Canberra Times Letters to the Editor: Change of driver attitude not the only answer to road safety

Graham does acknowledge the benefits of safer roads and cars, but the reality is that as well as those who drive drunk, fatigued, emotionally upset or deliberately foolishly, ordinary people make ordinary mistakes and are injured or die on our roads as a result.

Concentrating on one factor alone, at the expense of another has been our downfall, as the recently removed federal minister, Darren Chester, has said.

While there is no doubt changing driver attitudes is important, we cannot hide behind blaming all drivers for an inadequate, unsafe, under-resourced national system that results in well over 1100 deaths and at least 30,000 serious injuries every year.

We no longer tolerate unsafe workplaces, or unsafe air or rail travel.

As the late Hon. Barry Cohen MHR reflected in 2013: "The endless headlines about tragic deaths have inured our governments to the road toll and made them complacent. They have become convinced that any further reduction will depend on reining in the nut behind the wheel. Instead they should trust our engineers and scientists to continue their work of the past four decades and achieve a zero toll."

National, well resourced, comprehensive road safety action is possible involving governments, business, academia and the community, to reduce road trauma.

Lauchlan McIntosh, President, Australasian College of Road Safety, Pearce

Contrary to the notions of at least a few correspondents, cyclists are not lemmings ever ready to heedlessly launch themselves into pedestrian crossings and the hereafter.

In fact, they're like any road user, entitled to expect compliance if not respect from others, except that they have far more reason to be cautious of the arrogant, the befuddled and the inattentive among us.

As Graham Downie (Letters, January 6) said, drivers' attitude is key; they should accept that the road is for sharing.

Matt Gately, Rivett

Graham Downie's letter ("Driver error can't be ignored when it comes to road toll", January 6) was excellent. One sentence read, "Attitudes expressed by drivers who regard the speed limit as a right, and who deride anyone who prevents their achieving it, reflect an arrogance and selfishness behind much of the road trauma."

By coincidence another letter that day was written by one of the drivers (Michael Lane) whom Graham was complaining about.

These drivers attempt to justify their dangerous driving (including speeding and cutting in) by blaming it on sensible drivers who simply have the misfortune to have to share the roads with them. In reality, the dangerous driving is caused not by the sensible drivers but by the dangerous drivers' own deficient attitudes (including selfishness, narcissism, impatience and a lack of anger control).

Michael accused me of "justifying the bad-mannered and dangerous habit of right-lane hogging". I did no such thing: I oppose lane hogging. Our difference of opinion is about what constitutes lane hogging.

His letter defines lane hogging as "an act of deliberate dangerous driving by impeding the progress of others".

By this definition, most complaints of lane hogging are invalid. The accused drivers have no intention to impede; the reason they do not immediately move to the left lane is that it would be dangerous to do so.

Michael, consider how your inconsiderate dangerous driving affects other drivers.

Bob Salmond, Melba

Montreal, Canada, is home to the Bombardier Corporation. Bombardier is one of Canada's largest companies and it is involved in the manufacture of Aerospace, Defence, Trains and Trams and Financial services.

Bombardier has operations around the world including Australia. Bombardier produces regional airliners and business jets and owns America's famous Learjet.

A major way to boost manufacturing in Australia would be to have an organisation like Bombardier.

This could be achieved through a business consortium of manufacturers and financial services companies with state and federal government support.

Such a venture could manufacture regional passenger and business jets for the Australian and international markets.

It could also design and produce trains and trams.

It could also produce military planes and vehicles.

This could create thousands of new local manufacturing jobs. An Australian version of Bombardier could also have manufacturing programs in other nations around the world where there is demand for their products.

It would be a significant boost for Australia's GDP and overall prosperity overall.

Malcolm Webster, Boronia, Vic

Alan Robertson (Letters, December 30) correctly identifies that most vehicle speedometers read low. I find that I rarely get passed if I travel at the speed limit (per GPS). This indicates that those who complain about speeding vehicles, and probably tail gating, are misinformed.

Trevor McPherson, Aranda

Neil James ("Westminster System", Letters, January 6) repeats customarily misleading monarchist claims.

First, the High Court in 1907 did not "rule" that governors-general exercised head-of-state powers in practice. It observed, without binding effect, that they were the "...officiating Constitutional Head of the Commonwealth ..." Yes, they officiate constitutionally. But expressly as the monarch's representatives, not ours.

Second, it is untrue that no legislation has been referred for the monarch's assent. In both 1953 and 1973 the then governors-general, in fits of deference, did so in respect of pretentious royal titles legislation.

But James is right. We do, in the great bureaucratic Westminster tradition of muddling through, manage constitutional matters through mixing convention with black-letter law. This has worked well enough – so far. But the imprecision of evolving convention, its increasing divergence from the written constitution, and High Court inclination to exclusionary brutal black-letter interpretation, demand reform. It is offensive to Australia's independence that we rely on a foreign monarch to appoint our nominee as officiating Head of the Commonwealth. The hereditary character of the appointer is offensive to democracy.

Mike Hutchinson, Reid

A. Whiddett's letter (Letters, January 5), suggested Australia's continued existence as a sovereign state is precarious and described Australia as a "middling power".

I take him to mean we are what many commentators, including government ministers, have referred to for years as a middle power.

Militarily, we will soon have an air force whose strike capability will be invisible to the naked eye because the F35 aircraft is never going to deliver what an excited John Howard promised; our navy will, if it's lucky, receive a decade or so late (if ever), the submarines and surface combatants which an opportunistic Malcolm Turnbull said that Adelaide's new ship-building industry will deliver; and our army, while capable within its narrow remit, will always be tiny by comparison with the armies of our regional neighbours.

Diplomatically, our harsh treatment of asylum-seekers is increasingly drawing world-wide opprobrium; our unquestioning acceptance of all things American, despite the madness in the current American administration, is doing likewise; our position on global climate change is risible and our inability to articulate a rational independent foreign policy on China will always be a drag on our relations with that country and the region.

Economically, the inability of current and former governments to develop a cogent economic vision and strategy for Australia does not bode well over the coming decades.

We have little ability to project military power into our region; we are increasingly seen as a xenophobic American stooge and we're quite possibly going to run out of customers for the things we dig up, or grow.

Australia a middle power? I think not.

Peter Moran, Watson

Obviously nothing was learned from Ok Tedi (1984), otherwise Samarco need never have happened ("BHP walking both sides of street on mining lobbyists", January 5, p34). Miners have cultivated green-washing to an art form, obfuscating total lack of integrity, blatant breach of social contract and espousal of moral hazard.

Albert M. White, Queanbeyan, NSW

D. J. Fraser ('To the Point', The Canberra Times, January 8) says that Peter Dutton will be a fan of Senator Jim Molan when he takes his place in the Senate. Molan and Dutton need be reminded of the following notice that appeared on the British Press Censor's office in Cairo in 1942: "The trouble about running this war is that there are too many politicians who think they are generals and too many generals who think they are politicians and too many journalists who think they are both." A pity that Bob Menzies and Harold Holt and John Howard and Tony Abbott had not seen, and taken notice of it.

Roger Terry, Kingston

Peter Dutton's latest unintelligent efforts to foment some political discord and achieve cheap point-scoring, this time in Victoria through the use of race-based references, brought to mind this reflection from that famous Third Reich agitator and propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels: "It is not propaganda's task to be intelligent, its task is to lead to success."

At least we have the means in this country to identify and reject Dutton's targeted attempts to induce fear and mistrust and to influence and control what people think.

We should not be complacent about acting in response to this misuse of power with its authoritarian overtones. His dissembling will no doubt intensify even though it exposes him increasingly as unfit for ministerial office and public duties generally.

It also reflects poorly on the Prime Minister that he has promoted such an unreliable person to the wide-ranging and nationally significant portfolio of Home Affairs.

Sue Dyer, Downer

It was quite disturbing to read in the article "Cooking the climate change books (January 8, p37) of a report, quietly slipped under the table just before Christmas, that Australia's emissions will be at least 140 million tonnes above the 2030 Paris target.

This was on the same day that a previous report from the Environment and Energy Department claiming that we are well on the way to reaching our Paris commitment of a 26-28 per cent reduction by 2030 was made public.

However, the first report admitted that "Australia's emissions have risen in the past three years". This was apparently attributed to increasing use of liquefied natural gas (LNG). In a case of possible wishful thinking, the first report also claimed that the increase in emissions would be offset in the future by "flat electricity demand, the renewable energy target and the announced closure of coal power stations", the last presumably including Liddell.

These offsets would, however, have to compete with factors such as increased transport activity "linked to population and economic growth" and to and increases in cattle herd numbers "linked to international demand".

This second factor, while probably being unavoidable, is due to Australia's dominant method of cattle farming: Open-range grazing. This is by far the most inefficient known method of producing food; feed-lot farming is far more efficient than grazing, and produces significantly less methane per kilogram of beef. There is much we can improve.

Douglas Mackenzie, Deakin

Jennifer Duke reported the International Energy Agency's tip that Australia would become "a world energy leader in supplying future energy demand and likely to be one of the main gas suppliers in the transition from coal-fired power to gas". ("Boom over as commodity price falls hit", January 8, p36).

That means that multinational corporations have decided to frack Australia. Massive financial pressure will be brought on our governments to frack the entire landmass. That can hardly be because other countries do not have similar resources.

If fracking is ecologically safe, why do our clients not frack their own lands?

Gary J. Wilson, Macgregor

KING FOR A DAY

If Australians want a monarchy, it should be of an Australian model with an Australian as monarch (selected by raffle from all citizens qualified to vote being eligible to be "king" for eight years and then retired without "perks").

The raffle would then be re-conducted.

One might argue that the new monarch would be inexperienced, well this would put him on equal footing with all the current politicians he would rule over.

J. J. Goold, Mudgeeraba

SHADES OF MEANING

Rachel Olding (Canberra Times, January 5) needs to learn the difference between disinterested and uninterested. It is not true that Donald Trump is disinterested – he has interests everywhere. It may well be true that he is uninterested.

Greg Pinder, Charnwood

BAD WEATHER AHEAD

I hope the next time I am about to rubbish one of our leaders I will be reminded of the US and Donald Trump. At least those we choose are not entrenched for four years with very little that can send them packing, unlike the land of the free. We are now seeing the unedifying ridicule of a president who may weather the hurricanes he will now have to weather at the expense of the country.

D. J. Fraser, Currumbin

CREEPY CRAWLIE

So, the Prime Minister's new Minister for Adult Behaviour, Peter Dutton, says that "if people haven't integrated, if they are not abiding by our laws, if they don't adhere to our culture, then they are not welcome here". I couldn't agree more and can't wait for Dutton to return to the pit from whence he crawled.

John Richardson, Wallagoot, NSW

DIAL A DRONGO

I am amazed to see ACT government bus drivers talking on mobile phones while driving around Tuggeranong, particularly past the police station and the front door of the Hyperdome. That law prohibiting all of us from doing this seems a toothless and blind snake.

Ed Harris, Bonython

HOWZAT, HEALY?

Once again television cricket commentator Ian Healy has criticised Tim Paine for a dropped catch during the fifth Test. During the Test series you have been critical of Tim on a number of occasions. Did you never make a mistake, Ian, during your illustrious career?

Alan Leitch, Austins Ferry, Tas

STEADY AS SHE SLOWS

Just finished watching on SBS The Ghan: Australia's Greatest Train Journey. Let's all agree to get rid ofstupid "reality television" and replace with the "slow TV" movement. This was amazing television, enjoyed every minute of it.

Helen M. Cygan, McKellar

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