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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.'"
Who is RUNNING Australia?
I mean seriously, this is STUPID
Darn - Australia has gone to goodie two shoes fascists. Seems like all the news coming from there is about less freedom.
As long as they're eradicated before they breed I see no reason to interfere in this natural and culturally benevolent phenomenon.
kartune85 : Incapable of reason, observation or learning. A kind of dim, drab, flightless parrot.
Warning: Being STUPID can cause injury or death.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
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.
It's largely because all the news is bullshit.
Australia does not have an internet filter.
Nothing is happening in regards to this story
Somebody making a noise about something, even if that person is a politician in government, is not the same as them actually doing something.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Having music devices around isn't the problem. Stupid overprotective mollycoddling laws are the problem. What you're probably seeing is the result of lowering the speed limit to 40km/hr around school zones while cutting back on educating kids about the danger of cars. The number of kids who should be old enough - in late highschool - to behave at least somewhat sensibly and look both ways, but instead blindly walk out in front of oncoming traffic because they know they won't be blamed if they or someone else is hurt is mind boggling. It is now way too RARE to see kids actually look both ways crossing a road.
This is just a prime example of how badly the Australian political system has gone off the rails. In Australia we're happy to throw away freedoms left right and center, and if anyone else is doing well or having fun, we like to put a stop to it. It's sad, because I've lived here all my life and while there was always an element of Tall Poppy Syndrome here it has gotten WAY out of hand. This country use to be a lovely place. In polite company manners counted. Now if you catch an (overcrowded hellish) Sydney train you're lucky not to get shoved out of the way or sworn at.
We don't need new laws. We need enforcement of the existing laws. There is already a law in NSW against pedestrians walking out in front of a car. My cousin while 12 was almost charged because he blindly stumbled out from behind a bus and was hit. I'm in 2 minds about this. On the one hand at least the driver wasn't penalised when he could have done nothing to prevent the accident. On the other, do you really think it is a good idea to charge the victim of an accident, who may have been mamed by it? Or penalise the parent who now has to look after a sick child? Is that really what a stretched police force should be out doing? And these are already existing laws. Do we really need more of the same? The "Pedestrian Council of Australia" needs to have it's head read. I can just see it now "Were you wearing headphones when you were hit ma'am?" "Ah yes but I..." "No buts ma'am. I'm afraid we're going to have to place you under arrest".
IDIOTS.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
For those outside Australia, The Pedestrian Council of Australia is a fringe element run by a media whore and general looney Harold Scruby. Their role seems to be one of self importance and can be found offering their opinion about 'road safety' to anyone who'll listen (mostly pseudo current affairs type shows that like to drum up controversy). The best tactic here is to ignore anything they say. Like with most crazies, arguing back simply provides them with more attention than they deserve.
'The government is quite happy to legislate that people can lose two demerit points for having music .........
Demerits? Sounds rather childish. But at least you lose 2 demerits, which sounds much better to me than being given 2 demerits.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
If you ride a bike on a shared footpath in Victoria you are required to warn pedestrians before you approach them. You can do this with a bell or a verbal warning. But the vast majority of pedestrians wear earphones.
So whats the point requiring a warning if it is not going to be heard? The only problem I have with the proposed changes is that it won't be applied to the drivers of vehicles too. Headphones and telephone use should be outlawed entirely.
As a bike rider I don't want distracted pedestrians stepping into my path. Thats as dangerous for me as it is for them.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
I just googled "harold scruby wiki" http://www.google.com.au/search?num=100&hl=en&q=harold+scruby+wiki&aq=f&aqi=g1&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=
first result I got was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanker !!!
I'll see your hokum and raise you a boondoggle.
They should call the offense iWalking. Every modern country should reserve at least two letters of the alphabet for traffic offenses.
Electric cars emit much less noise. I think we will need to have a protocol whereby iPods can sense potential collisions and warn the listeners. Cars are getting anti-collision devices and software anyway in the coming years, they shoud expand the protocolls to iPods too. :).
Hmm - maybe I should patent that idea
Yeah I ride a bike to work and when I stop at traffic lights I have a nice high POV to look into the interior of cars. I see a lot of drivers fiddling with phones, playing games, etc.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
[This Darwin award candidate] was struck and killed by a southbound Caltrain while crossing the tracks [...] Witnesses said at the time [he] rode his skateboard around a lowered crossing arm and was listening to headphones when he was hit.
Did you know that "FTW" ("for the win") is a direct translation of "Sieg Heil"?
If you are watching TV or texting or screwing your girlfriend while you're driving, you risk hurting yourself AND innocent other people who are following the rules.
If you are listening to your ipod while you run across a street, you risk [mostly] hurting just yourself. I always thought it was my responsibility to look both ways and pay attention to what I'm doing. But I guess I need laws to remind me of that. This way, after I get hit by a car, I could get a ticket to boot. Sweet.
Just my $0.55 (US inflation, 1774-2008, for $0.02)
How about people who are deaf like me? Will we get written up for walking around in a dangerous fashion and relying only upon our eyes to stay alive on the streets?
I saw the aftermath of what triggered this media coverage on Saturday night and it was not pretty, a 26 year old woman was jogging on Parramatta Road on the outskirts of the CBD with her headphones in her ears. An ambulance which had its sirens on was passing threough an intersection and she didnt notice it coming...she died at the scene despite the fact that she got instant attention from the occupants of the ambulance. For all the usual sardonic banter here on slashdot about natural selection et al it is sad to think that a young woman has been taken so early from her family and friends.
Despite this I dont think the government can legislate away every single risk in our lives, more people die from smoking than being hit by cars and we arent banning smoking yet...
And lets not forget the corollary:
LAWS do not stop people doing things (see drugs, illegal, the continued use of).
LAWS just allow POLICE to arrest you, and LIFE INSURANCE people to reject your payout.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
No, in the US.
It varies state by state, but for example, I looked it up and Florida's minimum injury protection is like 10k. Bodily injury limits to other people paid by insurance are the same limits as the insurance coverage. And property damage for an entire accident can be 10K as well. IIRC, that's for an ENTIRE accident, not per person injured or each car destroyed, etc.
Being underinsured or uninsured, both medically and with car insurance, is a major problem in the USA.
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.
Six months ago I gave up cycle commuting because I had medical problems. I am back commuting now. At the time I decided to keep fit by riding around a local velodrome at night. It got boring cycling in circles in the dark so I bought a cheap MP3 player and head phones. I tried it out a couple of times but the sensory deprivation got to me. I would imagine movement near me and stop the music to listen for a while. It was actually quite dangerous so I gave up on the music player idea.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
It would help if they didn't drive on the wrong side of the road here... (recent immigrant)
The bottom? (Northern hemisphere resident)
Have gnu, will travel.
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.
Please be aware that the pedestrian council is not a council at all. Its a Commercial Business owned (and ceo'd) by Harold Scruby. They have been sprouting anti car and anti driver bullshit for years. There is no real reason to listen to this mob, and Im unsure why anyone does.
I hear you, but its status as a corporation makes it even more likely to have some political clout.
Besides, dumb ideas like this need to be called out. Look at all the similar nanny-state laws on the books in many different countries. Mr. Scruby is definitely not the only person who adheres to this philosophy. The problem with people like him is that they don't recognize when they are trying to implement a fundamentally flawed idea. When it fails for any reason, they just assume they aren't trying hard enough.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Despit the above rant, the greens have the balance of power in the senate and would block any filter.
The NBN will be run by a private company NOT the government.
The poster also has no idea about how the NBN will owrk, it is wholesale and backbone only-any services sold will be by private ISP, all of whom will be able to acess the NBN at the same price.
All in all there was not a correct single fact in the whole post!
in other news, the association of seeing danger everywhere (famous for pushing legislation against children running) has found that last year, about 45% of all deaths occurred while people had fun and therefore concluded all fun should be banned. "it's just too lethal", a spokesperson said, adding that 63% of all lethal accidents happened outdoors, while 36% occured within walls. Efforts by the organization now focus on determining what the fuck happened to the missing 1%, so finally action can be taken to remove the deadly housing from peoples lives.
The best thing we ever did in .au was get rid of most semi automatic guns.
It seems only the US has the bizarro love of the gun.
I have lived here for 40 years and have not even once felt the need to own a gun, and have never even seen one in the hands of a private citizen on the streets. As they are extremely rare, only the worst criminals carry them, and usually only use them on other criminals-shootings involving innocents are virtually unknown. Possesion is treated very seriously.
To quote Yes Minister.
"We are not entirely convinced having loads of armed people on the streets make anyone safer".
Is this what has become of the once proud Australians who live and thrive in the land of the Outback?
Just about anybody you talk to or hear about from Australia is from one of 5 very small cities. Very, very few people actually come from the outback that people like to romaticise about. None of the city folk have any idea about country life and I shit you not have seen Aussies (the city ones) go absolutely berserk when they see an insect.
When I moved to the city I couldn't believe the attitudes exhibited by the city dwellers. The general assumption is that those not from the city are redneck, dumb and ignorant. Some cities will even slag off other city dwellers as the same. The irony is lost. As time progresses, these attitudes are worsening. It is really quite sad.
The funny thing is that a lot of the city folk will slag off Americans as stupid (again with the irony). Yet they don't realise that the attitudes they have learned originally came from American movies and TV shows that do the same about the 'deep south'. The Aussie city people somehow learned that it was ok to do this.
The city dwellers are those that advocate these stupid laws. They have their own little worlds and anybody outside that bubble is wrong about everything.
[/rant: for now]
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particularly when death is the penalty . darwin would be proud .
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