New LED street lights appear to turn Oamaru shades of grey

IN regards to Peter Mountain’s letter (ODT, 31.10.18) about the new LED street lights in Oamaru, I agree the town now looks dark and grey, especially if there is no moon.

Some of the people love the view from hill suburbs of the spectacular sparkling street lights, which are no longer there.

My complaint is the extreme darkness it creates on the opposite side of the road, owing to the poles being only on one side of the road and being so far apart.

Winter months are extremely bad and hard to see people on the opposite side of the road, so I now have to have my lights on full beam.

I feel very unsafe walking at night because the beam from the LED lights shines straight down the pole instead of radiating out like it used to, putting people’s safety at risk.

B. M. Robertson

Oamaru

Arms race

IN today’s paper (ODT, 10.11.18), I’ve been reading about Mikhail Gorbachev’s comments to do with the new arms race that he fears is developing between Russia and the United States. In the same issue is an article about Stephen Mulqueen’s sculptures that are being put on display at the Athenaeum in the Octagon. These sculptures depict the horror and stupidity of war and point to the possibility of a different approach to the resolution of international disputes.

New Zealand has not only a history of militarism, but also a proud history of pacifism (Parihaka for instance, and also Archibald Baxter). As an ineffective and puny military force on the world stage we are in a great position to challenge other countries to take up pacifist principles. As a first step in this direction, Otago could declare itself a militaryfree zone and influence the Government to demilitarise our armed forces and reestablish them as peacekeepers.

In a world on the brink of a new arms race, such an initiative would give us everything to gain and nothing to lose. Taranaki Smith

Palmerston

Road chaos

WELL done NZ Transport Agency. You have turned our oneway streets into a major hazard for 99.9% of the users of these roads. Now you want to further stop traffic flows by adding Barnes dance crossings.

As a runner, walker and driver the squeezing of the traffic lanes and the slippery raised obstacles have added so much more risk to the majority of road and footpath users.

So why haven’t you listened to the majority of road and footpath users?

Or are we all much more expendable commodities that clearly don’t matter. Terry Taylor

Dunedin