Jun 02
The tobacco industry and me This posting has been paid for by the tobacco industry. It is an article commissioned by Risk of Freedom Briefing, a publication edited by the philosopher Roger Scruton and sponsored by JT International (Japan Tobacco). Sadly, before it could be published, JT International withdrew their sponsorship and the publication ceased …
May 09
Martin Parkinson raises an interesting question (comment on previous post): what should be the reaction to an accident that, a priori, was an extremely low probability event? He suggests that any attempt to reverse the counterproductive aspects of ˜health and safety culture is doomed to failure. After an accident he argues that most people will …
May 04
Presentation for PRIAN Public Realm Course, Bedford, 28 April 2008. Traditional highway engineering assumes that safety requires the spatial segregation of pedestrians, cyclists and motorized vehicles or, where this is not possible, rigorously enforced rules, signs and signals dictating temporal segregation. Road users, according to the established paradigm, are irresponsible, stupid, selfish automatons whose safety …
Apr 25
Moral hazard is a term used in the insurance industry to refer to the way in which behaviour alters when people acquire insurance. People with house contents insurance are less careful about locking up. Such behaviour in the eyes of insurers is immoral. The term stigmatizes human nature. We all adjust our behaviour in response …
Apr 16
Dear Sir Simon Jenkins (4 April 2008) exposes the Achilles heel of all the proposed eco-towns: transport. But he is a trifle hard on the motives of the original proponents of the garden cities and new towns. Relieving the squalid, densely packed, inner city slums by providing houses in new settlements, with gardens, in which …
Apr 08
God, I suspect, finds Photoshoppers especially amusing. Grudging thanks to Peter Holtham for spoiling my tutorial. See http://www.cargolaw.com/2005nightmare_catch-day.html for the answers to the questions posed at the end of my last post.
Apr 06
The words risk and management sit uncomfortably alongside each other. Many people believe that it is possible to distinguish real, actual or objective risk from perceived risk. But all risk is perceived. It is a word that refers to the future, a future that exists only in our imaginations. Those who call themselves risk managers …
Mar 05
I have just found an anonymous, one sentence comment on my blog. It reads: Your campaign against seat belt wearing has already borne fruit: http://www.stuff.co.nz/4411639a6479.html . The link takes you to an interesting story from New Zealand with the headline Seatbelt subterfuge kills driver. The driver who was killed, according to the story, was opposed …
Feb 20
This question is posed by Philip Stott in two recent postings on his blog entitled “Pascal’s Wager And ˜Global Warming’” and “An Obstinate Rationality“ .Stott’s blog is worth adding to your “favourites” and visiting frequently. He used to give an annual lecture to my students and invariably was awarded top marks in the student assessments …
Feb 12
On the first of February 2008 I sent an email to the Department of Transport at – road.safety@dft.gsi.gov.uk. It said: In your press release of 31 January you state: “Seatbelts have prevented an estimated 60,000 deaths and 670,000 serious injuries since 31 January 1983 when seatbelts were made mandatory for drivers and front seat passengers.” …