On Fri, 18 Jul 2003 23:35:08 +1000, "Myal"
wrote:


"Lennie the Lurker" wrote in message
. com...
"Mysterion" wrote in message
thlink.net...
Or is your head so far up your ass that you can't understand simple
logic?

It's obvious that there are a lot of people that gummer dragged in
from his wacky groups that don't think others deserve any
consideration and that maybe there might be something wrong with their
simple minded lack of consideration.

There isn't a goddam one of you that knows if the families of some of
the victims are reading the group, but it doesn't bother you to treat
it like a joke.

Gunner is the ****ing joke, a subhuman in every respect. Quit your
goddam crossposting from drivel and wacko groups. This is
rec.crafts.metalworking, not alt.sicko.

On the flipside,
This is a serious thing to consider.

Yep. Which is why civilized societies demand that drivers take an
annual driving test to prove competency after a certain age.

The old guy did damage in human terms similar to that done by a suicide
bomber , but used nothing like explosives or bullets , he used a car .

True, and he exceeded the damage achieved by many suicide bombers.

It could be something to watch out for , like people driving airplanes in to
big buildings .
Who suspected airplanes could be used to kill so many people ?

There are many issues involved here, but there are some major ones.
Firstly, when designing any structure or system there is almost always
a conflict between cost and safety, so what does an engineer, or a
company employing him, try to design for?

A simple example is storm water drains in a city. Sure, it may be
possible to provide enough drainage to allow for any conceivable
amount of rainfall at any time in the next century or so.

However, it won't be cheap to provide such a system, and the large
drainage pipes required may never be needed.

So there is going to be a "tradeoff" between a system that is cheap
and allows for periodic flooding when its capacity is exceeded or an
expensive system which will prevent flooding.

Safety doesn't "sell". If it did, everyone would have smoke alarms,
wear seat belts without the necessity for laws, and so on.

When city politicians are planning a storm water system, they try to
keep costs down to keep the taxpayers happy, whether doing it
themselves or asking for some company to bid on the project.

Suppose that, historically, such flooding rains happen 3 or 4 times a
century. Do most politicians care? ....And will a company bidding on
such a project win a bid if they come up with a good system rather
than a cheap system?

As I understand it, when the WTC was designed, it was designed for the
very unlikely event of an actual accident involving a passenger
airliner at the time, probably one lost in bad weather conditions,
with no air traffic control, at the end of a long flight with minimum
fuel load.

The WTC wasn't designed for much larger aircraft, with a large fuel
load, deliberately flown into the buildings. It probably isn't
possible to design such a structure for such an event, actually.

Certainly not economical to do so. Perhaps we should give up the idea
of skyscrapers and go back to pyramids? :-)

not one
bullet fired . It could be cars next .
Look out for martyrs behind the wheel when you down the street next time.

Good advice, and a sensible point. However, it doesn't take a lot of
imagination to envision much worse possibilities involving vehicles.

Which is why society needs more controls over who is behind the wheel.

In Australia, we have a graded series of licenses, starting with a
passenger car for private use, then a cab, then vehicles carrying more
passengers or having a higher gross weight, rigid trucks, articulated
trucks ["semis"] and, finally, "road trains".

I wonder if all states in the US have similar systems. Or can anyone
with an ordinary drivers license buy, rent, or drive anything of any
passenger capacity or weight?

Myal



"_Magna est veritas et praevalebit"_
(Truth is mighty and will prevail).

erniegalts
[Australia]
[misc.survivalism]