UK's Sneakiest Speed Camera?

[Nodrog]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

What, even if she's ugly?
This is true, but is dealing with hypotheticals which makes the whole notion of victim even more abstracted & weird.

"By pirating software the victim is the hypothetical programmer who would have got a job developing a hypothetical lite version of the software".

(Not that I think people have "rights" over others using their ideas or intellectual products in this fashion, but even within the existing framework it's a weird concept)

Not really, its just a statement that actions have consequences and casuality always wins. I would say its 'victimless' in this context in the same way that taking drugs is 'victimless', even though not forcibly preventing people from taking drugs might lower the happyness of others (their family might cry or whatever). It's false to claim that software piracy cant have negative consequences though, even if 'you couldnt afford to buy the stuff anyway'.

It would probably make sense to split negative consequences into 'direct' and 'indirect', where crimes with direct negative consequences involve victim(s) directly having their rights violated. Indirect consequences just have bad effects on some people.

[Dante Hicks]

Well, presumably you don't just set fire to the money you've saved from piracy, so you've got to balance the negative consequences to the software industry versus the positive consequences to the shops/etc that you've spent any "saved" money.

[Nodrog]

sounds like the broken window fallacy to me.

[Dante Hicks]

Not really, as it's not forcing the individual to spend money in a certain way (unlike the shopkeeper with a broken window).

He can still buy software if he chooses, he's just free to spend it elsewhere.

I thought the main point of the broken window fallacy was that it reduced the freedom of those involved?

[queball]

Yes, it's nothing like the broken window fallacy at all.

[Deciduous]

Originally Posted by MrL_JaKiri

Yes, I went into their house and stole their copyright. It was a family heirloom too.

You started it when you said 'copyright theft' when you meant breach of copyright.
The copyright holder is a victim if the work is used in such a way as to devalue the original work.

[Scoot951]

Originally Posted by Nondescript Human

see this graph

What the hell?....The line of speeding deaths is obviously going down, and they say, " LOOOOKK!!! It's GOiNG UppPPP!"?

[Doogle]

Originally Posted by Scoot951

What the hell?....The line of speeding deaths is obviously going down, and they say, " LOOOOKK!!! It's GOiNG UppPPP!"?

Look at the blue line.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Deciduous

The copyright holder is a victim if the work is used in such a way as to devalue the original work.

I think this is misusing the term "victim" a bit.

If I invented a cure for AIDS tommorow, GlaxoSmithkline and other drug companies would suffer an immediate loss in asset worth (since their current treatments for AIDS would be invalidated.)

In such a situation they could hardly be said to be "victims" though. Well, they could (of misfortune) I suppose, but it's a bit different from being a victim of a crime where something is taken of yours (for instance).

[Scoot951]

Originally Posted by Doogle

Look at the blue line.

Exactly. It's dropped like 65% on there, and it goes up maybe 2% in the last year, and they focus more on the 2% than the 65%.

[Tactitus]

I think you're missing the point. They're comparing countries with speed cameras (blue line) against countries without speed cameras (red line).

[Proteus]

Originally Posted by Tactitus

I think you're missing the point. They're comparing countries with speed cameras (blue line) against countries without speed cameras (red line).

Surely that's completely absurd? There are bound to be plenty of other factors involved besides whether a country has speed cameras or not (speed limits, availability of fast cars due to affluence of populace, attitude of drivers to speed limits, attitude of drivers to driving, number of young people with cars, amount of police patrolling traffic, level of fines when caught speeding, number of speed cameras, location of speed cameras, types of roads, etc.).

[queball]

Originally Posted by Scoot951

Exactly. It's dropped like 65% on there, and it goes up maybe 2% in the last year, and they focus more on the 2% than the 65%.

"Look at what's happened since 1995"

[midge5]

Originally Posted by Nondescript Human

see this graph

By the way, the flat section in the red trace between 1985 and 1990 is due to Germany's re-integration.

The red line was below the blue one originally anyway so perhaps the difference between the 2 now is due to the affects of East Germany getting more used to West German policies and their roads becoming safer.

Also according to:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1488517.stm
http://www.srsc.org.uk/news/road_acc...tland_2002.asp

it is actually falling in the UK.

[Tactitus]

Originally Posted by Proteus

Surely that's completely absurd? There are bound to be plenty of other factors involved besides whether a country has speed cameras or not (speed limits, availability of fast cars due to affluence of populace, attitude of drivers to speed limits, attitude of drivers to driving, number of young people with cars, amount of police patrolling traffic, level of fines when caught speeding, number of speed cameras, location of speed cameras, types of roads, etc.).

I wasn't necessarily defending their analysis; only highlighting the point that I think they were trying to make.

On a somewhat similar note, there are a number of studies of US traffic data that suggest that accident rates increase when speed limits are lowered. This seems counter-intuitive, but enough studies have noted it that there may be something to it.

[Doogle]

Originally Posted by Tactitus

On a somewhat similar note, there are a number of studies of US traffic data that suggest that accident rates increase when speed limits are lowered. This seems counter-intuitive, but enough studies have noted it that there may be something to it.

I think it's down to traffic bunching, theres a section on the M4 near Swansea with a 50mph limit enforced with fixed speed cameras where I believe accidents have now risen maybe because all the cars are driving at the same speed rather than flowing naturally at variable speeds - it does seem to make it harder for cars to join this section where there is a short run onto the motorway because there are often very few gaps in the traffic and I've seen a few cars having to swerve into the outer laner to allow drivers to join.

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

I think I asked in a different thread if there was any evidence correlating speed cameras and speeding laws with decreased road accidents, but never received any answers.

There's an exerpt in last week's Private Eye from an article in Transport Retort written by Marie Taylor, who leads the Transport Research Lab's research on speed and accidents, in which she says that the 1990 research that everyone quotes for evidence that there isn't a link is in fact completely misinterpreted, and that speed is a very significant factor in accidents.

To quote the first sentence....

There is a vast amount of evidence demonstrating the strong link between vehicle speed and road accidents.

[Dante Hicks]

I don't think that's what he asked though.

Obviously speed is highly related to road accidents. That's different from "speed cameras" (or speed laws) being highly related to preventing accidents.

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

I don't think that's what he asked though.

Obviously speed is highly related to road accidents. That's different from "speed cameras" (or speed laws) being highly related to preventing accidents.

I know (and was going to put a line to that effect at the end), but as I wasn't strictly speaking replying to the quote, and was merely using it for context, I didn't think I would necessarily have to do it.

Of course, the assertion 'Speed cameras reduce speed' is much easier to prove than 'Speed cameras reduce accidents'.