Posts by Ross Mason
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Discovered overpayments of benefits amount to 50% of all payments!!!. Oh sorry, I got that wrong – it is 5%. Dang. No thats not right either. 0.5%. Ah thats better.
That scared the shit out of you. But don’t worry. They suggest that:
A coherent approach to tackling fraud abuse that includes all three options is a promising area to examine.
Options are Public campaigns, Enforcement, Relationship fraud.
It’s rampant folks!
Edit: Page 119. And no, it does not amount to 36,200 X $10,000. Find the number of people who made up the 0.5% and then X $10k I think.
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From the Exec summary:
“Long-term benefit dependency for the able-bodied is very destructive at every level: it destroys initiative and drive, cripples the future opportunities of children, encourages family breakdown, fuels intergenerational dependency and the growth of the underclass, and is an enormous cost burden on society that the country cannot afford.”
(From) On-line submission on the Welfare Working Group Issues Paper
So that just about sums it up does it? A paragraph of unsubstantiated destruction.
The killer is it came from "an online submission". Unidentified, unreferenced, no context.
Is that truly the best they could find to put in the Exec summary??
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Jolisa :
Maybe we could revamp & update some of the old defensive driving ads, to address our multi-user public roads ?
There were a series of ads with the Magnet Man, Peter (Perfect) Brock years ago. He had teenagers going through scenarios of cars coming out of side roads, late braking etc etc. What was good? They treated the kids as responsible citizens who just did not have the experience and were put into situations that they had never encountereed before. They realised the implications of their lack of experience and everyone learned a lesson.
To me it was a hell of a lot more constructive style of ad than the blood and guts we have been inundated before and since that series.
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It’s four car parks, some distance from either beach, at a point where a median barrier had been added to try and curb accidents
I missed this one Russell wot being down here like.
A median barrier?
In a 50km area?
Two lanes?W T F !
You guys have an issue up there.
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Mirrors are wonderful. I have been trying to source the helmet mounted ones in NZ but with no luck. Any ideas people???
We used them on our trip across Canada (mounted on the handlebar) and they were worth the extra weight!!!
It takes away the wobble when turning the head. It is VERY difficult to learn to keep the bike travelling in a straight line while looking back. It makes timing your indications a hell of a lot safer as well becasue you can see when the gaps are coming up without turning your head. Nothign worse than turning around to find a bus RIGHT THERE! Ooooooo Whoops BIG wobble!
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Gio, I don’t want to get prissy but….here is your guys full paragraph:
In the last ten years, just over 7,600 pedestrian were killed by motor vehicles while 29 were killed by cyclists. Over the same period, 364,000 pedestrians were injured by motor vehicles, almost 76,000 (or 21%) of them seriously while cyclists injured just over 2,600 with roughly the same proportion (22%) being considered serious.
I can’t quite see where he gets the ratio of death to serious injury from but
2600 don’t look so bad compared to the others on the injuring/killing fields. But cycist serious injuries are oly 0.7% of motor vehicle ped serious injuries.However Adiran Fitch has another article here about cycle deaths in London. 43% of the deaths are with “freight vehicles” turning left on top of the cyclist(s).
I have been mulling over an idea….are there any advantages of putting cycle lanes in the middle of the road rather than the side? In those areas of the road roading engineers are keen on putting all these diagonal lines. “the Neutral Zone”.
You could have safe islands like ped islands in the middle of the road for cyclists to cross lanes from.
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General cyclist education would be a good thing, but it should take place in schools rather than testing stations.
"Back in may day" - Hackneyed but. I remember regular (at least yearly) visits to primary school in the 60s of the Traffic Officer and his trailer of bikes and peddle cars. He would unload it, we would help set up the raod course, stop signs, give way T and X intersections. Would be given the road code basics and told to carry out all those things you were shown on bike and car. It was fun. I still recall flashes of it in certain road situations so it seems to have inoculated me at least. It went the way of the warm milk and apple. Out the door.
It is hard to justify such "preventative" measures when there is no data to support it. Read "Deaths" for data. This argument is used when ped crossings are wanted, stop signs demanded, wider roads begged for. So, 5 deaths and a final 6th one to rid car parks confirms the "mode of operation" still works.
I can't help think that compulsory driver instruction should be taught in highs chool with a nationwide qualified instruction system. curriculum and driver qualification. As I have said in other places, I would bet my house that results would be seen within 10 years.
It is a Public Health issue and should be treated as such
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In 19th century newspaper articles, use of the comma, is, generous
Especially the ones before the “and”. There could be random ones ‘cos the papers have been OCRed and I did a quick edit of the ’translation’.I probably missed some…a lot…many…r n gets read regulary as m. f as t etc etc annoying but I think it an amazing tool to search the old papers for history. Discovered my Greatgrandfather’s wife before my GGmum “cut her throat with her own hand” in all it’s gory details in there as well. Never seen such lucid accounts these days.
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More: (And check out what they thought of pneumatic tyres!!!!)
North Otago Times 5 October 1896SOCIAL EFFECTS OF BICYCLING.
It is probable that bicycling will, within a few years, produce social effects of some importance. The notion that it is a mere fashion or a ” craze,” like the skating on little wheels which years ago led to an investment of scores of thousands of pounds In a speculation that proved absolutely futile, is, we are convinced, a pure delusion. The bicycle has greatly added to human powers, and will no more be given up by those who have once learned to use it than horse-riding will be given up or travelling by railway. The number of those who cycle increases day by day as the objections raised by prejudice or custom disappear, none of those who acquire the art show the slightest disposition to give up the practice, and the probability is that in a very short time it will become far more popular than riding or swimming, or even walking for amusement ever has been. It has been discovered that everyone who chooses, and has any kind of vigour remaining, can learn to ride in a fortnight. The exercise distinctly improves, the health of all who use it in moderation, and as soon as an obstacle or two have been surmounted, not to cycle will be nearly as unusual as not to walk. The cost of a wheel is at present considerable, but that is a result only of monopolies, and must sooner or later disappear. There is no reason m the world why a thin wheel of steel, every part of which, except the tyre, can be made by machinery, should cost from L10 to L30, and, as a matter of fact, people who cannot pay those sums already contrive to possess themselves of very serviceable machines. Poor students, domestic servants, and artisans may be encountered m the evening in scores on every road out of the great cities, and regular systems of selling bicycles at cheaper rates have been invented with an ingenuity most creditable to everything but the dealers’ moral sense. You may buy certain machines “for export” at a little more than half the advertised prices; or you may buy “second-hand” article, which have perhaps been taken out three times, or you may buy machines which have been superseded by some trivial, or, if you are tolerably sharp, some imperceptible improvement. The manufacturers are just now making fortunes but the moment the demand slackens and the markets are a little glutted, competition will bring prices down with a run until they settle at between L 5 and L 7, according to perfection of finish. The remaining difficulty — that of the tyre — will disappear when inventors seriously set their minds to it. We shall annoy the holders of shares in pneumatic tyre companies by the remarks; but we are entirely unable to believe m the permanence of those costly and aggravating “Improvements.” They are much too apt to leave the rider stranded twenty miles away from home, and unless they can be improved again by some lacquer, which we fancy a clever Japanese could invent, and which would be impermeable to a knife or a call, or a flint stone, they will be superseded by some contrivance for obtaining “resilience ” either from spring coils rising from the spokes under a rim of thin steel, or by some new material which will spring and yield, and yet defy any injury short of a total smash. In India, where yon have flat roads hundreds of miles long, and where, for climate and other reasons, indiarubber is out of favour, men glide about all day in cold weather on wheels of tenacious steel. The moment the cycle coats L 5 as a pivot price, will last ten years, and is independent of repairs, cycles will become for all the healthy and universal means of locomotion, and will be hired out in thousands, instead of tens, for pennies an hour where shillings are now charged. A register of bicycles will soon be established by law, new rules of the road will be enforced at once by law and by opinion, wilful Injury to bicyclists will be declared a separate and a serious offence, and all men and women will find that they have suddenly gained a new power, have become more free, and will henceforth enjoy a much enlarged, horizon. That will be the essence of the, social change. — Spectator.
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Forn the Colonist 1897 via Papers Past
New Zealand Cyclists' Touring Club have conducted, with success, several cases charging diivers of vehicles with not allowing cyclists a reasonable portion of the road whereon to pass. In one case where £10 for damages to the cycle was claimed, and the driver of the vehicle sued for breach of the rule of the road, the defendant paid the amount claimed into Court with all costs, and, moreover, gave a guinea to the funds of the 0.T.C., and the cases were withdrawn.