Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!genrad!decvax!harpo!floyd!vax135!ariel!houti!hogpc!houxm!ihnp4!ixn5c!inuxc!pur-ee!dilley 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 ...