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  3. In 1966,They Refused to Sue? Not Now Whenever the phrase " compensation culture" is used, an active coalition of trade union

In 1966,They Refused to Sue? Not Now Whenever the phrase " compensation culture" is used, an active coalition of trade union

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问题                 In 1966,They Refused to Sue? Not Now
    Whenever the phrase " compensation culture" is used, an active coalition of trade unionists, Whitehall officials and Left-leaning publications leap into action to deny that such a thing exists in Britain. They point out that the number of claims has been falling for the past two or three years, that the average payout is low, that it isn’t easy to get compensation, and that the media blow up absurd cases that come to court but bury the fact that the case subsequently failed. All this may be true; yet it is equally undeniable in this weekend that marks the 40th anniversary of the Aberfan disaster, that a compensation culture exists today where it never did before.
    It’s hard to read about that day in Merthyr Tydfil without your feelings welling up. On the one hand, the example of the deputy headmaster found dead with five children in his arms, as if protecting them. On the other, the life-on-Mars behaviour of the Coal Board, which demanded ￡ 150,000 out of the ￡ 160, 000 relief fund in order to move the slag heaps. And yet the villagers refused to sue the board as that would be "to bow to vengeance".
    Then, a generation later in 1990, a young woman issued a writ suing the board for the psychological damage she suffered as a witness to the events. She received more than any of the more proximate victims. Whatever the rights and wrongs of her claim, it demonstrated a very significant social shift a compensation culture didn’t exist at the time of the disaster in 1966 but had clearly started to form 25 years later. And it evolved rapidly. Nine years after the Hillsborough disaster in 1989, a number of police officers who had attended the carnage at the football ground claimed substantial payments for post traumatic stress. A former sergeant got 2300, 000. Fourteen other officers accepted ￡1.2 million between them. Phil Hammond, who lost a 14-year-old son, received ￡3,500. He called the payments to the police (who belonged to an organisation that had caused the disaster to happen, as Lord Justice Taylor reported) "disgusting".
    The culture has now mutated and we hear daily reports of its manifestations. It is in this context that you can connect a wide range of different phenomena. The fact that cans of nuts present the warning "Contains nuts" is connected to the fact that teachers won’t put a piaster on your child’s knee without written consent, which is also connected to the fact that tens of thousands of gravestones all over the country are being laid flat. Why? Because people sue for compensation when things go wrong.
    The authorities say it’s to do with public safety; it isn’t true. A child was killed when a gravestone fell on him. But the councils reacted only when a ￡ 30, 000 award was made to the mother three years later. It is the cost to the public purse caused by compensation cases that produces this bizarre behaviour. It’s the threat of legal suit and large pay-outs that give bite to Health and Safety procedures.
What does the example of the Aberfan disaster illustrate?
选项 A、Disaster victims don’t tend to get proper compensation.
B、Compensation culture didn’t exist in Britain.
C、The authorities’ statements are far from truth.
D、The public was poorly educated concerning its legal rights.
答案B
解析 本题考查段落主旨题。第一段末句指出，现在英国出现了前所未有的赔偿文化。紧接着第二段举出了艾伯凡矿难的例子。第二段末句指出，受害居民没有起诉索赔，因为他们不想为了复仇而这样做，他们的观念是：起诉索赔反映了复仇心理。因此第二段与第一段末句的含义形成对比，第二段的例子是为了说明以前英国不存在赔偿文化，[B]正确。[A]是对现在情况的描述，与事实不符。[C]在第一段一开始有所涉及，但它不是第二段举例所要说明的问题，排除。[D]属于过度引申，文中作者没有进一步探究为什么不存在赔偿文化。
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