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From: dilley@pur-ee.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Another 55 mph flame
Message-ID: <924@pur-ee.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 14-Jun-83 16:29:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: pur-ee.924
Posted: Tue Jun 14 16:29:33 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 15-Jun-83 23:48:23 EDT
Lines: 59


All right, mit-eddie ... where do you think you can get off saying things like:

				...			If the minimum
	highway speed were > 100 MPH, probably almost everyone would be
	a fatality, sooner or later  ...  55 seems about right to me.

It seems to me that your statement is void of any meaning ... 
Let me use that same logical structure for my own argument:

	"If the minimum highway speed were any less than 200 km/hr,
	    then CERTAINLY EVERYONE alive will die, sooner or later."

Now really, would you give any credit to someone who used this argument?


And if any of you believe statistics, let me tell you that they are a
way to lie and have everyone believe you.  Not all statistics are bad,
but you have to understand where they come from!  If you are trying to
prove that one speed limit is better than another, and you have stats
to back it up like "After 55, 1000 fewer people died per year" you
have to realize that there just could be other factors involved ...
like fewer people able to afford to drive long distances, or a VARIETY
of other things.  After having a year of college statistics, I have
come to lose all respect for statistical figures.

And I also remember something by Isaac Asimov, or Larry Niven that
went essentially like the following:

	The speed limit was reduced from 75 mph to 55 mph
	The number of drivers remained constant, as did the total
		distance they had to cover.
	Since the speed limit was reduced from 75 to 55 it now takes
		36% longer to cover the same distance.
	Assume that 1,000,000 people in the N.Y. metropolitan area were
		affected by this rule, and that they all spent an
		extra hour on the road per day, 5 days a week, 50
		weeks per year.   		< +weekends?! >
	
I hope by now you see my point ... it seems as though we are losing
around 342,500 man-months per year!  in the NYC area alone.  Now we all
know that there are about 240 Million of us here in the USA ... kind
of interesting, isn't it.  Perception has a great deal to do with it,
and it was a very well presented argument, unlike mine; but I hope you
get the point.

Speed limits probably do save lives, but at the cost of time.
Personally, I would prefer a longer life and will do my best to stay
alive.  But if I can stay alive as well at 60 or 75 mph I would prefer
to spend as little time on the highways as possible.

	I leave you with a quip I heard from my first STAT prof...

	"A recent Government survey revealed that over
	  75% of all statistics are totally worthless!"


			Going down in flames,
			John Dilley ...