Speed Kills ?

 General  No Responses »
Sep 212006
 

You often find those drivers who dislike speed limits claiming that it isn’t speed that kills, it is bad driving leading to accidents.

And they’re right … sort of 🙂

Driving at a high speed doesn’t kill anyone directly, but it does have a negative effect. Firstly driving at high speed increases the likelyhood of an accident because you have less time to react to dangers on the road … the faster you are travelling the quicker you will arrive at that car that has just drifted into your lane, and drive over that bicycle that has just fallen off the back of that car. Secondly if you do have an accident, the faster you are going, the more likely you are to wind up dead … the faster you are going, the harder you hit.

A variation on the second which is more important to me as someone who is most often a pedestrian, is that the faster you are going, the less likely a pedestrian you hit will survive.

Personally I would like to see speed limits reduced in built-up areas and on quiet country roads, but increased on major roads (motorways, dual-carriageways) and those limits enforced properly. Smaller roads have more dangers than larger roads, and the old upper speed limit of 70mph was worked out at a time when cars were far less safe than they are today.

Oh! One last word for those who keep whining about speed camera. Keep to the speed limit, and you won’t get caught. If you insist on breaking the law, don’t complain about the law being enforced.

A Modest Proposal for UK Churches

 Religion  No Responses »
Sep 122006
 

UK churches are interesting buildings. Some of of relatively little worth admittedly, but most are of genuine historical interest and add to the flavour of our country. Many if not most of the most interesting ones are ‘owned’ by the descendant of the official state religion … the church of England.

Now the CofE has a bit of a problem … it has to maintain all those historic churches with ever decreasing funds provided by their members. Sometimes these funds can be added to by grants by organisations whose purpose is to maintain historic buildings, but that leaves the problem of those churches that are not quite interesting enough to attract grants.

Of course it would be wrong for the government to help out the church as things stand … because the taxpayer would be subsidising a religion that they may not support to the exclusion of other religions. Plus to many people in our communities, CofE churches are mysterious buildings where strange (and to some ‘blasphemous’) rites are practised to the exclusion of those who don’t share the right religion. This is a very large change from the time when many of those churches were built when each church was the centre of the local community and was inclusive.

Originally the building of those churches was funded by the local community … either through compulsory tithes, or even directly where a group of local people would form a savings group to gather enough money for a church. It seems wrong to restrict the use of the local church to just those who worship a particular God.

So take the churches off the CofE and grant them to the local council with a covenant that requires them to be used for worship. They can then be shared amongst the local community … Christians get to use them on a Sunday, Jews on a Saturday, and Muslims on a Friday. Ideally they would be used by other religions as well, but the ‘big three’ conveniently choose different days to worship on.

After all the original intention was that the churches would be owned by the local community represented by the church, but things have changed and the church is no longer representative of the local community.

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