Putting it mildly, it stinks all over, doesn't it?
I do know speed is the worst problem. The stats all specify Rural, Straight Roads are the place where the bulk of the deaths occur. It is so boring to know you have a few hours' drive from point A to point B and the scenery is monotonous, traffic almost non existent, and you don't want to be on the road. Put the foot down. Make up time. Even if you can cut five or ten minutes off each hour it seems a huge saving. A stupid, childish, simplistic mindset I know, but it happens. For me to go to Sydney from where I live, it is a ten minute trip from home to the Freeway, one hour on the Freeway to the city and then ten minutes to my destination. Most of the city roads' speed limits are 60kph on main roads and 50kph on suburban roads. On the Freeway the speed limit is 110 ks.
I am very strict with myself, but it is hard to keep the speed down. The joke is I am left far behind by everyone. And so few of them ever seem to get pulled over!
There are a lot of things that have helped get NSW's figures down. Alpart from RBT there have been improvements in the roads, some places have better lighting at night, laminated glass, seat belts, stricter mechanical requirements for car registration and, one hopes, drivers. I am by no means putting NSW up as a paragon. The figures here are still too high!
Driver fatigue is a problem too. There is a Stop, Revive, Survive campaign in place, advising drivers to take a break at least every two hours on the road - have a coffee, walk around, etc. Groups like Rotary, Lions Club, etc have stalls set up in rest areas on many highways with free cuppas.
We have a demerit points system - lose 10 points and you lose your licence. The points lost per offence are on a sliding scale depending on the speed, etc. These points are doubled on public holiday weekends.
If the driver and one passenger do not have their seat belts done up - you're gone!
On the other hand, every new model car that comes out is advertised by totally unreal concepts of flying, zoom-zoom-zooming along, burning up the roads, etc. I think the younger people take more notice of these than anything else!
Also, everyday in the papers you read of someone up before a magistrate, charged with all sorts of mayhem and driving without a licence, found guilty and sentenced to - loss of licence for a further twelve months. Duhhhhhhh!!!!!!
With the school children - a bit of both. At present we have free travel for children who live more than a certain distance from their school, but we also have lots of accidents outside schools - caused by parents picking up or dropping off children.
Let's get onto something less depressing!
Quite agree with you lezzles but we can't get away from depressing items todayI I was horrified to learn tonight of the tragic death of Steve Irwin the Crocodile man. You have to be damn unlucky to be speared by a Stingray, just 44 years old, with two little children. He was a great Ambassador for Australia overseas, well known in many countries, no wonder he was mentioned in Parliament by the Prime Minister today.
Really shocked to hear that, Dutchy. His programs were popular on this side of the equator as well.
Sometimes I thought he was a bit too much over the top, and his Mum should cut out the red cordial, but he knew his stuff and I think he generated a huge interest in the welfare of the local fauna, which was a good thing! The kids seemed to adore him - not a bad role model.
Tragic incident Lezzles, I had a lot of time for him, always thought him to be a great showman, typical Aussie battler come good. I particularly liked his ads on TV about importing prohinbited stuff, very, very convincing.
Undeniably, Dutchy! So many scoff at every law and rule we live by - it's good when someone makes 'the mob' stop and think there is a good reason for a law that seems mean or silly.
Very much in agreement with you two.
Well good morning Mame, about to send a search party out to see where you were, are you well after a few days away from a2k?
X-tenuating, I hope the circumstances were that have kept you away - come on, you owe us input, input, input!
You know, I've been helping a sister paint her living room and dining room for several days - bloody exhausting work. Then I was on a soup-making binge for 2 days... What have you been up to?
Zonks, she's back. Nice to see you Mame, that's particular sweet of you to help your sister with a painting job. Pretty quiet this end apart from doing some gardening work now that we've had a bit of rain at long last.
About to get some rain, too, finally, at the end of this week. We need it since an AMERICAN forest fire has no respect for boundaries and is now merrily blazing away in Canada.
Bush fires are a very dangerous phenomenon, we always dread the very hot summers, as we had our fair share of serious bush fires over the years. There have been 3 major bushfires in my State since 1939 involving the loss of many lives and thousands of homes, not to speak of cattle and wildlife.
Continual rain overnight and half of my backyard is under water. But I'm not complaining it's the first rain we've had this year that has actually fallen on the catchment areas. The dam for our area is down to 16% full. (All the outcry about drinking reclaimed water - do people stop to think of the 'sediment' in the bottom of the lakes?) (Down there in that last 16%?)
Don't you know, it's never occurred to me to drink it... people here use rain barrels and buckets and whatnot but I do think they filter it before drinking.
Eh, our city of 1 and a bit million is totally dependent on water from enormous dams built in the surrounding hills. Usually they fill during the winter alas this year no rain and dams are presently only filled to 25% capacity. We are on permanent water restrictions. All water now goes through filtration plants and is 100% pure coming from the kitchen tap and very drinkable. We have a pipeline from the river Murray that supplements the rain and keeps us going.
Frequently we're on water rations, too... but come Sept it's usually monsoons until April or May
Gosh I didn't know you had monsoons up your way, I only thought they had them in the tropics, like the northern part of Australia. Plenty of water up north here but that's 4000km away!
Heck, they're not 'monsoons', per se, but there's nothing but rain, rain, rain, rain, and more rain. Last Dec we had rain 29 out of 31 days.
I was only kidding, I know you're a very cold Country, what about us, winter had just passed with hardly no rain for 3 months (very unusual), only 22mm recorded, that is about 3/4 inch!
