[Tim Deegan]

Originally Posted by Osem

What should we do about people who take the batteries out of their smoke alarms to stop them making a noise or those who refuse to war seatbelts? Have they been told to do it by some government spokesperson or are they just idiots oblivious to all the advice and warnings going on around them? Sorry, but there are some people you just can't educate and treating the rest of the population like idiots isn't going to change that.

And those are the people who need educating more than most. If all else fails we use scare tactics...they usually work.

---------- Post added at 22:58 ---------- Previous post was at 22:52 ----------

Originally Posted by Chris

No, the lady in York has proved that some people are idiots who cannot be saved from themselves. She has not made a convincing case for treating the rest of the adult population like brainless morons.

Unfortunately you can't give out two sets of advice (one for people who are thick, and one for people who are intelligent). In fact we would have to make that three sets of people, because of the people who are supposed to be intelligent, but think it will never happen to them (there are millions of these about).

Originally Posted by Chris

Our great grandparents would despair at the level of molly-coddling and hand-holding our society takes for granted.

Our grandparents may well despair. But then more people died in fires in their day. Although more firefighters are being killed on duty now than at any time since the second world war. And people storing petrol isn't going to help.

---------- Post added at 23:00 ---------- Previous post was at 22:58 ----------

Originally Posted by martyh

Of course you have to remember that we have a boat load of 'elf 'n safety PC bods trying their damndest to justify their jobs by posing as experts and only stating the obvious ,sitting in the wings of every news report that goes on telly

The obvious is that it is safer if you don't store petrol. Yet you seem to think you know better.