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Good news from Germany


Dan the Man

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16 hours ago, Mono said:
 
says the US American? 
 
Traffic related death rates (source: Wikipedia):
 
       #/inh  #/veh   #/km
Germany 4.3    6.8    4.2
USA    10.9   12.9    7.3
 
inh = per 100,000 inhabitants per year
veh = per 100,000 vehicles per year
km = per 1 billion km driven
 
Germans produce roughly 60% of the traffic deaths compared to US Americans. To me the danger sensor of Germans doesn't look that badly adjusted after all when considering the outcome of their behavior and policy.
 
Just in case you were wondering: the homicide rate is 1.18 vs 5.35, (!) so something must go very right in the danger sensor system of Germans, at least in comparison.

That's because we are a nation of gun-loving immigrants!

Speaking of guns, check out this beauty for $150-$200. No glove compartment is complete without one of these babies in it. 

 

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What do you guys think of this video [to get drivers to behave]?

--Must stop in both directions for the school bus.

--5 errant drivers every 20 minutes.

--$700 ticket for not doing so, plus possible towing and impound costs ($1000?).

Edited by LanghamP
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48 minutes ago, LanghamP said:

That's because we are a nation of gun-loving immigrants!

You said it! IMMIGRANTS! Don't you reckon the natives might have perceived European refugees as a threat? It's not like crime rates were going up, but more like widespread genocide was going through the roof. If Native Americans had applied  the same criteria you expect Germany to apply, the U.S. as we know it, wouldn't exist....(just food for thought...)

38 minutes ago, LanghamP said:

What do you guys think of this video [to get drivers to behave]?

The U.S. is WAAAAAY ahead of Spain. Buses (school or not) are treated like any other vehicle. And city planning is atrocious: Take a look at this: bike lane (video footage from a ride yesterday) placed directly next to where people (disabled, in this case) get off the bus. Not even a "yield" sign. Nothing....(and no laws whatsoever about passing school buses) [Sigh...]

 

But your video still comes to prove that legislation isn't enough. Public awareness and education (and respect towards others) is the key element at play. What's the point of legislation if no one respects it...? [Sigh....]

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19 minutes ago, cloudust said:

fixing the max speed to 20km/h is the easy part, the EMC has to pass ECE R10. I believe none of the PLEVs in the market meet this requirement.

And even if theoretically they do, who is going to pay for the certification process?

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1 minute ago, travsformation said:

You said it! IMMIGRANTS! Don't you reckon the natives might have perceived European refugees as a threat? It's not like crime rates were going up, but more like widespread genocide was going through the roof. If Native Americans had applied  the same criteria you expect Germany to apply, the U.S. as we know it, wouldn't exist....(just food for thought...)

Following that same analogy you clearly expect Germany to become a non-western country in 50 years?

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19 hours ago, ir_fuel said:

Following that same analogy you clearly expect Germany to become a non-western country in 50 years?

Germany was 1/2 Western, 1/2 Eastern until not that long ago 😛

So where exactly do we draw the line between East and West?  😛

And what's the issue with East and West anyway? Isn't the USA a "beacon of democracy for the world"? That outcome was (supposing it were true), in the best case scenario, a funny twist of fate... (and I don't think history has portrayed a very accurate picture of what happened...) 

Personally, I don't feel any sense of belonging to any one nationality,so I?m not pro/anti American or any other nationality...

I'm part American (Scots and Germans who emigrated to America) and part Alpine Gaul / Jewish Lebanese.. So... I don't expect anything and don't have any expectations on what the world will become (it's not like my opinion is going to affect anything anyway, so....). I don't have any judgement either about what will become... I'm not so arrogant as to think I can predict the outcome of history. Some things are just beyond our speculative capacity...

All I meant by my comment was that confrontation and judgement don't tend to paint a pretty picture in the long-term canvas of history...

Or in other words, empathy and compassion are a much better strategy than rejection and alienation (even if history can yield unpredictable and bizarrely positive or negative results, regardless of the situation...) 

My point being, how can we hold such inflexible (and ultimately, self-serving) views on EUC rights ("first world problems", as I call them) while so easily dismissing historical genocides or war refugees' basic human rights? Because if it's geopolitics we're concerned about....What about China? I have a feeling we're all too happy with our wheels to blacklist China for gradually overthrowing the US/West as the dominant global superpower...

Self-serving? Yupp.. It's just human nature... Or are any of us refraining from buying wheels from "communist" China while we wait for the West to market an alternative? 😉

But back to my point... Let's just let people mingle, forget about politics and enjoy ourselves. It doesn't matter what nationality someone is, when you see them face-plant, your mirror neurons fire all the same, and the same thing when you see them pull off something amazing... 

I promise not to delve any more into politics, and make you all suffer my tedious rants, if others (I'm not referring to you) can refrain from making racially charged comments that are honestly quite worthy (IMHO) of being vetted based on racial/religious discrimination criteria... 

But... What were we talking about? German EUC regulations, right.  :efee612b4b:

Hmmm.... "If the police mess with you, run for it" is all I can say. :efee612b4b:

Edited by travsformation
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19 hours ago, ir_fuel said:

And even if theoretically they do, who is going to pay for the certification process?

THEORETICALLY, that's the manufacturers' responsibility. Just like when VW/Ford/Toyota introduce a new car into the market: buyers don't have to do anything, approval has been taken care of before they bought the vehicle. But if the certification laws come into play AFTER the vehicles have been sold...will the manufacturer be fair and spend the money on getting approval for EUCs that have already been sold, or will they ignore us (because they've already pocketed the cash) and focus on certification of new models only? It's anyone's guess...

Edited by travsformation
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4 hours ago, travsformation said:

Take a look at this: bike lane (video footage from a ride yesterday) placed directly next to where people (disabled, in this case) get off the bus. Not even a "yield" sign. Nothing....(and no laws whatsoever about passing school buses)

Hard to believe that those laws don't exist in Spain. Maybe triple check twice. In the vid, you would be clearly in violation of the law as I would know it. You have to stop if people get out of a bus (for sure if it is a public transportation bus at a bus stop). There is nothing wrong with the bike lane going straight, you just have to accept that your traffic light is red and you are not allowed to pass under any circumstance when a bus stops at a bus stop, period. It would not change if the lane were making a loop, as people want to get to the other side of the lane and they have right of way as long as the bus is at the stop.

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@travsformation , I do not like to mingle with people that I cannot make a fiscal and social contract with. And I'd prefer to stay around people with whom I can make a fiscal and social contract with.

Fiscal = do I trust this person enough that if I give them money then they will give me goods or services, and vice versa?

Social = do we have enough common ground that we can understand each other when we speak to each other? Do I trust this person enough that they won't kill nor injure me?

Anyone who falls outside this I classify as uncivilized savages, because neither trust nor common expectations is forthcoming. If I feel I have to have one hand on my wallet while some savage distracts me in some incomprehensible language while his buddy blindsides me, then that's a good indication of me being neither empathic nor compassionate towards that person.

I could almost say I'm extremely patriotic because I'm wildly hostile towards people who don't share my confidence in making social and fiscal contracts. However, like you, I'm not inclined to include the US as a whole as a beacon of democracy, simply because the US is a highly destructive automobile culture. Everything else I can take it or leave it, but regardless of your political affiliation, if you're a US citizen then you're part of the problem! Like immigrants as a Democrat? You're asking to raise people's living standard in a limited-capacity lifeboat. Climate-denier Republican? You hate electrics. There's no winning on this one.

There's way too many people on this Earth, and now we are seeing the effects of pollution as we raise living standards for too many people.

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31 minutes ago, LanghamP said:

There's way too many people on this Earth, and now we are seeing the effects of pollution as we raise living standards for too many people.

I always find it extremely hard to understand why we haven't imposed limits on how many children we can have ... like China did years ago. Politicians seem afraid to even suggest this as a solution to many of the planet's problems. Instead they look for ways to accommodate an expanding population so we can all live in crowded misery together instead of working towards a sustainable and well maintained planet. Its just like the problem of religion ... no one wants to tackle it or even mention it. :o Now back to the main topic ... EUCs.:rolleyes:

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Back to the topic: I drive almost everyday my EUC in germany and at least every secound time I meet the police. They always seem to be very interested and look after me but only one time they tried to cut my way. Fortuitously I drove another way so I don't know what they wanted to do but they didn't seem to be in a rush to catch me. I know some day it will go awry but catching unicyclist don't seem to be first priority. 

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2 hours ago, LanghamP said:

@travsformation , I do not like to mingle with people that I cannot make a fiscal and social contract with. And I'd prefer to stay around people with whom I can make a fiscal and social contract with.

Fiscal = do I trust this person enough that if I give them money then they will give me goods or services, and vice versa?

Social = do we have enough common ground that we can understand each other when we speak to each other? Do I trust this person enough that they won't kill nor injure me?

Anyone who falls outside this I classify as uncivilized savages, because neither trust nor common expectations is forthcoming. If I feel I have to have one hand on my wallet while some savage distracts me in some incomprehensible language while his buddy blindsides me, then that's a good indication of me being neither empathic nor compassionate towards that person.

To prevent any further thread-derailing (at least, on this particular off-topic subject), I've replied to your comment here:
 

 

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4 hours ago, Nic said:

I always find it extremely hard to understand why we haven't imposed limits on how many children we can have ... like China did years ago.

I find that simple to understand: most of us don't believe in authoritarianism. Apart from that: in developed and highly educated countries the tide has turned and we even consider to incentivise people into getting more children to fight the age pyramid.^1 It turned out, the easiest way to reduce the number of children in the next generation is to send the children of this generation to school and university.

^1 In Japan, number of children of age between 0 and 14 has been 110M in 1990 and is expected to drop below 60M in 2050.

Edited by Mono
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10 minutes ago, Mono said:

I find that simple to understand: most of us don't believe in authoritarianism. Apart from that: in developed and highly educated countries the tide has turned and we even consider to incentivise people into getting more children to fight the age pyramid. It turned out, the easiest way to reduce the number of children in the next generation is to send the children of this generation to school and university.

Looks like @travsformation will need to plant another green thread.

That might be the defining difference between 1st and 3rd world countries; the number of young people. In the 3rd world it's just a sea of young people everywhere you go, but in the 1st world most people are older than 30.

If anyone remembers growing up in the 1970's like me, it's how many kids there were. Just a wall of kids around you, but that all went away by the 1990's. The suburbs had at least two kids per neighbor roaming around like wolf packs. You don't see that now.

I read somewhere that half the us pop in 1970's was under the age of 25. Now we just see older people. And fat people. Lots of those. Old and fat. 

Old, fat, on birth control, and hair-triggers on divorce proceedings means a low birth rate.

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32 minutes ago, Mono said:

I find that simple to understand: most of us don't believe in authoritarianism. Apart from that: in developed and highly educated countries the tide has turned and we even consider to incentivise people into getting more children to fight the age pyramid.^1 It turned out, the easiest way to reduce the number of children in the next generation is to send the children of this generation to school and university.

^1 In Japan, number of children of age between 0 and 14 has been 110M in 1990 and is expected to drop below 60M in 2050.

World population is still going up...

updated-World-Population-Growth-1750-2100.png

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1 hour ago, Nic said:

World population is still going up...

Well, fewer and fewer people live in extreme poverty every day despite the population still growing (growing also because people live longer). And the earth can actually feed 11 billion people. So, I guess, we can safely conclude that the Club of Rome was wrong.

Edited by Mono
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20 minutes ago, Mono said:

Well, fewer and fewer people live in extreme poverty every day despite the population still growing (growing also because people live longer). And the earth can actually feed 11 billion people. So, I guess, we can safely conclude that the Club of Rome was wrong.

But not 12-billion :confused1:

I think we'll be able to feed whatever the population is.

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1 minute ago, Marty Backe said:

But not 12-billion :confused1:

I think we'll be able to feed whatever the population is.

I didn't mean to imply that the limit is at 11 billion. There are certainly limits, but I think we have a pretty good idea by now that it will not be starvation which will put the population growth to an end.

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10 hours ago, Mono said:

I didn't mean to imply that the limit is at 11 billion. There are certainly limits, but I think we have a pretty good idea by now that it will not be starvation which will put the population growth to an end.

How many chickens can you squeeze into a barn? What about quality of life, use of resources, and effect on environment ... all are negatively impacted when population is too high. Better to be a free range chicken than a caged hen. We share this planet with other creatures that we squeeze out of existence. Even the oceans are polluted. There are too many of us, and without wars there is nothing to control the population. I don't think living in a place that is supporting its maximum limit of population is going to be a pleasant place to live.

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