Road safety debate is lacking robust analysis

YOUR editorial (ODT, 15.6.18) ‘‘Russian roulette in the South’’ finishes by inviting a ‘‘conversation’’.

You state that ‘‘life can be extinguished in an instant when a reasonable vehicle driven in a reasonable manner by a reasonable person hits ice on bad roads’’.

How about: Lives can be saved when a reasonable vehicle driven in an anticipatory manner by a reasonably attentive person hits ice on bad roads?

The fact of the matter is that, for every driver who manages to succumb to a slippery road surface (and, not just ice — damp roads and gravel surfaces too), hundreds of others have managed to negotiate that same patch of road safely.

The whole discussion about road safety in New Zealand lacks proper analysis, both by the authorities and in the press. Many, many drivers, both domestic and imported, have lamentable vehiclecontrol skills combined with concentration deficits that dictate that the safest thing for them to do, on behalf of all of us, is to catch a bus. Jack Crawford Macandrew Bay

AS a visitor to Central Otago, I have enjoyed reading the ODT, which I have found to be a very informative newspaper.

The editorial on driving in Otago on icy roads (15.6.18) has reminded me how reckless a lot of drivers here are.

There are adequate warning signs on the highways advising of ice on the roads in winter conditions and you would expect drivers to take extra care and slow down. But from my observation, this goes right over the heads of most drivers.

To be met by a car sliding sideways at me on a corner, with its four wheels locked up and front wheels pointing the wrong way, certainly gets one’s attention about taking evasive action.

I have been cycling all the trails down here in Central and riding a bike in icy conditions certainly makes one appreciate what it is like to strike ice, especially on two wheels.

Driver education including driving skills and how to adapt to the conditions should be a priority in reducing the accidents in winter.

Ian Fussell Christchurch

Column astonishes

I READ this morning’s Faith and Reason column (ODT, 15.6.18) with some astonishment.

Firstly, the increasingly intense ecstatic tone of the piece is surely a signal that the content should be approached with circumspection.

This is especially so, given that the last couple of paragraphs strongly suggest that the writer, and those like him, are ‘‘certain sorts of persons . . . who know [goodness, truth and beauty] matter, because they worship the One who is infinitely good, true and beautiful’’.

That is, they are some sort of elect who know things that others do not.

Secondly, though it is a given that in this context faith trumps logic, the divine penchant for a ‘‘humble and contrite spirit [means that] Not only are the poor in spirit blessed, but the poor themselves’’, collapses into meaninglessness.

Who, exactly are the ‘‘poor in spirit’’? Those who lack the writer’s capacity for ecstasy?

And if the poor are blessed, do they know it, and would they cease to be blessed if they ceased to be poor?

And this is the theology that gets served up to students. Harry Love

Dunedin

Messy pavements

WHILE I was out walking the dog today, and incidentally picking up after him every time, I was thinking about the recent negative comments about dogs.

There on the path were cans, bottles, lunch wrappings, broken glass and plastic.

I couldn’t help wondering if we are making a fuss about the wrong issue. At least dog poo is biodegradable.

J. Park

Wakari