But moreso if you don't intend to use it for anything illegal, why should you even care? What could it possibly do to hurt you? Except take away some of your precious freedom. Suck it up and realize that it is the abuse of this freedom that has created the need for law in the first place.

 
It's not the abuse of that freedom.  It is the criminal element. 
 
With reference to licensing:  Legislate and then confiscate.  That is the way of the government. 

 

ORIGINAL: rwbeagles

And personally I think public spanking or heck, even caning might do wonders for first time offenders...lmao. Anyone remember the HORROR that arose when an American punk kid almost got caned in what...Thailand or someplace?
 
He'd have gotten a slap on the hand here wouldn't he? well..a slap on someone elses hand I mean, can't touch the kids I forgot lol. And he'd likely have done the same thing given the chance afterwards. Ater a caning...I bet he'd think twice or even three times then say "no thanks"...lol.
 
Oh I know it's not practical...but gosh it's fun to think about publicly spanking some of these punk kids out there today....

 
Actually it was in Singapore, and what he did was and is still not illegal here.  He sold bubblegum and cans of spray paint to other adolescents.
 
He was being investigated as to his part in a graffiti scandal-and was accused of having spray painted various automobiles.  I've no idea if this is the transgression for which he was found guilty.
 
So what do you say?  Utopia/Extopia anyone?

ORIGINAL: probe1957

ORIGINAL: Xerxes
In the same breath they might mention how almost every adult male in Switzerland owns an automatic weapon, a true "assault" weapon.  Yet somehow they don't kill each other with the fervor that Americans do.

Ed, they might also mention how, in the US, the cities with the strictest gun laws have the highest crime rates.  In Washington DC, for example, it is illegal for a private citizen to own a handgun, but they have one of the highest murder rates in the country. In  Colorado Springs, where any citizen who applies for a concealed carry permit is given the permit, assuming they are not prohibited from owning a gun,  has one of the lowest crime rates in the country. 

They might also mention how private citizens in the US use a gun to prevent a crime 2 million times a year, usually without firing a shot.

They might mention things like this, but they won't, because they have an agenda.  I have an agenda too but I try to be honest about it.  I can see where the anti-gunners come from.  I really do get their point.  Everyone wants to do something about crime in this country.  The problem, and the point the "anti's" fail to grasp is, you can't control crime by controlling guns.

The only one affected by gun laws is law abiding citizens.  Criminals, by definition, do not obey laws.

I live right outside of DC Billy.  I think Jan 1, 2007 there were already 2 or 3 murders by 6am.  Pretty good, they were on pace for over 700 this year.  It slowed down a bit though.
 
Actually if they enforced the gun laws that are on the books now, there would be alot fewer criminals on the street with guns.  And alot more armed citizens.
 
I'll have to find the article, though I doubt it's online about a town in Florida where it was legislated that all citizens mush have and be trained how to safely use a firearm.  The crime rate dropped 97% or more.  This was a small town (under 2,000 people) if I recall correctly.
 
Not to overuse Florida, but a few years back all the tourists were getting carjacked and robbed and assaulted by thugs.  Why just the tourists?  Because the criminal element knew that the city residents could be armed. 
 
Criminals are very clever, but also very much into survival.  They'd rather take a chance on getting caught by the cops than by the ordinary armed citizen.  The cops are less likely to shoot to kill.

ORIGINAL: probe1957

Very few anti gunners will admit that their ultimate objective is to ban guns.  I actually admire the honesty of those few who do.

Billy, I actually, believe it or not have my FAC(firearms aqusition lisence) as well as my hunting lisence.  I'm not against gun ownership as it is a part of my life.  My freezer is quite regularly stocked with moose and deer.  The difference is that I know for sure that I am qualified to own a rifle, because I took a course on it, that clarified all of the rules I grew up knowing.  I also know how to hunt ethically, which is more than I can say for countless american hunters that come up her every fall and shoot at whatever they see in the bush, and then whine when they get caught poaching.  Over the years we have found 3 moose dead from gunshot wounds in the bush that we have tracked because americans have shot them from the road and been too lazy to track them themselves.  I know the importance of locking up my guns and keeping trigger locks on them at all times.  I know that keeping rounds locked up in a seperate place is important too.  Now maybe you and I differ on this because I use my guns for hunting, and you lie in wait for your tyrranical government to come pounding on your door looking to take away your guns.

But you do want some government bureaucrat deciding whether or not he is in the mood today to issue his kids a license so they can legally take possession of the guns, don't you?

There is an extensive course that one takes in order to obtain thier FAC here.  It teaches you the responsibilities of gun ownership.  If you pass it, you can buy a gun.  My issue is not about that.  It stems more on behalf of my friend that has a number of sentimental guns in his collection that have been handed down to him, or given to him as gifts, before this law came to pass.  He has a son that has his own Hunting lisence now and will be getting his FAC soon, but because of this law that collection can never become his.

Oh and as for helmets disrupting your vision and hearing... I've worn a helmet everytime I've rode a snowmachine, which I have done all my life as well, and I can honestly say it does neither.  In fact, keeping my eyes open is alot easier with a windshield over my eyes.  I don't ride a motorcycle, but if I did, I would not think twice about wearing a helmet.  The idea that high speeds negate the lifesaving effect of a helmet is crazy.  Why then do race car drivers wear helmets?  Oh I guess its because of that tyrannical government.