Subject:
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Re: Resolved: Tall SUVs should not be a priori banned
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 22 Sep 2000 17:18:34 GMT
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Viewed:
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461 times
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Larry Pieniazek wrote:
> .... (someone who attends
> a stock car race is expressly consenting to the remote chance that they may
> get hit by a wayward race car, or else they ought not to be admitted through
> the gate)
Though I wouldn't absolve the track and driver of all responsibility,
but I agree that their liability is limited. Assuming that reasonable
expectations of safety inspections etc. have been followed, there ought
to be no liability (but if for example, they had inspected a safety
fence the day before, and found that it was about to collapse, and
didn't do something about that, then they might have some liability when
the fence indeed collapses as a hunk of car comes flying through
[assuming the fence was reasonably expected to stop hunks of that size
and velocity]).
> It's an accurate summation of my position on <x> control (where <x> is a gun,
> a car that can go fast, an overheight SUV, a joint, a bottle of cleaning
> fluid, a part of my body that I am proposing to insert somewhere, whatever). I
> can't speak for Frank, but suspect some similarity.
I think our positions have a lot of similarity.
> Now, there are some people who say "but <X> is too dangerous, or there are no
> uses for X that have legitimate purpose, and therefore we need to regulate use
> of X a priori"
>
> There is an extremely tiny class of X for which I happen to agree with this
> view.
>
> So far that class, for me, consists of: {strategic nuclear weapons}... but it
> doesn't include drugs of any kind, hand portable weapons of any kind or
> vehicles of any kind. Certainly not SUVs, even tall ones.
I haven't thought deeply enough on the subject to know if items other
than strategic nukes fit that class. Of course an interesting issue to
raise is if we don't trust an individual to posses a nuke, how in heck
do we trust a government, which is ultimately just a collection of
individuals. Obviously there is some weight to the argument that if you
make the firing of such a weapon require action by more than one person
and that you have sufficient inspection to see that the regulations
regarding that weapon are followed, then one can expect that it is less
likely that the weapon will be used improperly (on the other hand, the
military does a lot in its training to train its members to use group
think and not question orders, which reduces the possibility that one of
the required people will say "hey, wait a minute, we've got no reason to
nuke Boston just because Todd took too long to get the AucZilla MCM
parts out.").
> But each and every accident that a tall SUV is involved in ought to be
> examined by a pack of rabid lawyers for possible lawsuits against the driver
> and his insurance company. 2 or 3 of those and tall SUV drivers are going to
> be paying so much higher premiums that it won't be in their economic interest
> to drive them.
Of course if the danger isn't actually that high, the lawsuits won't go
very far, and the insurance rates will be reasonable, and we'll all have
the comfort of knowing that the market and real experience determined
the danger level, not some set of people who think that the danger is
much worse, and who also perhaps have a bone to pick about SUVs (perhaps
because THEIR parents didn't buy them one for a graduation present? -
Please note, I'm not ridiculing the possibility that SUVs really do
present a significantly higher danger, but more the process of how we
decide what is and is not too dangerous to allow).
--
Frank Filz
-----------------------------
Work: mailto:ffilz@us.ibm.com (business only please)
Home: mailto:ffilz@mindspring.com
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