Posts by Stephen R
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Hard News: The Public Address Word of…, in reply to Samuel Scott,
Wegege
Did you mean Wewege? Or is there a meme for mutilating his name that way that I've missed?
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Hard News: The Public Address Word of…, in reply to ,
Someone wasn't reading the first page of comments...
+1 for Metadata though.
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Speaker: TPP: Nearing Endgame, in reply to Hadyn Green,
(Aside: This actually happened in Australia where Philip Morris sued the government for regulation of cigarette packaging. When the local courts didn't work, PM moved all business offshore, declared themselves a foreign company and sued again).
Is there a link for that? I'd have thought the courts would throw that one out on the grounds of double-jeopardy (already having had one crack at it).
I'm surprised that's not the case.
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Cracker: Stoned in Charge, in reply to Allan MacLachlan,
Part of being a good driver is being aware of distance and speed - if you are having to use an app to keep under the speed limit, then you are probably not sufficiently aware of your speed, and you should be paying more attention to the task at hand.
I think some of the point here is that your speedo is only likely to be within 10%, so you could potentially be managing your speed carefully to 99kph according to your speedo, and still be pinged under the new 4kph allowance. Having an external indication of how close your speedo is to what the police are measuring is a useful tool, even if imperfect, if that imperfection is less than the speedometers.
That and although GPS has an uncertainty in it's measurement, that uncertainty will be in the same direction over short to medium periods of time, since it's based somewhat on the position of the satellites. Looking at a GPS track driving around, I can tell which direction I was going since I can tell the lane I was in, even though the theoretical uncertainty is more than the distance between lanes.
That was true last I looked even with multiple days between GPS tracks.
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Thanks, I'll have a look.
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Cracker: Stoned in Charge, in reply to BenWilson,
I have an app that hassles me if I'm going over 100km/h on my phone.
Is that an iPhone app by any chance? And if so, what is it called?
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Cracker: Stoned in Charge, in reply to Steve Barnes,
At present the accuracy of speedometers for a vehicle are "within 10%" so it could be an interesting case if you could argue that your "speedo" said 100 but the cops say 110, what would be the outcome of that?.
I quite like those signs that say "you're now doing x km/h" when you drive past them. I use them to estimate the difference between the speedo and my actual speed. Of course, you almost never see them in 100km zones, but I did run into one in a 70 zone a few weeks back which told me that my speedo is showing high at that speed (i.e. when my speedo says 70, I'm only doing 67-68).
Getting new tires can change your speedo reading, and getting tires of a different size (as a friend did on their 4wd) can drastically change it, so being able to calibrate is very useful.
I also remember seeing a letter to the Dom Post complaining that the writer got a ticket for doing 111 in a 100 zone, when their speedo only said 107... my sympathy was limited.
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Cracker: Stoned in Charge, in reply to BenWilson,
I prefer impairment tests that are relevant to driving, though...
Reaction time, and maybe distance/speed perception would be better ones. Can they catch a ball? But again, there’s a lot of people who suck at that sober.If the tests are relevant to driving, is it possible that people who suck at that sober shouldn't be driving even when sober?
I suspect driver skill/ reaction times are the sort of things that affect risk homeostasis. When someone thinks they have better reactions (and even when they're right) then the risks they take (like following more closely, or going faster) might be enough to make them less safe than someone with worse reactions who is more cautious.
An argument could be made that better reactions do not a safer driver guarantee.
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A song for the week.
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Hard News: Narcissists and bullies, in reply to Henry Barnard,
He didn't seem to get the idea that ignorance is not an excuse and that, if he could keep himself deliberately ill-informed, he'd be safe.
Although that attitude might explain why they didn't prosecute John Banks...