Glove laws, thank fook for Brexit :)

[black-k1]

Gavia said:

black-k1 said:

Gavia said:

black-k1 said:

All perfect example s of where personal choice may require regulation because of the potential impact that one person’s choice has on another person.

If people want to smoke then that’s entirely up to them but individuals should have the right to not be subjected to passive smoking. If an indavidual is sad enough to stand outside in the cold and rain just to feed a habit, then let them. However, those in the warm and dry have a right not to be subjected to passive smoking.

Likewise with alcohol. The consumption of alcohol is not the issue, it’s the impact on others that is the problem. If you sit quietly in the corner and get pissed, then that’s fine. It's when you start impacting on others who simply want to get on with their lives that the problems start.

Likewise with drugs. Do it to yourself then that’s fine. It’s when your habit starts to impact on others that laws are required.

I fail to see how a motorcyclist not wearing PPE/safety equipment impacts on anyone other than themselves thus they should be free to make that choice.

Here's a few impacts

Cost to NHS, cancelled scheduled operations due to urgent medical care for biker, caused by lack of protective clobber, impact on life of those whose operation has been cancelled, trauma on family / friends / witnesses to accident both immediately after accident and long term.

Opportunity cost of other emergency services and what they could have been doing otherwise

Every decision anyone makes impacts on others. Sometimes it's for the better, sometimes not, but don't pretend that having an accident whilst not wearing protective gear only impacts the individual in the accident. I'm not necessarily in favour of legislation to compel everyone to do something, but I think the simplistic laissez faire approach is fundamentally flawed.

Why do we need defined standards in the construction of vehicles, or roads, or anything?

You are confusing those involved with those impacted. Smoking impacts other through passive smoking as even by doing absolutely nothing the "innocent 3rd party" is still at greater risk.

With regards to protective motorcycle clothing, the NHS and emergency services are involved as if there was an accident and no one did anything, the only person at increased risk is the person not wearing the clothing.

As I said before, the NHS is a stupid argument. If using that we’d need to ban all Sunday sports, all DIY and all kitchen appliances. (All causes of a large numbers of A&E visits) We’d also need to ban motorcycling totally, along with horse riding, push bikes and being a pedestrian as they’re all a much greater risk than driving a car. We certainly couldn’t allow sky diving, scuba diving, rock climbing and all forms of motorsport.

We’d then have to use the money "saved" to pay for the increase in psychiatric services as all the "bored out of their mind" people try to top themselves.

Why the rolling eyes? Does it make you feel superior?

You didn't address the point around a witness seeing the accident.

Your NHS arguments are missing the point. I'm not saying stop all risky activity, but I am saying that the background to this law in France will be around minimising the severity of injury and trying to reduce the burden on the taxpayer. A friend of mine needs a hip replacement and she spent all day yesterday waiting for surgery from early morning, which was cancelled as other more sever, but completely avoidable surgeries took precedence.

The rolleyes is there because I had already responded to the NHS question but you chose to ignore that response. No superiority, just frustration that you obviously either couldn’t be arsed to read previous responses or chose to ignore them and plough on with the same crap.

If you are concerned about possible psychological trauma of a witness then you need to either ban every possibly dangerous activity or accept that such things do happen and occasionally people will witness things they’d probably rather not see.

While I have sympathy for your friends situation, the issues in the NHS in relation to capacity and the rescheduling of elective procedures will have bugger all to do with motorcyclists not using protective clothing and a whole lot to do with some much larger fundamental structural issues. If you really believe the current NHS issues can be address by motorcyclist wearing gloves then you need to wake up and smell the coffee.

[Gavia]

black-k1 said:

The rolleyes is there because I had already responded to the NHS question but you chose to ignore that response. No superiority, just frustration that you obviously either couldn’t be arsed to read previous responses or chose to ignore them and plough on with the same crap.

If you are concerned about possible psychological trauma of a witness then you need to either ban every possibly dangerous activity or accept that such things do happen and occasionally people will witness things they’d probably rather not see.

While I have sympathy for your friends situation, the issues in the NHS in relation to capacity and the rescheduling of elective procedures will have bugger all to do with motorcyclists not using protective clothing and a whole lot to do with some much larger fundamental structural issues. If you really believe the current NHS issues can be address by motorcyclist wearing gloves then you need to wake up and smell the coffee.

I didn't write that about the NHS, I gave an example where a scheduled operation had to be cancelled due to other (emergency) surgeries taking precedence.

My point remains that people do stupid things and quite often governments legislate for that. Speed limits are an example of that, or the guns & drugs that I've mentioned previously. It's frustrating for those of us who use common sense and do the sensible thing anyway. However, it's equally frustrating though when well educated people choose the wrong option just to be contrary. There is no way to save the stupid from their own stupidity short of legislating and even then, you don't catch all of them.

Anyway, this is in France, they also applied a (now defunct) 100bhp limit on bikes and that didn't spread to any other countries, so there's little to worry about. Our legislative agenda for the remainder of this government and the whole of the next will be fully occupied repealing laws that relate to the EU and replacing them with the exact same law, but not referencing the EU.

[creampuff]

Gavia said:

I'm not arguing anything, as I like the idea of freedom of choice too.

You don't like freedom of choice at all. You like the idea of compulsory motorcycle gloves because you wear motorcycle gloves yourself and you want the NHS to spend less money treating motorcycle crash induced injuries. Having compulsory gloves does not affect you. If a non bike riding person just decided you were not allowed to ride a motorcycle at all, because it is about 30 times as risky as driving a car and caused a disproportionate amount of cost to the NHS, then that would affect you and you would get hot and bothered about it. So just accept that you only like the idea of freedom of choice if it is other peoples rather than your own freedoms being impinged upon.

[Gavia]

creampuff said:

You don't like freedom of choice at all. You like the idea of compulsory motorcycle gloves because you wear motorcycle gloves yourself and you want the NHS to spend less money treating motorcycle crash induced injuries. Having compulsory gloves does not affect you. If a non bike riding person just decided you were not allowed to ride a motorcycle at all, because it is about 30 times as risky as driving a car and caused a disproportionate amount of cost to the NHS, then that would affect you and you would get hot and bothered about it. So just accept that you only like the idea of freedom of choice if it is other peoples rather than your own freedoms being impinged upon.

At no point have I said that I want the NHS to spend less treating motorbike injuries. What I've said is that there should be some personal ownership of decisions and thinking of the social aspect and impact of not doing so.

However, freedom of choice is not defined by the compulsion to wear motorbike gloves. I support control on many, many things, but I genuinely couldn't care less about whether people have to wear gloves or not, it's the same for leathers, boots and back protectors.

I'm also very confused by the (flawed) logic leap to banning motorbikes. Firstly, that's not happening and would be an extreme. To use your logic back on you, you oppose laws against paedophilia as it restricts choice. Hopefully you'll see that both leaps to the extreme are ludicrous. Secondly, this whole discussion is moot. The law is in France, the French make up stupid laws all the time, none of which have made it over here (spare bulbs, hi-viz, breathalyser, 100bhp limit and so on).

I'm really struggling to see why people are getting so hot under the collar about this.

[Dr Jekyll]

J.S.Mill said:

In many cases, though individuals may not do the particular thing so well, on the average, as the officers of government, it is nevertheless desirable that it should be done by them, rather than by the government, as a means to their own mental education—a mode of strengthening their active faculties, exercising their judgment, and giving them a familiar knowledge of the subjects with which they are thus left to deal.

[TooMany2cvs]

Gavia said:

creampuff said:

You don't like freedom of choice at all. You like the idea of compulsory motorcycle gloves because you wear motorcycle gloves yourself and you want the NHS to spend less money treating motorcycle crash induced injuries. Having compulsory gloves does not affect you. If a non bike riding person just decided you were not allowed to ride a motorcycle at all, because it is about 30 times as risky as driving a car and caused a disproportionate amount of cost to the NHS, then that would affect you and you would get hot and bothered about it. So just accept that you only like the idea of freedom of choice if it is other peoples rather than your own freedoms being impinged upon.

At no point have I said that I want the NHS to spend less treating motorbike injuries.

Perhaps the NHS should simply recharge the costs of all treatment arising from road injuries onto insurance? Then insurers would simply say "You must wear full approved gear at all times, else we'll pass the cost of treatment back to you". Exactly the same end result, without the legal compulsion.

Can't imagine what that'd do to premiums, especially for bikes, can you?

[black-k1]

Gavia said:

black-k1 said:

The rolleyes is there because I had already responded to the NHS question but you chose to ignore that response. No superiority, just frustration that you obviously either couldn’t be arsed to read previous responses or chose to ignore them and plough on with the same crap.

If you are concerned about possible psychological trauma of a witness then you need to either ban every possibly dangerous activity or accept that such things do happen and occasionally people will witness things they’d probably rather not see.

While I have sympathy for your friends situation, the issues in the NHS in relation to capacity and the rescheduling of elective procedures will have bugger all to do with motorcyclists not using protective clothing and a whole lot to do with some much larger fundamental structural issues. If you really believe the current NHS issues can be address by motorcyclist wearing gloves then you need to wake up and smell the coffee.

I didn't write that about the NHS, I gave an example where a scheduled operation had to be cancelled due to other (emergency) surgeries taking precedence.

My point remains that people do stupid things and quite often governments legislate for that. Speed limits are an example of that, or the guns & drugs that I've mentioned previously. It's frustrating for those of us who use common sense and do the sensible thing anyway. However, it's equally frustrating though when well educated people choose the wrong option just to be contrary. There is no way to save the stupid from their own stupidity short of legislating and even then, you don't catch all of them.

Anyway, this is in France, they also applied a (now defunct) 100bhp limit on bikes and that didn't spread to any other countries, so there's little to worry about. Our legislative agenda for the remainder of this government and the whole of the next will be fully occupied repealing laws that relate to the EU and replacing them with the exact same law, but not referencing the EU.

While it’s not nice to be the person whose elective surgery is postponed, I, for one, am glad that it was moved over to make room for emergencies.

You have hit the nail on the head. I see your vision of freedom is that people do what you think is right. If they don’t do what you think is right then the government needs to legislate to make them do what you think is right. While a very extreme example, it was the same approach that was taken by a little Austrian chap in Germany in the 1920’s, 1930’s and the first half of the 1940’s and that didn't finish particularly well.

Proper freedom includes allowing people to do what they want even if you don’t like it or wouldn’t do it. It’s allowing people to make mistakes, take risks and to do things differently as long as they don’t impact others.

[Gavia]

black-k1 said:

While it’s not nice to be the person whose elective surgery is postponed, I, for one, am glad that it was moved over to make room for emergencies.

You have hit the nail on the head. I see your vision of freedom is that people do what you think is right. If they don’t do what you think is right then the government needs to legislate to make them do what you think is right. While a very extreme example, it was the same approach that was taken by a little Austrian chap in Germany in the 1920’s, 1930’s and the first half of the 1940’s and that didn't finish particularly well.

Proper freedom includes allowing people to do what they want even if you don’t like it or wouldn’t do it. It’s allowing people to make mistakes, take risks and to do things differently as long as they don’t impact others.

Wow, Godwins Law already.

You're putting words in my mouth. It's not what I see as right at all and to compare that to Nazism is absolutely ridiculous. You seem to be suggesting that unless everyone can do whatever they want without any interference from government then it's fascism. I've already discussed the ludicrous nature of extremes and yet you've just leapt to another.

Let's try to make this a bit more civil. I don't see what the problem is if France decide to make gloves compulsory. It is that simple. It's their country, not ours. Just as I don't see a problem in a government restricting the supply of guns, or banning heroin, or making other laws outlawing acts of murder, or other aspects.

In this country we aren't allowed to wear dark visors. I do and always have done. Just as the NHS is unable to offer a full service to everyone so are the police. I've never been pulled over, never been fined, never had a hint of a problem with it. There is no thin end of the wedge. Helmets became compulsory decades ago and nothing has changed here since. Biking is a minority activity in this country and as such it tends to get left alone, long may that continue.

[black-k1]

Gavia said:

Wow, Godwins Law already.

You're putting words in my mouth. It's not what I see as right at all and to compare that to Nazism is absolutely ridiculous. You seem to be suggesting that unless everyone can do whatever they want without any interference from government then it's fascism. I've already discussed the ludicrous nature of extremes and yet you've just leapt to another.

Let's try to make this a bit more civil. I don't see what the problem is if France decide to make gloves compulsory. It is that simple. It's their country, not ours. Just as I don't see a problem in a government restricting the supply of guns, or banning heroin, or making other laws outlawing acts of murder, or other aspects.

In this country we aren't allowed to wear dark visors. I do and always have done. Just as the NHS is unable to offer a full service to everyone so are the police. I've never been pulled over, never been fined, never had a hint of a problem with it. There is no thin end of the wedge. Helmets became compulsory decades ago and nothing has changed here since. Biking is a minority activity in this country and as such it tends to get left alone, long may that continue.

I think you possibly need to reread what you have already posted:

Gavia said:

My point remains that people do stupid things and quite often governments legislate for that. Speed limits are an example of that, or the guns & drugs that I've mentioned previously. It's frustrating for those of us who use common sense and do the sensible thing anyway. However, it's equally frustrating though when well educated people choose the wrong option just to be contrary. There is no way to save the stupid from their own stupidity short of legislating and even then, you don't catch all of them.

As judged by who? Who, other than you, says you have “common sense” and others with a different opinion don’t? Who says what are the right and what are the wrong options? Who defines who the stupid are who need protecting from their own stupidity?
You mention dark visors and again, it’s another piece of legislative tokenism. What is the point of making a law if many (most?) people are simply going to ignore it? Especially where the benefits supposed to be delivered by that law are very much in question.

All such laws do is reduce the acceptance of people to be governed and held accountable by the legal system as a whole. A lack of respect for the law the by citizens is a much bigger problem that any country should be worried about.

Yes, the glove law is in France and no, it’s not in the UK … yet. I don’t know how old you are or how good your memory is but I can clearly remember how close we came to both 100bhp limits and leg protectors, both of which were “common sense ideas” from the EU (EC, EEC or whatever it was called at that time). Motorcycling is a minority activity and be under no illusion, those with “common sense” and who no what’s best for us have every intention of getting rid of it. Look at both the total number of motorcyclist and the average age of riders in the 1970’s, and compare that to now. Now tell me the do-gooders are not slowly but surely being successful in their aims!

[TooMany2cvs]

black-k1 said:

I don’t know how old you are or how good your memory is but I can clearly remember how close we came to both 100bhp limits and leg protectors, both of which were “common sense ideas” from the EU (EC, EEC or whatever it was called at that time).

Much as I hate to spoil a good conspiracy theory, it might be wise to look at some facts here...

The 100bhp limit was only ever a French idea, introduced in 1985 and now removed - despite various bits of 2010 scaremongering that the EU were going to introduce it across Europe... It failed at the first European Parliament vote and was dumped.

Leg protectors were proposed solely by the TRL in the UK.
https://trid.trb.org/view.aspx?id=476933
http://www.mag-uk.org/en/campaignsdetail/a6545?SID...

[Prof Prolapse]

But what about bendy Bananas?

[Biker's Nemesis]

I've just been discharged from A&E after loosing the will to live caused by reading Givia and Black-k1s posts on this thread.

Yous 2 are a serious drain on the NHS.

[black-k1]

TooMany2cvs said:

black-k1 said:

I don’t know how old you are or how good your memory is but I can clearly remember how close we came to both 100bhp limits and leg protectors, both of which were “common sense ideas” from the EU (EC, EEC or whatever it was called at that time).

Much as I hate to spoil a good conspiracy theory, it might be wise to look at some facts here...

The 100bhp limit was only ever a French idea, introduced in 1985 and now removed - despite various bits of 2010 scaremongering that the EU were going to introduce it across Europe... It failed at the first European Parliament vote and was dumped.

Leg protectors were proposed solely by the TRL in the UK.
https://trid.trb.org/view.aspx?id=476933
http://www.mag-uk.org/en/campaignsdetail/a6545?SID...

The UK had a go at leg protectors first but the EU tried for 100bhp in 1991 and leg prtectors in 1994/1995

http://www.network.mag-uk.org/january_00/chronolog...

[TooMany2cvs]

black-k1 said:

The UK had a go at leg protectors first but the EU tried for 100bhp in 1991

<googles a bit>
Yes, you're right.

The Commissioner for Transport proposed it - that was the British commissioner before 1989 (Baron Stanley Clinton-Davis, who'd been a Labour MP since 1970, and a minister under Wilson and Callaghan), or the Belgian after. The UK abstained at the EC Council of Ministers - but since every other country voted in favour, it passed there. Then it went to the European Parliament, who massively out-voted it, 262 to 76. Then it got ignored after Maastricht turned the EC into the EU.
www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/RP94-118.pdf

[gareth_r]

The helmet law was the first legislation designed to protect the citizen from himself. They started with a despised minority (motorcyclists) in order to set a precedent for the seatbelt law.

Now that the precedent is on the books, there will always be some interfering, self-promoting bd who wants to save us from ourselves.

However, I don't think they'll bother with motorcycling, that's dead anyway.

[anonymous-user]

gareth_r said:

However, I don't think they'll bother with motorcycling, that's dead anyway.

Really?

Not according to any statistics I've read in the last few years.

Sales of bikes are increasing at around 10% per year at present, and the number of people acquiring a motorcycle licence is increasing year on year as well.

http://www.mcia.co.uk/press-and-statistics/press-r...