Motorists vs Cyclists.... again (still there)

[DieselnDust]

5 minutes ago, Mamil said:

The illegal immigrant idea raises its head in this discussion because as the level of dysfunction in a society increases and as the rules that govern reasonable behaviour disintegrate, groups of people require an out group to provide a simple explanatory model as to why this is happening and a way of addressing the crisis. 

"The reason things are bad is that tjere are too many of those people here. The solutions is to eliminate those people so that order can be restored".

This process has repeated itself in innumerable historical contexts and is currently playing itself out on a global scale with catastrophic consequences and with worse to come.

In our country, the labelling of people and groups of people as illegal has a recent and devastating history and so imo should be dealt with sensitivity.

In all cases from previous war Germany, to present day USA, to the right wing rhetoric emerging in Europe as well as inntje topic under discussion here (road safety with particular reference to vulnerable road users) the problems are the result of complex interaction between structural, economic and political issues and are largely unresolvable from within the systems that spawn them.

Hence the need for "an other".

It is one of the darkest and most dangerous aspects of our nature. It also, paradoxically, if you follow the worktop yuval harari and others is one of the social mechanisms we use to unite groups in pursuit of collective endeavour. 

Edit. I ÷/÷× hate cell phone keyboards

 

beautifully articulated, thank you.

in RSA, increases in violent crime are more directly linked to unemployment. However, road accident stats are far less clear but with lack of knowledge or lack of necessary competence stemming from lack of training being more clear causals in RAF claims and payouts. Undocumented individuals pose a high risk to road safety from this perspective because they are unlikely to seek out the necessary training if they don't have the required residency documents. Its easier to obtain a fake docs  and milk that for as long as necessary. Similar trends exist in other countries. Our trends are harder to determine because the data is poor.

Societal corrective action has to start somewhere, typically pick a platform from which to start. In SA law enforcement in general will go a longway. Low hanging fruit is more roadblocks and taking unlicensed and or illegal drivers off the road, including unroadworthy vehicles. In South Africa a vulnerable road user is not just a cyclist or pedestrian, its also law abiding citizens who run the financial and healthy&safety gauntlett of sharing the road with illegal and incompetent drivers everyday. Once you demonstrate you have teeth and are willing to prosecute we may see positive outcomes. For now it will get much much worse before it gets better

[IceCreamMan]

18 hours ago, Mamil said:

Im all in favour of law and order but how many of us remember when the set of all things illegal included inter alia having sex with someone from a different race group, quoting Nelson Mandela ....

Illegal immigration is too complex a topic for this discussion. Worth noting of the 682 cars that passed me on today's ride, my first half peninsula loop since the most recent fatality here in CT, the only close.pass was from one-of the descendents of the first wave of illegal immigrants to our shores.

 

 

There’s bias in that statement. Think about it. 

[Robbie Stewart]

Colleague of mine and I were at the office working on a presentation for a large client the next day. We finished up and he left the office on his 125cc commute bike, and me in my bakkie. Both of us had about 5km home. 

Next morning I'm waiting for him at the office for the presentation, but he doesn't arrive. 

I find out later he got taken out in the traffic circle 500m from the office by an illegal immigrant with no licence, no ID, and no insurance. Thankfully he was only mildly hurt and made a full recovery. The bike was a write off. 

But ja, best not to pretend that this is a real problem facing everyone lest someone gets offended.