Fatal crashes

They were husbands, wives, sons and daughters. They were drivers, passengers, cyclists and pedestrians. All had their lives cut short in a fatal crash. Why was Canterbury’s 2017 road toll so high?

Police are lost for words as to why 2017 toll is so high. This has put them under enormous pressure in terms of investigating the crashes - and trying to prevent more.

I think people get in their cars and just switch their brains off.

They read it in the paper that somebody else died because they’ve crossed the centre line or gone to sleep or failed to stop at a stop sign. They read it all and they ignore it - and the exact same thing happens again. Pat Healey Temuka as though I had achieved something very special, I felt good.

Since living in New Zealand I find people still stigmatise mental health problems.

I have been called a liar, mental defective, and a nutter. The treatment is not as I received in my home country. I know I was much younger then, but age should not make any difference. My dear mother had a saying, ‘‘There for the grace of God go I’’. None of us can know how anyone feels when suffering from any illness. We can only sympathise.

Their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry have highlighted the illness in the UK. They are trying to take away the stigma. Their own mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, had her demons. She was a lovely woman, everyone loved her in the UK. Many tears were shed by all when she was tragically killed.

I have been raising money for different charities in the UK since the age of 19 years. With the help of friends we have raised quite a lot of money. If I was a few years younger I would fight here for more help for people suffering from mental health problems. I would even start a petition to be presented to Parliament. Sadly I do not think I could handle that kind of stress now. That is what is needed, is someone to spearhead a group of people to make a change in the mental health system. I can only have my say through this newspaper, but I hope the people who read this article will act, to get better facilities to treat these people, who, through no fault of their own, are suffering in this way. Maureen Simmons Timaru free dollars to promote this climate change because of some hidden government agenda? Best to follow the money trail.

The doom merchants all crying wolf predicted certain death by the killer bees, a pending ice age, a massive ozone hole, catastrophic meteorites, erupting super volcanoes. Baby-boomers were in for a slow painful death listening to Elvis Presley and The Beatles and now Donald Trump could make us die of boredom, as could watching a tap dripping for four boring days or watching the cricket.

America is experiencing a massive snowstorm and Canada is as cold as the North Pole and it is all due to the weather. However, when Australia is recording excessive heat this is not weather, it is all due to climate. It is called selecting the right work to support your theory. I am no expert and may be wrong, but I think weather affects the climate and climate affects the weather. If my oven was on full power with the door open I would not expect the kitchen to freeze over.

Online a scientist, with nothing much better to do, worked out all the world’s population could fit on just 260,000 acres standing shoulder to shoulder. This planet is covered in 71 per cent of water and 29 per cent land. Most land areas have minimal human occupation and this includes all the mountain regions, jungles, North and South Poles and the huge deserts. From space, viewing 260,000 acres of humans gathered together on a massive planet is not even the equivalent of a flea on an elephant’s back. This flea-like dot on planet Earth will never in a trillion billion years be able to warm the planet any more than one flea can overheat an elephant causing it to die.

So back to the money trail: When politicians say give us your tax money and we will fix the problem of global warming, I get a bit suspicious. A flatulence tax meter screwed on every cow’s backside in the country would have the politicians flying free first class all over the planet twice a year, and not just once. Greenies and all politicians still drive cars and help create more pollution out