Kiwis love their cars too much to swap them for a bus

I take it the people who suggest we stop using cars don’t have one (Heather du Plessis-Allan: Fix traffic with buses and trains, June 11). We would be stuck without one. There Is no bus service where we live and we are too aged to do a lot of walking or ride bikes. Also, some of us actually derive pleasure from driving. But more seriously, how are people supposed to actually get to work? There needs to be vastly improved infrastructure, better bus and train services, car pooling, more working from home and staggered work hours. Our metrocentric fixation is the problem.

John Clements, Orewa

Heather du Plessis-Allan was on the money about the congestion charges. Catch the bus or train instead of drive? What a joke. Why spend longer on public transport than in the comfort of own vehicles? And usually the public transport is a higher cost than driving.

Iain and Tracey Warren, via email

Canberra has just almost doubled the fine for parking illegally in disabled spaces to $600. We should set the same fine in New Zealand, plus lift the $80 weak-as-water fine for using a mobile phone to text while driving to their fine of $400. Appropriate fines would cut the arrogant use of closed parking spots and distracting mobiles; the latter saving lives.

Murray Hunter, Titirangi

Liam Dann wrote about the size of government debt in his recent column (Is this government too wussy? June 11). The problem with this number is that it is a very narrow measure of what is really happening in New Zealand. I would like to propose three other measures to get a more accurate picture. The first is environmental debt, which would be calculated as the cost of of cleaning up