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Australia To Fight iPod Use By Pedestrians
Kilrah_il writes "In recent years the number of people killed on roads in New South Wales, Australia has dropped, but strangely enough, the number of pedestrians killed has risen. Some think it's because of the use of iPods and other music players making people not attentive to road dangers (the so-called 'iPod Zombie Trance'). Based on this (unproven) assumption, the Pedestrian Council has started a campaign in an effort to educate the people, but apparently it isn't enough. Now, some are pushing for the government to enact laws to help eradicate the problem. 'The government is quite happy to legislate that people can lose two demerit points for having music up too loud in their cars, but is apparently unconcerned that listening devices now appear to have become lethal pieces of entertainment,' [Harold Scruby of the Pedestrian Council of Australia] said. 'They should legislate appropriate penalties for people acting so carelessly towards their own welfare and that of others. ... Manufacturers should be made to [warn] consumers of the risks they run.'"
Just last week, a kid nearly killed himself on my car while texting on the phone and riding a bike going from the parking lot of a strip mall across a main street, with his free hand on the front brake lever.
It was a 45mph zone and most cars zip through at 55mph at that point and it's not a place to expect pedestrians (nor was there a light). Luckily, I saw him and screech to a stop 10 feet in front of him, but he looked up and was so surprised and hit his own brake so hard that he flipped forward and took a total spill.
He was cut up pretty good, could have been much worse, but hopefully his self-inflicted wounds cured him of his dumbassery. He looked 15 too, hope he remembers that lesson when he gets into a car.
Apparently in about 30 minutes, Australians will find out who's going to run their country.
I have a nephew who, with his group of emo friends, walks out in front of cars intentionally and laughs when they have to swerve and veer off-course.
Of course, there is going to be a driver that isn't paying attention and one of those little emos are going to get hit. Whether or not they get the blame won't be the point. The point will be if they'll ever get to walk again and whether the guy is really covered insurance-wise. The minimum coverage a ton of people have in this country isn't going to cover shit when it comes to an extensive hospital stay, nevermind if you're crippled for life. And many people don't have enough assets to sue for. All those kids would likely end up doing it drive their own parents to the poor house or extended legal battles.
It's shit like this that makes me want to put multipe cameras on my car just in case I do have an accident.
Actually, this has come about because a woman stepped out in front of a speeding ambulance - siren on, lights blaring - just last Friday.
No law has been passed as yet, but the NSW government is concerned the 25% increase in pedestrian fatalities this year is a bad trend, and is moving to be appear to be doing something.
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
Who is RUNNING Australia?
I mean seriously, this is STUPID
What retard is WRITING these headlines? Some doucher from some independent organisation comes out with the idea that pedestrians should be penalised for ipod use and somehow this is representative of Australia and/or the Australian government?
Back in the late 90's it was Sony Walkmans -- Pretty much the same problems, except that the units were much bigger (just the batteries were bigger than an ipod nano), and a casette tape only held about 2 hours of music (non-random access.. although you could fast-forward at much peril to your batteries).
At the time a friend of my roommate volunteered for North Shore Search and Rescue, and a friend of his was a medical examiner who hated Walkman and like devices. He saw all too many fatal accidents, where the cause of the accident was a walkman preventing the victim from hearing the warning noises (horn, grinding machinery, evacuation siren and/or the desperate yells of onlookers, etc), but the official cause of death was always something else (smacked by a car, crushed by machinery, head ripped, suffocated, etc.).
Thus it was that the Sony Walkman was always the bridesmaid of death, but never on the certificate.
Then one day, a girl was hit by a train while walking on the train tracks, listening to a Walkman.
The interesting thing is that she wasn't actually run over by the train. She was bounced off the track by the 'cow catcher' on the front of the train doing it's job. The real problem was that she was wearing the Walkman on her belt around the back .. just over the spleen (a very normal place to wear a walkman, since they were a bit too large to fit in most pockets). As a result, when she was hit by the train, instead of the force of the impact being relatively evenly distributed over her body by the cow-catcher, a good bit of it was concentrated into the Walkman and directed into her internal organs. Much like is claimed to have recently happened to a girl in Crete.
Although she seemed to (more or less) walk away from the accident, she soon collapsed and died from her internal injuries.
Since the Walkman was a major contributing cause of the accident, and effectively delivered the killing blow, the examiner was finally able to put on a death certificate:
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
They should legislate appropriate penalties for people acting so carelessly towards their own welfare
Everything that's wrong about nanny state in one sentence.
Why do some people feel the need to interfere with natural selection?
1) Because they have fevered egos that really get off on finding ways to control people that they don't feel guilty about ("it's for their own good!"). It gives them an excuse to pat themselves on the back and celebrate their own good intentions, further exaggerating their own self-importance and rationalizing their exercise of power. It also lets them portray you as a bad guy if you oppose them, at which point they gain an opportunity to climb up on their high horse and further exaggerate their own self-importance in a different way. Prohibition in the USA was started and (with substances other than alcohol) continues because of people like this.
2) Because they are selfish bastards who have no illusions whatsoever about what they are doing and simply find it to be profitable. If this idea eventually becomes law, then the fines and fees from any citations issued will have to be collected. It certainly wouldn't be the first time state revenues were raised for the supposed purpose of protecting someone or another. Speeding violations generate lots of ticket revenues in the name of safety despite most accidents not being caused by speeding and that's because of people like this.
Most of the people like this have tunnel vision to begin with. For them, there's no worries about natural selection because most of them won't be around anyway to see what happens when another generation or three grows up accepting this as a norm. These are not people who want to take a hard look at the damage they do except in the most minimal way possible and only when it directly affects them.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein