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It's not a strawman because eggregious accidents are the ones that generate excesive 'reactionary' changes to local roads. Particularly tragic accidents are the
by Shinkei 13y ago
It's not a strawman because eggregious accidents are the ones that generate excesive 'reactionary' changes to local roads. Particularly tragic accidents are the ones that can get political and media coverage necessary to cause 'knee-jerk' changes that are not necessarily evidence-based. The problem is drunks, immature drivers and seniors can and will continue to contribute to these issues regardless of the traffic laws.
Also, traffic deaths dropping is irrelevant because there is no causal relationship. It could be safer cars, more seatbelt use.... heck, changes in weather patterns or population densities could all contribute and it's going to be futile to argue laws may prevent traffic accidents. The point is that when an accident happens, laws need to be on the books so that people can be prosecuted for their mistakes.
- mattlutze 13y agoSo if egregious accidents will contribute to 'knee-jerk' changes regardless of traffic laws, it is indeed a non-argument and a strawman when considering the case of changing the way traffic laws are set. I poorly supported that with the traffic deaths dropping bit, quite true. Separately, it would be more apt to observe that traffic speed limits set not with respect to natural driving speeds are shown to increase traffic collisions, because speeds set too high will have some drivers naturally driving far too slow to be safe, and speeds too low will also have drivers driving too slow (the posted limit) versus the natural speed of the road which some will drive.