Highly emotive piece needed a tranquilliser
Your highly emotive editorial (ODT 18.9.24) is in need of a tranquilliser (at least).
You might well have had claim to the moral high ground if you had editorialised in the recent past to implore the government of the day to instigate draconian speed limit reductions, but you didn’t. In the main, all that Transport Minister Simeon Brown is enacting is a return to the status quo of two years ago.
Your editorial stance is at variance to the views of your own columnist Civis (ODT 14.8.24).
Speed limits always will be a compromise between timely and efficient transport, and safety.
If the speed limit was to be, say, 10kmh, surely road deaths would plummet (but never to zero), but equally surely, the economy would collapse. Common sense should prevail.
The various road safety "experts" mentioned in your editorial naturally advocate lower speed limits as a panacea for New Zealand’s unacceptable road toll.
In doing so, they conveniently abrogate their responsibilities in what should be a highly nuanced discussion.
Crashes are surely exacerbated by speed, but equally so by the huge disparity of mass existing within the vehicle fleet .
If those same experts were to equally clamour for huge fines for cellphone use whilst driving and for driver skills education programmes, then their strident views might accrue a degree of credibility.
Ridiculous and counterintuitive blanket speed limit changes (such as the poorly complied with 40kmh limit from Glenfalloch to beyond Company Bay) have no doubt influenced Minister Brown’s initiatives.
Fatal and injury crashes are unacceptable but rarely do the public get to learn what actually caused a given crash.
In this environment of all-pervading ignorance, it is so very easy to play the "speed demon" card.
Understanding vital
I would like to acknowledge and thank Mary Williams for her article "Keeper of the keys’' (ODT 14.9.24) in relation to Presbyterian Support failures. After 30 years of working with and supporting victim/survivors of state and faith-based abuse it is important the general public get to understand what happened and the damage done to vulnerable innocent children.
A meek bleat
When Ngāi Tahu are paid a huge settlement to clear the way for Meridian Energy to renew generating rights on the Waitaki River — a cost that will ultimately be borne by consumers — when applicants for resource consents now regularly need to pay iwi cultural assessment fees as part of the process and when the last government, via its Three Waters reform, planned to hand effective control of the nation's freshwater to iwi, 400 leading clergy, the mainstream media and Justice Department officials raised not so much as a meek bleat about social divisiveness.
Yet, when it is proposed that we engage in a long-overdue discussion about our rights and entitlements as citizens of this country that, according to self-styled expert commentators, risks causing serious social division and harm. Really?
As you chew on life’s gristle, don’t grumble
Your recent correspondent M. Hollis of Mosgiel (13.9.24) should take heart from the recent $2-a-week windfall, take a leaf from one of my favourite films and "always look on the bright side of life".
It delivers a rare opportunity to be able, after setting the increase aside for six weeks or so, to have accumulated enough to enjoy a cup of barista coffee, which will stimulate local business no end; which otherwise, you would not have been be able to afford; or perhaps, (dare I dream), even an ice-cream. A one-third deposit and two weekly installments of the same amount, would achieve the same objective, although "buy now, with no further installments until 2027" might present problems, as would, likely, "rent-to-own". Lying on the desk-top beside me as I type this, is last month's $502 power account, and hot on its heels had come a $900+ rates demand. Truly, in the immortal words of John Clarke's Fred Dagg, "We just don't know how lucky we are."
Name that man
The 1964 photo in Jim Sullivan’s last column (17.9.24) includes well-known media identities other than John Cleese and Peter Downes. At back with pipe is Graham Chapman who went on to found Monty Python’s Flying Circus with Cleese. The man with his hand on Jo Kendall's shoulder is Tim Brooke-Taylor who, with Bill Oddie, next to him, created The Goodies. Others in the photo are David Hatch, next to Kendall with spectacles, and Tony Buffery holding the file. Who is the figure at left, between him and Cleese?
Coverage of all sporting codes wanted
An interesting letter from Don Millar about league (2.9.24). In my original letter I asked for a balance. Unfortunately Don did not provide any balance in his letter.
The letter was not "league bashing" but merely asking for all sports to get a fair time on the news, and perhaps depending on their results they could get more time. Good on league if they can do well and get support.
My questions were why does one team get more news time than any other team in any other sport? I would like balance across all sports. Why does one coach get more time on the news that the sum total of all other netball, basketball, soccer, hockey and rugby teams added together?
New Zealand qualified for the world basketball championships (the second-biggest sport in the world) but we saw almost nothing of that. The Breakers won the league several times but we saw little of that.
I said that the Warriors got fourth last year and we saw that every night for ages. The Breakers won their competition. The Blues won their competition. They got very poor coverage in comparison.
Don said there was only one professional league team. True. There are, however, five professional rugby teams, one professional basketball team, two professional soccer teams and several netball teams. They deserve coverage, especially if they do well.
I am sure any of them would be ecstatic if they got a quarter of the coverage.
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