"Simon Brooke" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:in message <[email hidden]>, Just zis Guy,
you know? (') said:It's official: any of us who are against compulsion are irrational,
obsessive and offensive, and rely on soundbytes taken out of context.
Whereas BeHIT, presumably, are a model of decorum, and the claim of
28,000 serious injuries which later turned out to be under 500 was
just a slip. Like the doubling of the fatality figures. And so on.
<url:http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk/web/public.nsf/Documents/Evening_Post>
Quoted message said:
Guy, if you have not already sent your draft reply, do not send it.
Wait, cool down, and try again. Using sarcasm is not going to work to
your benefit - the passage about the cyclesense website will only
antagonise most readers. Also, if James Annan's analysis of the Sheikh
and Beihk paper's statistical howler is online anywhere, it would be
good to refer to it (isn't it on the 'letters page' of the same site
the paper is on?). That makes you less like a lone monomaniac.
Also, you should redraft your last sentence. For readers who believe (as
I suspect most uninformed people do) that a bicycle helmet does offer
protection in collision with a car, the point which you need to get
across there (and which you fail even to allude to) is that a helmet
would have made no difference at all.
Finally, is there anyone else here from the Reading area who could
supplement Guy's reply with a cool but well informed response? It would
help enormously if there were two replies, again making Guy look less
like a single-issue nutter. I'd write myself, but I don't think a
letter from an address in Scotland would really help the case.
--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
The Conservative Party now has the support of a smaller proportion of
the electorate in Scotland than Sinn Fein have in Northern Ireland.
The trick with all letters to newspapers is to keep them short.
Keep them simple. And keep them snappy. Period. Ideally much shorter
than the letter you're replying to. The original is fairly long and
yet it seems to have benefitted from careful editing. Basically its
telling a massage the readers want to hear, and which reinforces their
unthinking prejudices and assumptions. So you've got your work cut
out before you even begin.
Finally your claim "What killed Troy Parker was not failure to wear a
helmet, but riding a bicycle with broken brakes off the pavement into
the path of a car. As a parent I know what lessons I draw from this
incident."
Has as much chance of getting printed, as do claims that Tony Blair
is a transvstite. And luckily for you!
"Grieving parents continue their month long vigil outside house of
Looney Cycling Campaigner"
"He accused of us killing our own son, says grieving Mum of Three...."
Police were again called to clear crowds from around the house of....
Curious
...
Quoted message said:
