Dangerous Roads" 1064

Following up to Mark Foster

LOL A few other people don't know what inanimate means so that changes everything, does it? A fair number of people don't understand the difference between "lend" and "borrow", neither are grounds to distrust the dictionary. words do change over time, these ones have not. People are just confusing "inanimate" and thinking its the opposite of "animated" or something similar. A collection of US gun enthusiasts insist guns are tools rather than weapons and also insist guns are not dangerous, based on false logic that "danger" has to result in harm without outside intervention. They have been joined , it seems, by road safety enthusiasts, who, in their ardor for blame to be seen to be placed on drivers, want to rewrite the language, rather than just say "its your fault". In fact danger is the potential for harm, often found in objects like guns and knives. When humans fail to control these things properly, harm results.

To anybody thinking with an open mind it is obvious the danger is in the object not the human, because the level of danger varies with the object, not the human.

Some people here are incensed by these facts and after arguing for thousands of posts in the "NIP" thread are now falling back on the idea that the dictionary is false, which is laughable and has also made it very clear that the arguments they were previously putting forward were illogical. Its also interesting that many people, faced with the facts, blurt out "drivers are to blame for accidents, not roads" or similar. Which is odd, given that nobody has said other than nearly all accidents are the fault of drivers. It seems many people cannot distinguish between the elements of an accident. Primarily between "danger" and "cause". The level of danger is the measure of the consequences, therefore a road without crash barriers is more dangerous than one with, a petrol tanker more dangerous than a moped. If you don't accept that you are going to struggle making risk buttessments. The causes of accidents are usually the drivers making errors, failing to observe etc.

There are *dangers-hazards*, junctions, bends, cars and so one that if handled badly will result in accidents.

There is *error-careless driving*, drivers failing to take appropriate actions, be it anything from driving an unsafe car, inappropriate speed, lack of observation etc etc etc

Dangerous driving Another input into the situation is reckless driving, where rather than just make a mistake, the driver is "boy racing", "drunk" etc. Where carelessness merges into recklessness seems to be an area it is difficult to pinpoint exactly.

Put these things together and you may have an accident, which is an unforeseen and unintentional incident, nothing in the word accident implies drivers were not to blame. Nothing in the expression "dangerous road" implies drivers are not to blame for accidents.

I must say, 2000 posts ago I was much less clear on all this, so thanks everybody. -- Mike Reid