We have a long way to go on road safety issue
WITH regard to road safety and the NZ Transport Agency, new speed limits are superceded by the reduction in tourist traffic.
Limits of 40kmh are closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.
Modern safety features in most of our vehicles allow safe passage in all but the rarest of situations.
Yes, it would be great to have a nil road toll — however, road conditions, weather, visibility, stupidity, incompetence, and unavoidable events make this unlikely.
Occasions requiring less than legal limits are due to common sense.
Occasions requiring exceeding legal limits are passing heavy vehicles/cars with trailers.
The most dangerous place on any road is on the wrong side. Even with clear visibility, I find my speed well in excess of the limit as I wish to return to the safe side as soon as possible.
Lateral separation of oncoming vehicles is often 1m. The success rate for this driving tells me that our concentration is much better than you give credit for.
It is also the NZTA’s responsibility to ensure the legality of all vehicles and their drivers. In the last six years, all over New Zealand, I have travelled 128,000km. Not one safety check.
So, the legal vehicles pay their dues to subsidise the illegal vehicles.
Driver frustrations would be greatly reduced if indicators were used to show driver’s intentions. My estimation is that only 60% know how to use them at roundabouts.
Then there is the nearly impossible problem of motorcycle accidents.
If the NZTA is really interested in road safety, it has a lot of work to do.
J. Griffith
Wanaka
Aurora
HOW much credence can be given to the recent Aurora ‘‘softening strategy’’ of fairer cost distribution, claiming it is suddenly listening to customers (ODT, 20.1.21) after castigating them a few days earlier, along with the earlier backdoor attempt to gain a special negotiating position with the Commerce
Commission?
The administrators of Aurora seem to be changing their ground towards an attempt to convince the commission that the condition in part 4 of Section 4 of the Commerce Act is best achieved by endorsing their monopoly’s application for a further $600 million increase in their line charges.
Part 4 of Section 4 of the Commerce Act (within which the commission must work) states that if it is found that the ‘‘benefits to the consumer outweigh the costs’’ then they must regulate in favour of the consumer.
It seems that Aurora has begun to realise the costs it proposes will result such that ‘‘the costs to the consumer will completely outweigh the benefits’’.
Further, after the consumers pay out the $600 million to Aurora to fix their neglectful deteriorated network, the community will not even own the network their money rebuilt.
The implications for Aurora are that the commission must give serious consideration to reregulate the conditions for Aurora to be permitted to continue to trade as a monopoly, and for the commission to apply the alternative options within the Act to ensure that the consumers get the benefit from splitting — the whole purpose to split these utilities in the first place.
Stan Randle
Alexandra
Vegan diet
WHY print the opinions (ODT, 22.1.21) of three epidemiologists on vegan diets? The dictionary definition of an epidemiologist is a person who studies or is expert in the branch of medicine which deals with the incidence distribution and possible control of disease. Nothing to do with a vegan diet that has been around for thousands of years. This diet is followed by millions of Middle Eastern people and now followed by millions of people around the world.
Mary Robertson
Ocean View ......................................
BIBLE READING: Be exalted, O God, above the heavens. — Psalms 57:5.