Letters to the Editor: Eyes on the road and hands on the wheel

This statement might say more about Mr Boyd's style of driving than about the dynamics of vehicle braking.

On a multi-lane freeway there are long sight lines. In my experience (which includes driving both police and ambulance vehicles) the flashing red and blue lights are easily visible from a distance of 500 metres.

To slow down from 110km/h to 40km/h in this distance requires a deceleration rate of just 0.81m/s2, which would be achieved in most vehicles simply by lifting off on the throttle with no actual braking required.

This would be done effortlessly and intuitively by a skilled driver driving defensively. If Mr Boyd finds it necessary to slam on the brakes it suggests that his situation awareness leaves something to be desired, and he is certainly not looking as far ahead as he should.

Roger Quarterman, Campbell

Congratulations to all the athletes, coaches, officials, organisers, media personnel, emergency service workers and especially the plethora of volunteers, for making the XXI Commonwealth Games such a successful competition and watchable sporting event.

Aside from a distinctly underwhelming closing ceremony, overall the Gold Coast experience was testimony to the enduring relevance of the Friendly Games, the power of sport to unite and the socially stabilising influence of those nations associated with the British monarchy. Such social harmony and human creativity is inconceivable within other civil value systems around the world.

One of the most delightful and perhaps underrated aspects was seeing participation in the flagship and specialty events by members of nations who normally would not expect to qualify for an Olympic Games. A Namibian marathon runner, an Indian table tennis player, a Pakistani wrestler, a Guyanan triple jumper and a shooter from the Isle of Man, are all expressions of the unique bonds and competitive opportunities that exist amongst the family of countries within the Commonwealth.

Far from now being an irrelevance or an empirical hangover, these games give us, albeit briefly, a much-needed sensory taste of sportsmanship and solidarity amongst humanity.

Peter Waterhouse, Craigieburn, Vic

The interpretation of the Whitlam dismissal by Michael Lane (Letters, April 17) omits several key facts.

Kerr had discussed the dismissal with Prince Charles at the Independence Day celebrations for Papua New Guinea in September 1975.

The opposition was deliberately not voting on Supply in the Senate, where it had the majority numbers after two premiers had manipulated the replacement numbers.

Kerr was advised by a former Liberal minister, [Garfield] Barwick, who happened to be the Chief Justice.

Kerr's dismissal letter was drafted by the High Court's [Anthony] Mason, who refuses to comment.

Fraser was hiding in a back room at Yarralumla, waiting for Kerr to carry out the dismissal and ignore Whitlam's intention to call a half-Senate election.

There was no "implicit refusal" to call an election.

Subsequently Kerr refused to accept the motion of no confidence in Fraser, carried by the House where Whitlam still had a majority.

Not a sign of accepting a long-standing convention of Parliament and forming government. The latest refusal to remove the "personal" label from Kerr's Australian documents because of British royal practice seems strange.

Those are the facts.

Peter Graves, Curtin

Michael Lane (Letters, April 17) misses the main point of my letter, which was that on any reading the presence of the monarchy in our system of government in 1975 added nothing to stability but arguably contributed to instability.

This is based not on recollections of the time but on recent research and analysis by Professor Jenny Hocking and published in her 2017 book The Dismissal Dossier.

Until I read her book I was not aware that the Queen and the British government had "skin in the game" in the form of concerns about certain royal prerogatives in relation to the Australian states, which Whitlam wanted to have abolished, and which were abolished in 1986.

Peter Dawson, Hughes

The attempt by the owners of the Gold Creek Golf Club to violate the spirit of their lease is yet another example in a long history in Canberra of the use of public assets for private gain. It has been done by churches, sporting clubs, social clubs, unions and others.

It is an utter abuse of public trust.

You can be quite sure that Andrew Barr and his government will do little or anything to prevent it continuing.

Chris Swinbank, Kingston

Rather than compare the ratings of ABC Canberra to Mix 106.3 and Hit 104.7 ("ABC Radio Canberra suffers dramatic drop in ratings across all times", canberratimes.com.au, April 11), shouldn't we compare their rating with the other talk-based station, 2CC?

In the morning timeslot 2CC now easily beats ABC Canberra, so maybe the ABC should look to steal 2CC's presenters from 9am to midday.

Do you think Ray Hadley and Alan Jones would be interested in working for the ABC in Canberra to improve ABC Canberra's ratings?

Ken Mansell, Canberra

So "Half of Canberrans back light rail: poll" (April 10, p6) according to UnionsACT.

Hardly an overwhelming endorsement given the survey was conducted by the most vested interest in light rail. UnionsACT, through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Barr government, has an effective veto over all contracts let by the ACT government.

Light rail is a major gravy train for UnionsACT and its affiliated unions.

Surveys of this type are worthless if full details of questions posed and sampling methodology are kept from the public.

In effect, we have only the word of the secretary of UnionsACT that a whopping "51.5 per cent supported the second stage of light rail".

Can readers really believe such blarney from the principal beneficiary of light rail?

M. Flint, Smart Canberra Transport, Erindale

It would appear that the Regulatory Services Minister, Gordon Ramsay, is being blindsided by our Chief Minister Andrew Barr ("Test aims to improve work quality", April16, p3).

Barr knows very well that the problem of building defects in the ACT is due to faulty building practices being deliberately overlooked or even condoned by the builders or developers and eventually overlooked by the builder's certifiers.

Whether the builder has passed a test or not will do little if anything to prevent shoddy building practices.

Regular professional inspections during construction and final certification by government-employed certifiers would prevent 95per cent of the problems due to defects. Testing a builder would not.

Murray Upton, Belconnen

For me, Belconnen is one of the most unattractive developments in Canberra, if not Australia. More is to come. Geocon and Zapari have approval to build two towers – one I think dominantly on the outside of glass – 18 storeys and 26 storeys high.

I hope very much no child has to suffer living in these unnatural and confined spaces and grow up in such artificial environments devoid of any interaction with nature.

Kids need a backyard where they can run free, invite friends over to play, help plant flower and veggie gardens and enjoy harvesting them.

Kids love to climb trees, build treehouses, watch and listen to the birds come and go in their garden.

Kids need to be able to open their back door at night and look up at the stars and moon.

I would really like to see an aerial photograph of these developed city spaces and how much space has been given to multi-storey buildings and how much green space has been taken away.

If we had decent planners there would be far more green spaces in the ACT.

Penelope Upward, O'Connor

Transit lanes and light rail encourage car drivers to switch to public transport, and thus to reduce traffic congestion, air pollution and greenhouse emissions.

Transit lanes also encourage drivers to become car passengers, with similar benefits.

One study found that a transit lane increased the number of car poolers by almost a quarter.

The government did not evaluate transit lanes as an alternative to light rail. It mistakenly believed that "there is no clear Australian data on the impact transit lanes have on people's travel behaviour".

In 2016, in the absence of new transit lanes, the proportion of commuters who travelled as car passengers fell to its lowest level in 40 years. This fall exceeded the combined gains in walking, cycling and public transport.

For the cost of changing a few road signs, the Flemington Road bus lane could become an effective transit lane.

Instead, it will be removed when light rail replaces buses along the route.

The bus lanes and transit lanes between Civic and Woden are set to suffer a similar fate.

Now, the government has announced that it will allow hybrid and electric cars to drive in transit lanes until 2023.

By 2023 there will be hardly any transit lanes left for them to drive in.

Leon Arundell, Downer

We have received an email from NBN advising that it will be coming to our area (Curtin)some time between April and June this year. Unfortunately, NBN is going to install what many now regard as the third-rate connection technology of fibre to the node (FTTN).

To be honest, we are not looking forward to having our internet service switched to this technology, which has many documented faults and a long history of poor service. This copper wire hybrid technology is a poor relation to the original fibre to the home (FTTH) strategy.

We heard on the media recently that NBN is now offering fibre to the kerb (FTTK) for new NBN connections. Apparently, this service is significantly better than FTTN. Iguess this is a second-best service compared with FTTH, but it is reported to be better than the much-maligned FTTN. It doesn't seem to make any sense (technically or politically) for the government and hence NBN to continue with the inferior FTTN connection program rather than installing fibre to the kerb in Curtin and other parts of Canberra.

Mr Turnbull, please stop the FTTN rollout now and do the job properly.

Barry Harris, Curtin

Recent claims by Mr Barr that rate rises will pay for services once there is no more land to sell are misleading as land supply is not running out any time soon.

His office indicates the supply will last to around 2080.

Land revenues are an important but modest contribution to total ACT revenue. Dividends from the Land Development Agency in 2016-2017 were $191million or about 3.7per cent of the government's total revenue of $5.2billion.

It is in the ACT's financial interest to ensure as much development as possible occurs within its borders as grants from the Commonwealth, which represented 41per cent of ACT revenue in 2016-17, are often population based.

Furthermore, such development results in conveyancing and ongoing rates revenue to the territory.

Development occurring in NSW also imposes additional infrastructure costs to the ACT in servicing the NSW populations.

Future budgetary pressures can also be addressed by reviewing government expenditure rather than increasing rates.

The extension of light rail to Woden and beyond, at a cost in the billions of dollars, is an obvious project to review. How does it stack up against alternatives such as a busway or increasing expenditure on health, education and housing services?

Mike Quirk, Garran

Ric Hingee (Letters, April17) perpetuates the falsehood there was a Canberra vote for light rail. All we voted for was for a least-worse choice in an unimpressive field to form government. There was no plebiscite.

Mike Hutchinson, Reid

BIGGER THAN SYRIA

Shane McCartin (Letters, April 11) wonders why Assad should resort to chemical weapons when his enemies are on the ropes. It's the Middle East, not just Syria: Israel grinds down its conquered subjects; Saudi Arabia ruthlessly scourges the Yemenis and bankrolls terrorists – all only the more egregious stuff. Remember what Aesop's scorpion said to the trusting frog ferrying it across the river. "It's my nature".

Geoff McKergow, Forbes Creek, NSW

PRAISE FOR SHELTER

Congratulations to the ACT government for installing a classic Clem Cummings Canberra bus shelter at the revitalised Aranda shops.

Dan Barton, Cook

CHEMICAL REACTION

Former UK ambassador, Peter Ford, could be right in saying Jihadists in Syria rather than the Assad regime are responsible for any recent chemical attack. The US got it wrong on Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" and some say even intentionally. Do we want a repeat of that? No way.

Linda Vij, Mascot, NSW

GREENS MUST MAKE STAND

If the Greens want to win the redistributed seat of Canberra, they must immediately announce that they are opposed to the ACT government's plan to raise revenue by resuming 2.1 hectares of Lake Burley Griffin for the construction of luxury apartments and associated roadworks. The Kingston Foreshore provides a potent warning against any further vandalism of this national icon.

Chris Smith, Kingston

FOLLOWING TRUMP'S TRAIL

Is Donald Trump prepared to bring the world to the brink of a major war in order to cover up the chaotic situation in his own White House? If that is the case, it is sad to see our own leaders falling in line with the whimsical tantrums of a spoiled brat. God save us!

John Rodriguez, Florey

BUILDER TEST SUGGESTION

Good to see builders will soon be required to take examinations in order to be licensed. Another good thing to do would be an obligation to hold 10per cent of the purchase price of new dwellings in trust, so as to keep the builders fully engaged to rectify defects identified during the warranty period.

Neil Wilson, Turner

WHO CALLS TIME ON TAX?

The revelation by Ray Armstrong (Letters, April 15) of the extraordinary provision within the Taxation Act that the commissioner may "treat a particular event that actually happened as having happened at a time different from the time it actually happened", begs the obvious question – is the commissioner's office bigger on the inside than the outside?

G. Williams, Gowrie