[plug] What do you school-age members think of SlashDot'sHellMouth articles?

[Leon Brooks]

Mike Holland wrote:
> Like the car of a drunk driver is not to blame, but banning cars would
> save many lives. We react with horror at that thought -its not worth it.

Evolution (AKA un-natural selection) in action: one small African
country changed their road rules. Drink driving, first offense: warning
and sent home by other means. Drink driving, second offense, bullet in
brain behind police station. They shot about 20 people and cut their
road toll by several hundred in the first year. Bargain, especially
since most of the saved lives were essentially innocent. But unlikely to
work in Oz. Perhaps: no licence for life on second offense, huge fine
and ten years' mandatory first-aid service for DWOL after that?

> I suggest we start by banning large 4WDs, unless the owners can prove
> they are required for regular use off-road or on bad gravel roads.

Yah, like the fleet in Dalkeith, each one of which is absolutely
necessary in case the pavement opens up and swallows the Mercedes on the
way to St Hilda's. (-:

-- 
A lot of academics are academics because we were the kind of poor
souls who actually liked going to school; we liked it so much that we
never left. So we're often socially maladjusted creatures. Do not feed
the professor; it may bite.	    -- Tim Burke, Swarthmore professor