It’s interesting to me that there are people that want to regulate every possible activity, no matter what it is. I see this predominantly in firearms and aviation but I am now starting to see it in cycling as well.
There have been several unfortunate accidents in general aviation this summer. This has gotten a bunch of the public riled up – more regulation, more laws, more requirements, more training, more ??? Like aircraft are falling from the sky and killing thousands of people or that some new law will prevent someone from making a bad decision or even prevent a true accident from occuring. Ha! That’s a good one – a new law that outlaws bad decisions and another that outlaws accidents!! Some people even think that law enforcement is there to protect them – that is another lie of society. It is extremely rare for law enforcement to actually arrive at a scene in time to protect anyone. In most cases, they are there to do the paperwork and clean up the mess. Protection is a personal responsibility and right granted to us by our Constitution. Sadly, we have done everything we can to toss out the Constitution and the hard-won lessons of those who wrote it. It is not tought in schools anymore and barely used in the legal system – replaced by “case law” – another joke.
With firearms, a criminal breaks a law and hurts someone, somebody else thinks that another law will solve the problem. Are you kidding?? The person wasn’t following the law in the first place – what makes you think he/she is going to follow a different one? How about a law to outlaw murder? Oh, already exists…
I am new to the cycling scene but can now see the same things happening here. We must pass more regulation/law to protect someone from themselves. Someone goes over the bars so we need airbags on all handle bars. Somebody see’s a cyclist pulling a child in a trailer and they go crazy thinking we need laws to prevent such a thing – gotta save that poor kids life or something. I do my riding in a rural area and am sure I am very lucky. However; there are still some real problem drivers. Not sure what their problem is – most of them probably don’t even have a clue what they are doing. I sure don’t want more legislation to fix this – a law to outlaw stupidity. Right!
The thing that strikes me is that it is the people least qualified to make a judgment about the event that are the most excited by it. Secondly, it seems many live in some sort of “happy” or “safe” place or have no idea how much danger they are in and, probably worse, think it is the governments job to protect them. As a society, we are doing some weird things. On one hand, we decide every few minutes which lives are worth nothing and we destroy them at a whim. On the other, we are willing to forgo freedom for “safety” – or at least the illusion of safety.
I don’t think the vast majority of the public knows what “activities” are doing the most damage. Cars and alcohol (combined or separate) do far more damage than any other activity but people have convinced themselves that these two things are a-ok. In the last ten years, automobiles in have killed between 33,000 and 43,000 people each year. I guess it is the auto industry that must work so hard to convince people that they are safe in their vehicles – it would certainly hurt sales if people realized that this just isn’t true. Everyone loves their alcohol so it is easy to dismiss what a huge problem, socially and economically, that alcoholism is. Let’s ignore the real problems and instead focus on such a tiny segment that they cannot fight back.
Ya, that is a soapbox and I am angy!
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