ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) (01/04/86)
Several people have responded to my earlier posting by noting that
statistics for FATALITIES are higher in Germany than here. There are
several things to consider. First, how many of these involved GERMANS?
I've always heard that Americans and other foreigners are involved in a
lot of the accidents which do occur in Germany, because they can't
really deal with the speeds and because, in many cases, they are driving
Detroit iron which is also a handicap. Further, most of the accidents
which do involve Germans also involve German fogs; Americans would die
like flies trying to drive in a german fog.
At any rate, accidents involving fatalities are a small proportion
of accidents. What I claim you DON'T see in Germany are all of the
STUPID accidents which happen for NO reason other than people not
knowing how to drive, and which I see at least two or three of EVERY DAY
driving around Washington D.C. It is interesting to me that this would
be so, given the lack of speed limits on autobahns and the higher speeds
at which Germans drive generally.
Another interesting contrast which seems to work the same way
involves what at least APPEARS to be the lack of any kind of control
over firearms in Germany. I mean, judging simply from what you see
while window-shopping in German Einkauf-Strassen, an American criminal
looking for tools and equipment for his trade would go just as bonkers
in a German sporting goods or hunting establishment as an American kid
would in a German toy store; just ALL KINDS of small, cheap, and
mechanically nifty and amazing implements of destruction. Yet, by our
standards, there is no crime in Germany. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?
It makes ME wonder about the people in America who think that the answer
to EVERY problem in life is some further reduction in FREEDOM and some
new way in which to treat American citizens like serfs and idiots, who
need protection from themselves.