Always the cops who get blamed

Scenario 1: Silly me. I am a bit late from work and do 62km per hour in a 50km/h zone on my way home. Ouch, police car behind me signals me to stop. Driving licence, Sir, ticket etcetera; ‘‘Blimmin’ cops’’.

Scenario 2: Ready for work, step outside. Where is my car, I left it outside? Hello, Police, my car has been stolen. Sorry sir. Road officers noticed some very young people getting into your car, but in the following pursuit the driver did 80km/ h in a 50km/h zone and officers had to lay off. Your car has been found wrecked. No sign of the youths; ‘‘Blimmin’ cops’’.

Scenario 3: Young guys (13 years-plus) steal a car. Driver has no licence, no driving experience and a very heavy foot. Police patrol notice car, start to follow, but kids know when going fast enough the police will have to lay off. Things go terribly wrong as young driver has no car control. Result: dead and wounded; ‘‘Blimmin’ cops.’’

F Admiraal, Rangiora

Police criticism

I completely agree with Roy Myers in his criticism of police laying road spikes last year, and causing the deaths of three teenagers (subsequently approved by the Police Conduct Authority).

I have long felt that police drivers, often also young, themselves get carried away in the drama of a chase and lose an element of common sense. After all, regrettable though these situations are, they do not equate to open warfare. John Burn, Merivale

Responsibility

Roy Myers in Letters, and indeed your own correspondent (‘‘Spikes behind teen deaths’’) have a curious notion of responsibility.

The deaths were the result of an unlicensed, inexperienced driver in a stolen car driving at unsafe speeds through a city and then losing control of the car.

One might also ask, who taught the teenagers how to steal a car and who encouraged that behaviour? Not the police, I think.

Dr Pat McIntosh, Redcliffs

Mike Moore

Mike Moore’s critics likened him to a human Catherine wheel; light his

emotional blue touch paper and he goes off in all directions. ‘‘Some think he is off the wall...,’’ The Economist wrote years later when he became head of the World Trade Organisation. ‘‘...others think he is wonderful.’’

I’m in the latter category and I’ll explain why.

As Minister of Overseas Trade and Marketing, he led a delegation of about 100 on a six-nation tour of South-East Asia in 1985 which I accompanied as the

National Business Review’s foreign trade correspondent.

He was always accessible and we got to know each other over a few late night drinks on the whirlwind 12-day tour. Back home, Mike learned that my wife, Frances, had alzheimer’s disease and life was difficult as I tried to balance work with looking after her.

I never dwelt on it, but Mike never forgot. As busy as he was, with frequent overseas trips as well as government and party responsibilities at home, he occasionally phoned me at home on a Sunday to say: ‘‘How are things going? How are you coping?’’

I never asked him for anything and he never offered anything. But it was the mark of a sensitive man with genuine concern for people, an attribute not that common among politicians outside of their vote-wooing speeches.

He was the most compassionate politician I met in 50 years of reporting them in several countries and I will never forget him.

David Barber, Waikanae

US flu deaths

Any deaths from the flu are tragic to friends and family. I don’t understand the uproar over the coronavirus originating from China. If I was to travel, it surely wouldn’t be to the United States.

In the last two months, according to reliable media in the US, more than 8000 people in that country have died from the flu, with the season peaking between December and February, according to CDC estimates.

During the 2018-2019 season, the CDC estimates 16.5 million people went to a health care provider for the flu and more than 34,000 people died in the US. Data from four days ago.

W Wilson, Rangiora

Summit Road

It is time that the council repaired and opened the closed (for cars) section of Summit Rd between the top of Dyers Pass and the top of Evans Pass.

This closed section is mainly in good repair except for a few hundred metres centred on the Gondola. This is one of the best scenic drives in Christchurch and it is quite brainless not to get it open to cars again.

In fact, walkers and cyclists now seem to think it is their domain only (as I have found out when transgressing the silly closure rules of a motorbike at low speed).

Please don’t bother, council, with the excuse that it is rockfall-dangerous, walkers and cyclists tarry far longer than cars would.

Get it open again for all to enjoy. And while I am on a rant, the speed limit of 60km/h is still too fast from the Sign of the Takahe to the Kiwi, 50km/h would be far safer.

Mike Stockwell, Riccarton

Sunday brawl

A group of people have been arrested after a large fight broke out in Oxford Terrace early on Sunday morning. Police were called to the bar strip The Terrace at about 1am; and more than 30 people are thought to have been involved but the number of people arrested is unknown, although the arrests were mostly for disorderly behaviour.

The thing is, I guessed the brawl was on Oxford Terrace as soon as I heard about it, because I’ve seen this sort of thing happen along there before.

This isn’t a buzz: it’s a bummer.

I could say welcome to the new Christchurch, but this all sounds like the old Christchurch; and it’s just another reason for me to steer clear of the excruciatingly trendy central city.

Raymond Shepherd, Strowan

Free advertising

Good on T Lightfoot (Fireside fun, Jan 31) for highlighting Newstalk ZB’s political bias, Monday-Friday in the form of the Mike Hosking breakfast show. A more accurate name would be the National Party breakfast show.

I switched off the Newstalk ZB breakfast show two years ago as I could not stomach anymore of Hosking’s unfair continual ‘bagging’ of the coalition government and the disrespectful manner and comments he was making about the Prime Minister behind her back.

Free party advertising for the National Party, I reckon.

G Roberts, St Martins

Booze billboards

While we do everything we can to discourage people from driving their cars after consuming alcohol , one must ask why do we allow very large roadside billboards to advertise all different types of alcohol products. It makes no sense.

Wayne Hawker, Phillipstown

Hone’s fine for Jones

I think it is entirely appropriate to use the word ‘hone’ when it refers to the MP Shane Jones.

The meaning of ‘hone’, when expressed as a verb, is ‘to sharpen’, and as a noun it is the ‘whetsone’ that does the sharpening.

To liken this to Jones, it is his abrasive manner and sharp wit that comes to the fore.

Charles Reddish, Papanui