INSURRECTION - Part 1
Discussion
Before reading any further it would perhaps be wise to read my first letter sent last week in reference to the 71 year old banned from driving for a non-motoring offence. It is on page 8 of the topic "excuse me?".
This will give you some idea of what I am about, but I will now enlighten you as to just how deeply I am about it.
There is an enormous amount of information on this and similar sites regarding individual incidents with the Police and the authorities that highlight injustice, dishonesty, immorality and all other similar traits that quite clearly demonstrate the depth of public feeling at what is taking place in our country on a daily basis that is disguised as, and purported to be, law enforcement and road traffic policy.
There would be little point then of me listing yet further incidents, although my computer archives are bulging with examples of attempts at defence, some of them entirely successful, against this system that would make one's hair curl at the depth of blatant prejudice and hypocricy demonstrated inside and outside the courts.
What I am going to do at this stage however, is give you the benefit of two examples from my research of the internal workings of the so-called Road Safety agencies; the conclusions are utterly inescapable and for me provide all the justification required for what I am about to propose here today.
The first is something that perhaps some of you who are mechanics or motor engineers or even technically informed people will have picked up on as strange.
It is an advertisement that I first noticed almost two years ago in the cinema, shown just before the main feature; on the big screen of course it has even greater impact. It shows a typical town centre street on a busy afternoon and involves a family saloon that we are told is travelling at 30mph, in other words slowly and within the speed limit. The action is in slow motion and shows the car brutally mowing down and tossing into the air what looks like a 6 or 7 year old child. The first viewing of this ad had me deeply concerned about the implications of it's visual impact for reasons that I will qualify later, but the overriding feeling was one of things not being quite right, a feeling of prefabrication, as if one had been conned without quite realising why.
A short time later the television companies started showing the ad and I managed to tape it and finally analyse what was going on.
Just as the child is smashed against the front of the car and his tiny, broken body is seen bouncing along the hard road surface in true Hollywood style, the voice-over on the ad says something like, "if only he'd have been travelling at twenty miles an hour he would have stopped twenty five feet sooner". This quite clearly leaves the average driver stunned and appalled at the death or serious injury of this child, and the obvious implication that if we were all driving around at 20MPH most of these accidents would be avoided firmly imbedded in our conscience.
Not for me I'm afraid, I'm too long in the tooth and I've seen too many of these incidents in real life. On closer examination it can be seen that the car in question has had every single badge and identifying symbol removed, even the wheel covers have been replaced with cheap and nasty accessories. The main reason for this is that the manufacturers of this vehicle, namely Nissan, would doubtless be looking at some form of litigation against the makers of this ad if they knew what was going on.
Further scrutiny reveals the fact that the car seems to be jacked up at the rear and the front suspension is almost fully compressed onto the bump stops; at the same time the front wheels can be seen to be locked, tyres smoking profusely attempting to stop the vehicle, whereas the rears are turning freely.
It was this that gave me the final clue and prompted me to discover that the vehicle in question was a '91 Nissan Almera and, for the purposes of a test, I borrowed one from a motor trade contact. This vehicle is equipped with a very sophisticated braking system that is the next best thing to a full blown ABS system.
It consists of two entirely separate rear pressure compensators, one for each rear wheel, linked to the individual swinging arms by a link rod enabling the pressure at each rear wheel to be precisely regulated either in an emergency stop or during panic braking on a corner; i.e. as the vehicle's rear suspension reacts to up or down movement the braking system will give the best possible results for that particular set of circumstances.
What myself and my colleagues discovered was that if you pop the link rods off, the springs pull the pressure regulators full down and hey presto! no rear brakes. On a test drive in a nearby industrial estate we obtained exactly the same results as the advert.
On refitting the push rods the braking distance was decreased by an incredible 400 percent!
In other words of all the old non-ABS vehicles to choose the ad makers take the one that would be most capable of stopping in the shortest possible distance and corrupt it's mechanism to give it the reverse effect. But the best is yet to come.
I decided that I found the ad so offensive I would lodge a complaint with the IBA and attempt to have it withdrawn. On contacting the TV company's office I was told that all road safety and government advertising is "self-regulating" and I could only complain to the department that made the ad. In other words any government agency can make up an ad on any subject and insert any and all types of content, no matter how shocking, brutal and most importantly inaccurate or misleading, and the IBA has no control over it whatsoever.
After days of searching I finally discovered that this particular ad was made by the office of ACPO, the Association of Chief Police Officers no less, who have their own advertising and publishing office.
The publisher was a lady named Gillian Heath who pointed me in the direction of the office of the Director of Communications, Mr. Anthony Allsworth, it was his office that was the brainchild and producers of this advertisement.
I was put on to Mr. Hugh Alford who informed me that he was a former Chief Inspector with the Traffic Police and he had been personally responsible for the filming of this ad. I have named these people because I can imagine that after reading this quite a few of you would like to drop them a wee note!
I put the following points to this man for his response.
1) This ad shows a scenario that could not possibly occur in real life as this vehicle is in effect a stunt vehicle deliberately modified to greatly increase it's braking distance to deceive the viewer in to believing that this is how the average vehicle stops.
2) Part of this deception involves the death or serious injury of a child, the act of which demonstrates the most appalling insensitivity and blundering disregard by his office towards all the hapless individuals who have had real experiences similar to this and are still seeking an answer.
3) Does he not think that the ad sends out a signal to all drivers emotionally blackmailing them into believing that the sole responsibility at all times on all roads for any child's or pedestrian's safety is their's(the drivers), and that the child or pedestrian must at all times seem to be blameless?
4) Does he not think that a great many well sensed people will view this ad and ask where on earth this child's parents are and why did they let him out alone?
5) At what level of dishonesty does his office draw the line at to get a message across, I mean do they have some sort of graduated scale like 50% dishonest for speeding, 65% for drunk driving, possibly only 15% if it's a simple parking offence; where do they stop?
6) Is he aware that if he were a private company using these sort of tactics the IBA would come down on them with the full weight of the law; fraud, misrepresentation, etc?
7) Lastly but most importantly, does he not understand that unless priorities are realised and set accident prevention will never, ever be possible?
The cause, the very essence of an accident has to be recognised and tackled, however difficult, politically incorrect and unpopular that may prove to be. The essence of the accident in the ad, (and this is the one issue of it that is identical to real life), is not the vehicle or it's retarded braking system or it's speed or the ability or otherwise of the driver. It is the unattended child walking off the pavement into the path of an oncoming vehicle.
If the vehicle reduces it's speed the best possible result is a damage limitation exercise. If the vehicle's speed is increased the physical damage may be greater, but you can only die once.
If the child stays on the pavement there is no accident.
If the vehicle's speed is increased to even 70mph and the child stays on the pavement, there is no accident!!
I would put it to you that if you must use these kind of shock tactics that a far better result would be obtained by showing exactly the same video to children in schools and changing the voice-over to, "this is what happens if you step off the pavement instead of using a crossing." But of course you can't post a child a Fixed Penalty notice.
I have driven and worked all over the world; there is no worse country for pedestrian apathy than here. In some cases it's actually deliberate, people will walk straight out in front of an oncoming vehicle and it's actually legal!! Madness!!
Our Government's whole approach to speed and pedestrian safety is deeply flawed and has to be changed now, nothing else will work or is acceptable.
If we don't radically change it, people will continue to be slaughtered.
The second topic to highlight the problems associated with the law arbitrarily enforcing it's will on the people instead of offering them an informed, educated choice is seat belts.
If you happen to be or know of a paramedic or better still a fireman, someone used to attending traffic accidents and cutting victims from the wreckage, they will doubtless admit that seat belts, particularly in high speed accidents, seriously injure the occupants of vehicles. This is a gruesome business, but that is the way of things in collisions.
In 1974 the Government commissioned their Chief Medical Officer to compile a report into the usage and benefits of seat belts in motor cars.
This is a long time ago and so much of this is now forgotten, but most of it was driven by television advertising "starring" Jimmy Saville and his clunk-click campaign; older readers will remember this well.
Now whilst Jimmy was well intentioned he did not allow for politics entering the fray.
I stumbled across a copy of this report by accident in the Mitchell Library in Glasgow just last year. It makes sobering reading. It has to be remembered that the Governments own Chief Medical Officer can hardly be considered impartial or unbiased when being asked to approve something that the Government has already decided they want him to approve!
Nonetheless, the findings are to me devastating.
There was undoubtedly a significant reduction in occupant injuries in low speed accidents, although the effects of this varied considerably between driver and passenger and also vehicle types.
What was stunning was the effect that seat belts had in high speed accidents, (over 60mph). A 165% INCREASE in serious head and brain injuries, injuries to the cerebral cortex at the neck region resulting in paralysis and in some cases death. Dreadful chest injuries, particularly in women, some of this resulting in internal injuries to organs.
So that you understand why this happens, imagine sitting on a seat with someone standing on a table behind and above you holding a baseball bat. With no warning they bring the bat down onto your chest at an angle of roughly forty five degrees and at a speed of 80mph full force. That is what happens when your vehicle collides with something very big and hard like a motorway pillar or a truck; it stops dead but your body weight stores kinetic energy and keeps on going only the seat belt suddenly locks up and stops you.
Your head is the heaviest part of your body and there is nothing stopping it so it does the only thing it can, it pivots hard against your chest, breaking your neck.
Now quite clearly it can be argued that the risk of wearing a belt and possibly being injured in this way is preferable to hitting a windscreen and leaving the vehicle, conversely the same applies.
What has to be said, and pardon me for being just a tad cynical, but by enforcing seat belt wearing, the majority of slow speed injuries were reduced, saving the NHS a small fortune, whereas the high speed injuries were viewed as being of a much lesser frequency and therefore of less financial importance.
The whole issue here is that the Government had all of this in front of them and chose to ignore it and most definitely never raised any of these issues or made the public aware of them.
In other words they denied the public the knowledge to allow them an educated choice.
I raise this now because intelligent air bag technology has left seat belts to all intents and purposes obsolete, but the Police in recent months have "seat belt blitzes" in the interests of road safety. Perhaps they could explain to us what possible difference wearing a seat belt makes to road safety, it only works after you've had the accident!
I could ask the question are the Police aware of the risks of seat belt injuries in high speed pursuits? but then on checking the regulations in the Road Traffic Act we discover that Police Officers in Police vehicles are exempt from having to wear them in their line of duty. How interesting!!
I will leave you to chew over all of this stuff and come back tomorrow night with information about the function, (or rather disfunction!) of the Law and what I see the solution to be.
This will give you some idea of what I am about, but I will now enlighten you as to just how deeply I am about it.
There is an enormous amount of information on this and similar sites regarding individual incidents with the Police and the authorities that highlight injustice, dishonesty, immorality and all other similar traits that quite clearly demonstrate the depth of public feeling at what is taking place in our country on a daily basis that is disguised as, and purported to be, law enforcement and road traffic policy.
There would be little point then of me listing yet further incidents, although my computer archives are bulging with examples of attempts at defence, some of them entirely successful, against this system that would make one's hair curl at the depth of blatant prejudice and hypocricy demonstrated inside and outside the courts.
What I am going to do at this stage however, is give you the benefit of two examples from my research of the internal workings of the so-called Road Safety agencies; the conclusions are utterly inescapable and for me provide all the justification required for what I am about to propose here today.
The first is something that perhaps some of you who are mechanics or motor engineers or even technically informed people will have picked up on as strange.
It is an advertisement that I first noticed almost two years ago in the cinema, shown just before the main feature; on the big screen of course it has even greater impact. It shows a typical town centre street on a busy afternoon and involves a family saloon that we are told is travelling at 30mph, in other words slowly and within the speed limit. The action is in slow motion and shows the car brutally mowing down and tossing into the air what looks like a 6 or 7 year old child. The first viewing of this ad had me deeply concerned about the implications of it's visual impact for reasons that I will qualify later, but the overriding feeling was one of things not being quite right, a feeling of prefabrication, as if one had been conned without quite realising why.
A short time later the television companies started showing the ad and I managed to tape it and finally analyse what was going on.
Just as the child is smashed against the front of the car and his tiny, broken body is seen bouncing along the hard road surface in true Hollywood style, the voice-over on the ad says something like, "if only he'd have been travelling at twenty miles an hour he would have stopped twenty five feet sooner". This quite clearly leaves the average driver stunned and appalled at the death or serious injury of this child, and the obvious implication that if we were all driving around at 20MPH most of these accidents would be avoided firmly imbedded in our conscience.
Not for me I'm afraid, I'm too long in the tooth and I've seen too many of these incidents in real life. On closer examination it can be seen that the car in question has had every single badge and identifying symbol removed, even the wheel covers have been replaced with cheap and nasty accessories. The main reason for this is that the manufacturers of this vehicle, namely Nissan, would doubtless be looking at some form of litigation against the makers of this ad if they knew what was going on.
Further scrutiny reveals the fact that the car seems to be jacked up at the rear and the front suspension is almost fully compressed onto the bump stops; at the same time the front wheels can be seen to be locked, tyres smoking profusely attempting to stop the vehicle, whereas the rears are turning freely.
It was this that gave me the final clue and prompted me to discover that the vehicle in question was a '91 Nissan Almera and, for the purposes of a test, I borrowed one from a motor trade contact. This vehicle is equipped with a very sophisticated braking system that is the next best thing to a full blown ABS system.
It consists of two entirely separate rear pressure compensators, one for each rear wheel, linked to the individual swinging arms by a link rod enabling the pressure at each rear wheel to be precisely regulated either in an emergency stop or during panic braking on a corner; i.e. as the vehicle's rear suspension reacts to up or down movement the braking system will give the best possible results for that particular set of circumstances.
What myself and my colleagues discovered was that if you pop the link rods off, the springs pull the pressure regulators full down and hey presto! no rear brakes. On a test drive in a nearby industrial estate we obtained exactly the same results as the advert.
On refitting the push rods the braking distance was decreased by an incredible 400 percent!
In other words of all the old non-ABS vehicles to choose the ad makers take the one that would be most capable of stopping in the shortest possible distance and corrupt it's mechanism to give it the reverse effect. But the best is yet to come.
I decided that I found the ad so offensive I would lodge a complaint with the IBA and attempt to have it withdrawn. On contacting the TV company's office I was told that all road safety and government advertising is "self-regulating" and I could only complain to the department that made the ad. In other words any government agency can make up an ad on any subject and insert any and all types of content, no matter how shocking, brutal and most importantly inaccurate or misleading, and the IBA has no control over it whatsoever.
After days of searching I finally discovered that this particular ad was made by the office of ACPO, the Association of Chief Police Officers no less, who have their own advertising and publishing office.
The publisher was a lady named Gillian Heath who pointed me in the direction of the office of the Director of Communications, Mr. Anthony Allsworth, it was his office that was the brainchild and producers of this advertisement.
I was put on to Mr. Hugh Alford who informed me that he was a former Chief Inspector with the Traffic Police and he had been personally responsible for the filming of this ad. I have named these people because I can imagine that after reading this quite a few of you would like to drop them a wee note!
I put the following points to this man for his response.
1) This ad shows a scenario that could not possibly occur in real life as this vehicle is in effect a stunt vehicle deliberately modified to greatly increase it's braking distance to deceive the viewer in to believing that this is how the average vehicle stops.
2) Part of this deception involves the death or serious injury of a child, the act of which demonstrates the most appalling insensitivity and blundering disregard by his office towards all the hapless individuals who have had real experiences similar to this and are still seeking an answer.
3) Does he not think that the ad sends out a signal to all drivers emotionally blackmailing them into believing that the sole responsibility at all times on all roads for any child's or pedestrian's safety is their's(the drivers), and that the child or pedestrian must at all times seem to be blameless?
4) Does he not think that a great many well sensed people will view this ad and ask where on earth this child's parents are and why did they let him out alone?
5) At what level of dishonesty does his office draw the line at to get a message across, I mean do they have some sort of graduated scale like 50% dishonest for speeding, 65% for drunk driving, possibly only 15% if it's a simple parking offence; where do they stop?
6) Is he aware that if he were a private company using these sort of tactics the IBA would come down on them with the full weight of the law; fraud, misrepresentation, etc?
7) Lastly but most importantly, does he not understand that unless priorities are realised and set accident prevention will never, ever be possible?
The cause, the very essence of an accident has to be recognised and tackled, however difficult, politically incorrect and unpopular that may prove to be. The essence of the accident in the ad, (and this is the one issue of it that is identical to real life), is not the vehicle or it's retarded braking system or it's speed or the ability or otherwise of the driver. It is the unattended child walking off the pavement into the path of an oncoming vehicle.
If the vehicle reduces it's speed the best possible result is a damage limitation exercise. If the vehicle's speed is increased the physical damage may be greater, but you can only die once.
If the child stays on the pavement there is no accident.
If the vehicle's speed is increased to even 70mph and the child stays on the pavement, there is no accident!!
I would put it to you that if you must use these kind of shock tactics that a far better result would be obtained by showing exactly the same video to children in schools and changing the voice-over to, "this is what happens if you step off the pavement instead of using a crossing." But of course you can't post a child a Fixed Penalty notice.
I have driven and worked all over the world; there is no worse country for pedestrian apathy than here. In some cases it's actually deliberate, people will walk straight out in front of an oncoming vehicle and it's actually legal!! Madness!!
Our Government's whole approach to speed and pedestrian safety is deeply flawed and has to be changed now, nothing else will work or is acceptable.
If we don't radically change it, people will continue to be slaughtered.
The second topic to highlight the problems associated with the law arbitrarily enforcing it's will on the people instead of offering them an informed, educated choice is seat belts.
If you happen to be or know of a paramedic or better still a fireman, someone used to attending traffic accidents and cutting victims from the wreckage, they will doubtless admit that seat belts, particularly in high speed accidents, seriously injure the occupants of vehicles. This is a gruesome business, but that is the way of things in collisions.
In 1974 the Government commissioned their Chief Medical Officer to compile a report into the usage and benefits of seat belts in motor cars.
This is a long time ago and so much of this is now forgotten, but most of it was driven by television advertising "starring" Jimmy Saville and his clunk-click campaign; older readers will remember this well.
Now whilst Jimmy was well intentioned he did not allow for politics entering the fray.
I stumbled across a copy of this report by accident in the Mitchell Library in Glasgow just last year. It makes sobering reading. It has to be remembered that the Governments own Chief Medical Officer can hardly be considered impartial or unbiased when being asked to approve something that the Government has already decided they want him to approve!
Nonetheless, the findings are to me devastating.
There was undoubtedly a significant reduction in occupant injuries in low speed accidents, although the effects of this varied considerably between driver and passenger and also vehicle types.
What was stunning was the effect that seat belts had in high speed accidents, (over 60mph). A 165% INCREASE in serious head and brain injuries, injuries to the cerebral cortex at the neck region resulting in paralysis and in some cases death. Dreadful chest injuries, particularly in women, some of this resulting in internal injuries to organs.
So that you understand why this happens, imagine sitting on a seat with someone standing on a table behind and above you holding a baseball bat. With no warning they bring the bat down onto your chest at an angle of roughly forty five degrees and at a speed of 80mph full force. That is what happens when your vehicle collides with something very big and hard like a motorway pillar or a truck; it stops dead but your body weight stores kinetic energy and keeps on going only the seat belt suddenly locks up and stops you.
Your head is the heaviest part of your body and there is nothing stopping it so it does the only thing it can, it pivots hard against your chest, breaking your neck.
Now quite clearly it can be argued that the risk of wearing a belt and possibly being injured in this way is preferable to hitting a windscreen and leaving the vehicle, conversely the same applies.
What has to be said, and pardon me for being just a tad cynical, but by enforcing seat belt wearing, the majority of slow speed injuries were reduced, saving the NHS a small fortune, whereas the high speed injuries were viewed as being of a much lesser frequency and therefore of less financial importance.
The whole issue here is that the Government had all of this in front of them and chose to ignore it and most definitely never raised any of these issues or made the public aware of them.
In other words they denied the public the knowledge to allow them an educated choice.
I raise this now because intelligent air bag technology has left seat belts to all intents and purposes obsolete, but the Police in recent months have "seat belt blitzes" in the interests of road safety. Perhaps they could explain to us what possible difference wearing a seat belt makes to road safety, it only works after you've had the accident!
I could ask the question are the Police aware of the risks of seat belt injuries in high speed pursuits? but then on checking the regulations in the Road Traffic Act we discover that Police Officers in Police vehicles are exempt from having to wear them in their line of duty. How interesting!!
I will leave you to chew over all of this stuff and come back tomorrow night with information about the function, (or rather disfunction!) of the Law and what I see the solution to be.
IOLAIRE said:
On refitting the push rods the braking distance was decreased by an incredible 400 percent!
Scientifically you can't decrease the stopping distance more than 100%, and even 100% isn't possible unless you hit a wall. If you decreased it by 100% then the car would stop immediately without skidding, if you decreased it by more than 100% the car would have to stop before you even touched the brake pedal.
Do you mean that you reduced the stopping distance to a quarter of the original distance? That would be reducing it by 75%.
>> Edited by timsta on Monday 14th June 23:38
Re your seatbelts see this Don't forget someone has to pick up body parts at times, hows about you offer to do it some time.
Re the advert, yes it's obviously a set up, but from memory I thought it was a Sunny saloon which did'nt come with ABS. Plus 80% of drivers don't know how to use ABS so the effect would be similar.
Otherwise I agree with what your saying, get kids off the roads & teach em road safety & teach people to drive properly.
Re the advert, yes it's obviously a set up, but from memory I thought it was a Sunny saloon which did'nt come with ABS. Plus 80% of drivers don't know how to use ABS so the effect would be similar.
Otherwise I agree with what your saying, get kids off the roads & teach em road safety & teach people to drive properly.
timsta said:
On refitting the push rods the braking distance was decreased by an incredible 400 percent!
Scientifically you can't decrease the stopping distance more than 100%, and even 100% isn't possible unless you hit a wall. If you decreased it by 100% then the car would stop immediately without skidding, if you decreased it by more than 100% the car would have to stop before you even touched the brake pedal.
Do you mean that you reduced the stopping distance to a quarter of the original distance? That would be reducing it by 75%.
OK Guys, I've been working flat out for days. You try writing like that and see if you don't make an error or two. I meant 40%.
>> Edited by timsta on Monday 14th June 23:38
IOLAIRE said:
<...> I would lodge a complaint with the IBA and attempt to have it withdrawn. On contacting the TV company's office I was told that all road safety and government advertising is "self-regulating" and I could only complain to the department that made the ad. In other words any government agency can make up an ad on any subject and insert any and all types of content, no matter how shocking, brutal and most importantly inaccurate or misleading, and the IBA has no control over it whatsoever.
This is total sh*te, specifically, inter alia;
1) The IBA has not regulated television since about 1993, when its name changed to the ITC and its radio regulatory powers were transferred to the then new radio authority. In late 2003 / early 2004, the ITC was abolished and its role transferred to the new Ofcom.
2) The IBA is not a 'TV company', it, or at least was, the regulator. If you mean that you contacted the TV company (Sky, Channel 4, Channel 5 or one of the ITV companies), and they told you that, they lied and you shold have complained to the ITC about that.
3) Government adverts are not 'self -regulating', they are, in theory[*] at least, covered by all the rules just as those for commercial organisations, including honesty, good taste, decency etc.
4) At the time, several people complained about the ad. Nobody, who posted a reply publicly, got that bullsh*t about being self-regulating.
The replies were all variations of 'the end justifies the means'.
A Google groups search will pull up several.
[*] That said, over the years, I have made several complaints to the ITC about adverts, split approx. 50/50 government/non-government (only one was to do with this ad., or any motoring issue). All my complaints against non-government advertisers were upheld; none were upheld against government adverts.
So there is certainly a prima facie case that they will not find against a government ad., but that is not what you re alledging.
>> Edited by jeffreyarcher on Tuesday 15th June 00:41
jeffreyarcher said:
<...> I would lodge a complaint with the IBA and attempt to have it withdrawn. On contacting the TV company's office I was told that all road safety and government advertising is "self-regulating" and I could only complain to the department that made the ad. In other words any government agency can make up an ad on any subject and insert any and all types of content, no matter how shocking, brutal and most importantly inaccurate or misleading, and the IBA has no control over it whatsoever.
This is total sh*te, specifically, inter alia;
1) The IBA has not regulated television since about 1993, when its name changed to the ITC and its radio regulatory powers were transferred to the then new radio authority. In late 2003 / early 2004, the ITC was abolished and its role transferred to the new Ofcom.
2) Government adverts are not 'self -regulating', they are, in theory[*] at least, covered by all the rules just as those for commercial organisations, including honesty, good taste, decency etc.
3) At the time, several people complained about the ad. Nobody, who posted a reply publicly, got that bullsh*t about being self-regulating.
The replies were all variations of 'the end justifies the means'.
A Google groups search will pull up several.
[*] That said, over the years, I have made several complaints to the ITC about adverts, split approx. 50/50 government/non-government (only one was to do with this ad., or any motoring issue). All my complaints against non-government advertisers were upheld; none were upheld against government adverts.
So there is certainly a prima facie case that they will not find against a government ad., but that is not what you re alledging.
Iolaire states:-
I seem to be having trouble understanding the point you're trying to make. I am not alleging anything, if you read the article properly you will see that I have simply stated what I was told by the television company showing the ad, which is why I worked at discovering who made the ad and went straight to them. Whoever these complaint agencies are is immaterial; they are effectively impotent against government advertising. The ad is still being shown, it was on STV last week. By your own submission none of your complaints against government ads have ever been upheld. I know of only one ad the government withdrew because of complaints.
What I stated about the people involved in producing the ad is first hand and accurate.
Iolaire
IOLAIRE said:
Iolaire states:-
I seem to be having trouble understanding the point you're trying to make.
They are actually quite simple, and I cannot think of a way of putting them even more simply.
IOLAIRE said:
I am not alleging anything,
You are alleging that, "all road safety and government advertising is "self-regulating" and I could only complain to the department that made the ad," which, as I have already said, is sh*te.
IOLAIRE said:
if you read the article properly you will see that I have simply stated what I was told by the television company showing the ad,
I did read the article properly, although from your subsequent reply, it seems that you didn't write it properly, leading to my conclusion that the company that you referred to was the IBA.
BTW, what company was it? If it was STV, did you get a name? If so, would you pm me it. I know someone who might like to take it up.
IOLAIRE said:
By your own submission none of your complaints against government ads have ever been upheld. I know of only one ad the government withdrew because of complaints.
Yes, but not for the reasons that you stated in your original post.
IOLAIRE said:
....I raise this now because intelligent air bag technology has left seat belts to all intents and purposes obsolete, but the Police in recent months have "seat belt blitzes" in the interests of road safety. Perhaps they could explain to us what possible difference wearing a seat belt makes to road safety, it only works after you've had the accident!
Thats a stupid statement to make then
If it prevents or minimises injury, then it is a contribution to safer roads. They are also designed to work in conjunction with airbags where they are fitted! Have you ever been punched hard in the nose?
This is slightly better than hitting a steering wheel with your nose at 30mph!
IOLAIRE said:
I could ask the question are the Police aware of the risks of seat belt injuries in high speed pursuits?
But they are not as bad as those caused by not wearing them
I went to an RTA last week where the driver of a car was thrown out through his open sun roof receiving serious head and spinal injuries when he regained terra firma. I bet he wishes he had clunk clicked now! IOLAIRE said:
but then on checking the regulations in the Road Traffic Act we discover that Police Officers in Police vehicles are exempt from having to wear them in their line of duty. How interesting!!
Not quite so actually. There are specific occasions when Police are exempt from wearing a belt in an operational car/vehicle. To suggest they do not wear them in high speed pursuits because they are likely to cause more serious injury if the pursuit goes monkey is nonsense.
IOLAIRE said:
I will leave you to chew over all of this stuff and come back tomorrow night with information about the function, (or rather disfunction!) of the Law and what I see the solution to be.
I have chewed!
When I started to read this article I thought that you may well have something. How unfortunate you ended it with this drivel about police and seat belts
Oh, and I have not seen anywhere in your dissitation any conclusions which tells us the solution to your problem
>> Edited by gone on Tuesday 15th June 01:51
Well said Iolaire. I think although you may have some contentious points here, the sentiment is right. There is no excuse for the government's duplicity in trying to brainwash us by using lies, even if some feel the end justifies the means. Look at the 60's when the Government were so right in pushing pregnant mothers down the thalidomide route and are doing the same with the MMR vaccine today.
However the thing that pisses me off are the pedantic gits on here that seem to want to pull apart anybody's argument just to be contrary. For the like of jeffreyarcher et al do you therefore agree that the government can make up some bollocks just push it's own viewpoint.
Iolaire I hope that you have more energy than me to raise these points and get answers from these liars, to the rest that just want to criticise your posts I would say that they're pretty sad and pedantic people. We need to be encouraging those who are camplaining back to the powers that be in the hope that we will come to some proper sense when it comes to road safety.
However the thing that pisses me off are the pedantic gits on here that seem to want to pull apart anybody's argument just to be contrary. For the like of jeffreyarcher et al do you therefore agree that the government can make up some bollocks just push it's own viewpoint.
Iolaire I hope that you have more energy than me to raise these points and get answers from these liars, to the rest that just want to criticise your posts I would say that they're pretty sad and pedantic people. We need to be encouraging those who are camplaining back to the powers that be in the hope that we will come to some proper sense when it comes to road safety.
mean'n'roofless said:
Well said Iolaire. I think although you may have some contentious points here, the sentiment is right. There is no excuse for the government's duplicity in trying to brainwash us by using lies, even if some feel the end justifies the means. Look at the 60's when the Government were so right in pushing pregnant mothers down the thalidomide route and are doing the same with the MMR vaccine today.
However the thing that pisses me off are the pedantic gits on here that seem to want to pull apart anybody's argument just to be contrary. For the like of jeffreyarcher et al do you therefore agree that the government can make up some bollocks just push it's own viewpoint.
Iolaire I hope that you have more energy than me to raise these points and get answers from these liars, to the rest that just want to criticise your posts I would say that they're pretty sad and pedantic people. We need to be encouraging those who are camplaining back to the powers that be in the hope that we will come to some proper sense when it comes to road safety.
The problem is that if someone goes to the trouble as he obviously has, to rebut this type of advertisement, it has to be put in a reasonable and unimmotive arguement with proper alternatives that can be considered.
I see none of that in his post
Well said Iolaire
I recently complained about that advert through the correct channels and received an interesting response. My main arguement is that the wheels are locked on the car, if it was being braked in a controlled manner the car would have stopped sooner. Last time I looked an emergency stop is part of the driving test, locking the wheels is an immediate fail!
They understood my arguements but said that the main purpose of the advert was to emphasise the implications of speed rather than provide an accurate representation of car and driver actions. They mentioned that although they had received many complaints they felt that the message was being fairly portrayed.
Funny how it only took 3 complaints to ban the advert showing a guy throwing up a dog (which I incidently found highly amnusing!) but when the advert is government backed it is untouchable......
I am sure all of the 'Pedantic gits' - you know who you are - will now scrutinise this posting and spent the next 24 hours pulling it apart - oh well...
>> Edited by jesusbuiltmycar on Tuesday 15th June 14:40
I recently complained about that advert through the correct channels and received an interesting response. My main arguement is that the wheels are locked on the car, if it was being braked in a controlled manner the car would have stopped sooner. Last time I looked an emergency stop is part of the driving test, locking the wheels is an immediate fail!
They understood my arguements but said that the main purpose of the advert was to emphasise the implications of speed rather than provide an accurate representation of car and driver actions. They mentioned that although they had received many complaints they felt that the message was being fairly portrayed.
Funny how it only took 3 complaints to ban the advert showing a guy throwing up a dog (which I incidently found highly amnusing!) but when the advert is government backed it is untouchable......
I am sure all of the 'Pedantic gits' - you know who you are - will now scrutinise this posting and spent the next 24 hours pulling it apart - oh well...
>> Edited by jesusbuiltmycar on Tuesday 15th June 14:40
bumpkin said:
if you think your air bag will prevent injury without a seat belt you are mistaken. both bits of the system must be employed to get the required result. if either one is missing you will be introuble in a shunt.
Abso-ma-lutely....when I wrote off my Puma last Dec I was thankfully wearing my seat belt. True, the car had airbags, but as it spun thru 720 degrees they apparently never thought to themselves that deploying might be a good plan whereas the pretensioners were well in evidence!. Had I not been wearing my seatbelt I'm sure I'd have
at some point. Of the two the seatbelt is far more important on covering a wide range of accidents as opposed to two or three types covered by airbags
IOLAIRE, another post like that and you'll have the paragraph police after you.
While the advert referred to may be tchnically incorrect that was not it's intention. The intention was to shock and make people think. To pesrsue it on the grounds of technical accuracy is to my mind a little pedestrain.
Unfortunatly it was aimed at the wrong people, and I fully agree with you that the problem with pedestrian accidents lies very much with the fact that pedestrians are on the road, and if they were not on the road things would be a lot better. I mean to say, motor vehicle aren't allowed on the pavements are they? Far to dangerous, and the same logic applies to people on the road.
The statistics show that somewhere in the region of 80% of pedestrain accidents are the fault of the pedestrian. Slowing cars down may reduce their injuries but will not remove the cause of the problem. So if they can't be trusted to look after themselves, far better to remove pedestrians from the road at every opportunity by both statute and physical barrier.
The Government could then spend our money on adverts aimed at inculcating the message that pedestrians would stay safe by staying off the road, and the punishment under the law for failing to do so would be a fixed penalty and 3 points on their walking licence. 12 points gets a ban and their legs are confiscated and they have to stay indoors for a whole year.
>> Edited by tootler on Tuesday 15th June 16:11
>> Edited by tootler on Tuesday 15th June 20:40
While the advert referred to may be tchnically incorrect that was not it's intention. The intention was to shock and make people think. To pesrsue it on the grounds of technical accuracy is to my mind a little pedestrain.
Unfortunatly it was aimed at the wrong people, and I fully agree with you that the problem with pedestrian accidents lies very much with the fact that pedestrians are on the road, and if they were not on the road things would be a lot better. I mean to say, motor vehicle aren't allowed on the pavements are they? Far to dangerous, and the same logic applies to people on the road.
The statistics show that somewhere in the region of 80% of pedestrain accidents are the fault of the pedestrian. Slowing cars down may reduce their injuries but will not remove the cause of the problem. So if they can't be trusted to look after themselves, far better to remove pedestrians from the road at every opportunity by both statute and physical barrier.
The Government could then spend our money on adverts aimed at inculcating the message that pedestrians would stay safe by staying off the road, and the punishment under the law for failing to do so would be a fixed penalty and 3 points on their walking licence. 12 points gets a ban and their legs are confiscated and they have to stay indoors for a whole year.
>> Edited by tootler on Tuesday 15th June 16:11
>> Edited by tootler on Tuesday 15th June 20:40
The car in the ad is actually a 91 Nissan Sunny, at least thats what it was badged over here.
Ive seen the ad many times and every time it evokes the same response, ie, the urge to shout FAKE! at the top of my voice.
Im afraid i dont concur with Iolaire's views regarding seatbelts though.
If you cite a crash occuring at 70 into a concrete pillar on the motorway as an example, then im afraid youre looking at being scraped off the inside of the car.
Air bags wont keep you in the car and theyre not designed to, so its wrong to believe that seat belts are in anyway redundant now that air bags have come along, as theyre a supplemental safety system, along with pro-con ten(audi) and W.h.i.p.s (volvo).
Basically, give me em all. I may well die in a crash at such high speed due to impact forces and crush injuries, but at least i wont be flying along the cariageway having exited the vehicle and then entered someone elses.
Ive seen the ad many times and every time it evokes the same response, ie, the urge to shout FAKE! at the top of my voice.
Im afraid i dont concur with Iolaire's views regarding seatbelts though.
If you cite a crash occuring at 70 into a concrete pillar on the motorway as an example, then im afraid youre looking at being scraped off the inside of the car.
Air bags wont keep you in the car and theyre not designed to, so its wrong to believe that seat belts are in anyway redundant now that air bags have come along, as theyre a supplemental safety system, along with pro-con ten(audi) and W.h.i.p.s (volvo).
Basically, give me em all. I may well die in a crash at such high speed due to impact forces and crush injuries, but at least i wont be flying along the cariageway having exited the vehicle and then entered someone elses.
Quick point about the conspiracy theory idea of totally debadging the Nissan - I've seen this a lot in non car company adverts that have cars in. Take the "Sponsored by More Than" interludes in Fifth Gear - think they have a BMW Z3 in them, but it has been debadged and given a nose job. I don't think there's anything sinister going on. Probably just some sort of image rights thing.
I have read all the posts on here with interest and just wanted to add my tupennce worth.
Iolaire never stated the Almera had ABS. If it did have ABS then it would never lock up. What he stated was it was fitted with and LAV or a 'load apportioning valve' It is a mechanical device which as stated when contected to the rear suspension determines its height and apportions brake bias front to rear as appropriate. A similar device is also the PCRV which is normally fitted in line, in a brake system and does esentially the same job, but rather than detecting suspension movement, it detects increases and decreases in pedel pressure cauased by wheel lock ups, and acts again as a mechanical ABS system. However May I remind everybody that the stopping distances used by the Goverment et al are still based upon figures gained from cars in the sixties using sixities technology. I would argue that even the porrest performing motor vehicle on the roads today (think 4x4) are more than capable of beating the results produced 30-40 years ago. In fact in a recent EVO magazine test all the cars tested achieved stopping distances of less than 360 feet when braking from 100 MPH if you use the formula
(X x X)/20 + X = distance (where x equates to your speed approximate I know but its the best I could find), at 100mph this gives a distance of 530 ft!! Thats a difference of 170ft on the worst performing car which was a 1.6 Ford focus.
I agree the advert is extremely frustrating and I applaud anybody who is able to see through the facade of its apparant message speed kills. I strongly agree that more time and effort needs to go into teaching children from an early age the dangers of playing on or near roads.
With regards to the adoption of seat belts I'm afraid I have to disagree. It was well proven in the US that occupants not wearing seatbelts who were involved in collisions believing that the airbags would save them, actually suffered serious and in some cases dies from the injuries sustained from the air bag detonation that would otherwise would have saved them, had they been wearing a seal belt as well.
Given a choice betwen surviving an impact at 50mph and suffering perhaps a broken collar bone and maybe pelvic or leg injuries and maybe some internal injuries, this is a lot more attractive than the option of death if I'm not wearing a seat belt.
Some good points though.
Iolaire never stated the Almera had ABS. If it did have ABS then it would never lock up. What he stated was it was fitted with and LAV or a 'load apportioning valve' It is a mechanical device which as stated when contected to the rear suspension determines its height and apportions brake bias front to rear as appropriate. A similar device is also the PCRV which is normally fitted in line, in a brake system and does esentially the same job, but rather than detecting suspension movement, it detects increases and decreases in pedel pressure cauased by wheel lock ups, and acts again as a mechanical ABS system. However May I remind everybody that the stopping distances used by the Goverment et al are still based upon figures gained from cars in the sixties using sixities technology. I would argue that even the porrest performing motor vehicle on the roads today (think 4x4) are more than capable of beating the results produced 30-40 years ago. In fact in a recent EVO magazine test all the cars tested achieved stopping distances of less than 360 feet when braking from 100 MPH if you use the formula
(X x X)/20 + X = distance (where x equates to your speed approximate I know but its the best I could find), at 100mph this gives a distance of 530 ft!! Thats a difference of 170ft on the worst performing car which was a 1.6 Ford focus.
I agree the advert is extremely frustrating and I applaud anybody who is able to see through the facade of its apparant message speed kills. I strongly agree that more time and effort needs to go into teaching children from an early age the dangers of playing on or near roads.
With regards to the adoption of seat belts I'm afraid I have to disagree. It was well proven in the US that occupants not wearing seatbelts who were involved in collisions believing that the airbags would save them, actually suffered serious and in some cases dies from the injuries sustained from the air bag detonation that would otherwise would have saved them, had they been wearing a seal belt as well.
Given a choice betwen surviving an impact at 50mph and suffering perhaps a broken collar bone and maybe pelvic or leg injuries and maybe some internal injuries, this is a lot more attractive than the option of death if I'm not wearing a seat belt.
Some good points though.
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