With driving, the government accepts that speed is a personal moral decision and not just a scientific one….

Science shows that dropping the speed limit from 30MPH to 20MPH would reduce road traffic casualties by circa 40% across UK urban areas. It’s been proven by studies in London, Calderdale (West Yorkshire), Warrington and Portsmouth. That is just the studies in the last 20 years. A huge reduction in casualties and fatalities occurred in each study, averaging at 40%.

Well meaning scientists have done modelling, they’ve scaled up the UK figures to show the potential impact of a 20MPH limit nationally. There has been no doubt to all the different varieties of UK politicians over the last decades that thousands of needless casualties and deaths could have been avoided.

Why is it still 30 then? In the less fear ridden area of driving policy, the number of lives is still balanced with the loss of freedom. This may sound cold, but those who want a policy to to save every life would do well to remember that this line of thinking would result in a blanket 5MPH speed limit on our islands.

The science is similarly clear on the benefits of vaccination, it is clear people should get the receomended jabs. To penalize an individual though? To reduce their freedoms for choosing their own course of action even over the sanctity of their own body? In this age of group think, it’s getting harder to say this without being viewed as a zealot… but these are moral decisions not scientific. Science is hugely important, but it is not all that needs considering here.

Well meaning scientists can only offer scientific perspectives. Our leaders need to stop using “refer to the science” as a get out of jail card for collectivist social policies. We need some moral decisions and leadership to protect the country as a whole, but also the freedoms of each individual within it. What is the smallest minority on these islands that needs protection if it is not the individual citizen? What is the most irrefutable right we are born with if it is not the right to sanctity over our own body?

“Collectivism holds that the individual has no rights, that his life and work belong to the group and that the group may sacrifice him at their own whim to its own interests. The only way to implement a doctrine of that kind is by means of brute force”

Ayn Rand

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