Lets assume that more than 1 thing (i.e. seat belts) could be affecting the ratio of cyclist/pedestrian to motorist death ratio.

I’m sure readers can think of plenty. You may as well conclude that the increase in in car cd players has been responsible.

Prof Adams believes the data shows that risk-compensation does apply to people carrying passengers. I won’t claim to understand all the evidence, or even to have seen the original data sets; but I do think that claims of the success of compulsory seat-belt laws need to be backed up by evidence rather than a general assumption that they must have succeeded.

I take your point about the no harm, no crime issue which, in any event, is always going to a lot more nuanced and grey than we’d like – no man is an island and all that,

Whether the total impact of seatbelts is positive or negative is much harder to determine (and the historical data is circumstantial for this purpose); I’m not prepared to make that case right now. The point was simply that they cannot be considered illiberal on a “no harm, no crime” basis.

The seatbelt issue isn’t quite so clear cut. There’s evidence that people compensate for risk, so those who otherwise wouldn’t have worn seatbelts (or had those in the back wear them) take more risks when driving when the law says they have to. That, it’s argued, means making seatbelt wearing compulsory not only fails to improve safety, overall, for those inside cars, but also increases accidents for pedestrians and cyclists.

Of course, if you’re someone who would wear a seatbelt anyway, that’s all good. In the event of an accident, everyone agrees that wearing a seatbelt reduces injury. But if making seatbelt wearing compulsory leads to more accidents, and leads to more pedestrians and cyclists being injured and killed, is it really so clear cut?

Prof John Adams make the case at http://bit.ly/6hjyZx

In the US where seatbelts are not compulsory in all states, airbags explode more aggressively, since they are trying to save you even if you don’t have your belt on. And then they cause more injuries. So the law reduces injries to others. And it reduces “emotional injuries” to people who would otherwise see their loved ones die.

If you read JS Mills, he had a lot of opinions that don’t really hold up in 2010.

I agree with the leave councils ot their own devices and the impracticallity of a clear your path law, even if it was desirable, which I doubt.

Where do you put the snow well on the outside of the pavement, you only clear a narrow piece, 1964 we had three to four foot of snow, radio warnings stated do not walk on the pavement walk in the road, because icicles on the roofs were falling and hurting people.

but i remeber my mother digging a pathway down the pavement and others if we had elderly people we take hot tea and food if you had disabled people same thing. not anymore..

It is refreshing to read an opinion or argument about a policy issue that is actually grounded in basic liberal philosophy.

I suppose we could permit driving without a seatbelt if you were alone in a vehicle, and it wasn’t a convertible so you couldn’t become a projectile, and… this would make the rules rather difficult to understand and interpret. A flat ban has the advantage of simplicity, and doesn’t really cause a huge restriction on your freedom. If you desperately want to kill yourself in a car crash, you can always go to a private race track.

The liberal instinct does not require dogmatic adherence; indeed, surely it requires the very opposite, a willingness to address issues with open minds?

Seat belts; the notion that there is no “harm to others” from a refusal to take a simple safety precaution, implies that we all live in causality-free bubbles. That what arguably amounts to suicide-by-depraved -indifference, has no effect on the lives of others. So, is there really “no such thing as society” after all?

Even if one insists on strict ideological Libertarianism, then consider that not wearing a rear seatbelt directly endangers the life and limb of anyone sat in front of you. There’s Mill’s reason for making you wear one, right there.

In terms of stockpiling grit, you’ll probably find that a lot of councils do that anyway, but I’d agree completely that it’s a matter for local councils to decide and not central government.

In fact I was wondering (on a very slow snow day) what would happen if we all simultaneously tried to clear our front paths on my street. The snow was 6-8 inches deep. The drains hadn’t been seen for days. Where the hell would we put all the snow so that wouldn’t constitute another hazard?