poli-sci@ucbvax.ARPA (04/02/85)
From: JoSH <JoSH@RUTGERS.ARPA> Poli-Sci Digest Tue 2 Apr 85 Volume 5 Number 11 Contents: Age limits Speed limits Congressmen's bias ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Abolishing age limits C: blows green road runners. Date: 30 Mar 85 22:22:32 PST (Sat) From: Mike (Praiser of Bob) Meyer <mwm%ucbtopaz.CC@Berkeley> >I'd like to see you defend 10. Ability tests sound fairer than >age-based restrictions, but I'd like to know how you deal with >the fact that younger people often tend to be less responsible >than older people. For example, a driving age is unnecessary >to determine ability to drive; we have driving tests for that. Ah, but you're assuming that the ability tested before you are issued a license to drive is your ability to drive. If you tested the ability to drive responsibly, everybody would be better off. Those who can drive responsibly when young would be allowed to, and those who couldn't drive responsible when older wouldn't be allowed to. There's a nice, simple test for the ability to drive responsibly. I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader :-). >But younger people are more likely to endanger other people's >lives by drinking and driving than older people are, so having >a high enough driving age, a high enough drinking age, or both, >can cut down on the number of people who are killed by other >people's recklessness and stupidity. It can be argued that driving while drunk is a good example that you can't drive responsibly - so your license should be permanently suspended. The simple test above solves this problem, without recourse to such a radical course in the case of DWI. As a side point, I'd rather worry about cutting down on people's recklessness and stupidity than people being killed by other people's recklessness and stupidity. <mike ------------------------------ Date: 31 Mar 85 14:13:48 EST From: Tim <WEINRICH@RUTGERS.ARPA> Subject: Re: Age-based restrictions Ohhhhh. JoSH, I am going to punch you straight in the nose. For months, I have waited for some otherwise intelligent and reasonable person to DARE to post a note on this list supporting the increased drinking age. Now someone does and you steal my lines (nearly verbatim) in a footnote. I am particularly sensitive on this issue since, working in a college community, many of my friends happen to be under 21. One of them is 19, is more mature and responsible than any 35-year-old I can think of, and I cant go out for a drink with her because she's not 21. Others work for a peer counselling center, listening to people cry on the telephone for 4 hours with no pay and no thanks, and cant go out for a drink afterwards. Pretty easy to dump on the young people now that you're over the hill, isnt it Lynn? Everyone knows that a big reason for the alcohol-related traffic fatalities is the unwillingness of the judges to take away people's licenses once they've been caught drinking and driving. (Not that they're unwilling to take away the license of a 20-year-old. Oh no. Its only the 40-year-old in his Cadillac who can do \real/ damage who gets to keep his license.) But since a higher drinking age is easy to enforce, and since everybody knows those kids dont wield the political clout to fight back, hey, why not? Let's hope, Lynn, the statistics never start saying that women drivers drink and drive too much. Daz all for now. Replies to the list, please. Anyone who replies to me, particularly with a pro-drinking-age note, definitely gets a copy of the Interlisp manual or the New Jersey Driving Regulations (whichever is bigger) in the mail. Twinerik [Sorry about that, old chap-- --JoSH] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 Apr 85 09:00:38 PST From: Richard Foy <foy@AEROSPACE.ARPA> Subject: Drinking and Driving I don't ordinarily propose technical solutions for social problems. However, the drinking and driving problem is one that can not be solved by sociological approaches. Passing laws against behavior that is very widespread does not change the behvavior it only changes peoples attitudes about the law. Witness prohibition. An instantaneous cababilities test such as a time limited code keyto start a car would be much less intrusive than police road blocks etc, and far more effective as well. richard [Actually, all the driving problems (including one never talked about, namely the enormous amount of labor spent driving instead of other productive pursuits (which 55 worsens)) have a technological fix. It is an alternate transportation system(s). It would have to be as flexible as the current one (unlike public trans), as safe, and as cheap. I have a few ideas if anyone's interested. --JoSH] ------------------------------ Date: 1 Apr 1985 09:09-PST Sender: WARD@USC-ISIF.ARPA From: Craig E. Ward <WARD@USC-ISIF.ARPA> [Well, Terry promised to defend his position, but let me get a snipe in first: Suppose you take your "but younger people are more likely ..." (which is statistically true) and replaced it with "but black people are more likely" (which is also statistically true). How do you like the laws your own logic leads to now? --JoSH] ------------------------------ [This is a silly comment. Age is quantifiable, blackness is not. (Unless you wish to get even sillier and measure the albedo of a person's skin).] [That wasn't me, that was the message. --JoSH] ------------------------------ Return-Path: <WILKINS@SRI-AI.ARPA> Date: Mon 1 Apr 85 09:33:14-PST From: Wilkins <WILKINS@SRI-AI.ARPA> Subject: speed limit In reply to Foy: Whether it's better to be dead than to spend your whole life driving is really a red herring. The point is, that very little is saved by the lower speed limit vs what is lost. In fact, extrapalation shows the lives are actually saved by safer cars and roads and seatbelts, not by lower speeds. And the majority of deaths involve drunk drivers, so work on that it you really want to save lives. If you really think that a few possibly saved lives is worth all of our extra time, then just lower the speed limit to 1 mph, no one will die, and who cares if it takes a year to drive across the country, at least we'll be having more fun than if we are dead!!!! So much fun I would hardly be able to stand it. P.S. You seem to imply that driving at 55 while talking on the telephone (or even more usefully, typing into your terminal thru its modem) is preferable to driving at 70 while concentrating on your driving. I find that hard to believe. I also don't intned to waste my time driving slower than I want to (whenever I can get away with it). David ------------------------------ From: ihnp4!utzoo!henry@Berkeley Date: 1 Apr 85 16:45:34 CST (Mon) Subject: biases and leadership > ... I attended a town > hall meeting of my Congressman a few nights ago and I am forced to admit if > I am honest that he was probably the least biased person in the whole meeting, > including me. Of course he was; he's had practice. Congressmen are not supposed to have biases, or opinions, or ideas, or thoughts -- their job clearly is to lean whichever way the wind blows, not to do something silly like standing up for their principles (or their constituents' rights, or the Constitution, or anything else that might displease some voter somewhere). I once heard that the single thing that pleased Americans most about the Grenada invasion was that Reagan had ordered it without taking a poll to find out what his opinion should be. He was criticized for that, too. Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ End of POLI-SCI Digest - 30 - -------