The Price of Safety

Sir,

In the obviously indisputable knowledge that all happenings which would not occur in the absence of the human mind must be caused by the said mind, pray permit me to give vent through your delightful columns thus:

(1) Speed per se does not kill.

(2) Acceleration per se does not kill.

(3) All accidents are ultimately caused by the tiny mind taking its own way in ignorance with its consequent lack of responsibility.

(4) Controls atrophy responsibility by preventing learning and the gaining of experience, and by raising tension and the narrowing a the mind through frustration, which kills prognostication.

(5) As the owner of an experienced divergent mind which has learned to navigate eight litres of very valuable vintage Bentley responsibly and unscathed at a very good average speed (by any standards) despite the stupid antics of convergent-minded idiots, I find the meddling of the ignorami not only puerile but insulting: divergency alone allows prognostication and creativity.

(6) Speed and seat belts may act as some kind of temporary palliative to twistable statistics but have no way whatever of being the real answer to the problems which are caused by the typical arrogance of today’s infernal ignorance and the behaviour which results therefrom in all walks of life.

(7) The only answer is to breed understanding by disposing smartly of all forms of ideology, dogma, and similar narrow-minded specialistic tendencies by the widening of the mind.

I make this outburst in the full realisation that it is high time somebody said these things if manleind is not to regress even further towards the state of being merely a caged animal.

JAMES A. MacHARG Newcasrle-upon-Tyne