Readers’ views on speed limits and road safety, Dr Philip Nitschke’s euthanasia clinic, reporting on the environment, and the state of the South Australian economy.

MALCOLM PECH: If only road safety was that simple (Speed denialists zoom past the evidence, InDaily, 18 November 2013).

I spent 12 years working in road safety, the practical sort, dealing with people, driver education and behaviour as well as road traffic engineering. It seems that in most every area of life we understand the value of competence except on the road. On the road it is all about compliance. And a very clumsy, broad-brush approach.

Of course higher speeds mean greater impacts, no-one is denying that. What is questioned is if (relatively) higher speeds mean a greater chance of impact.

The ‘blanket’ approach taken in SA is that in all circumstances a lower speed means less chance of impact. This does not really make sense, especially if traffic is well ordered and going in the same direction with appropriate separation, as is often attainable on our roads.

Do lower speeds always mean less chance of impact? Does moving traffic more slowly and thereby providing more ‘exposure time’ on the road make an impact less likely? Is the most efficient use of our roads achieved by any given vehicle spending longer on the road?

I live in the country, and travel about 30,000km each year in country and city travel, including Sydney and Melbourne. What I have noticed in recent years is that the road safety campaigns and enforcement seems to have contributed to motorists in SA ‘creeping’. No, not creeping over the speed limit as the campaign goes, but creeping around at inappropriate speeds, often well under the (recently lowered) speed limit to avoid any chance of a fine (and the deadly demerits). Many people are creeping around watching their speedometer rather than the road, while the most important defence against an impact is to see and identify the potential hazard before it becomes a danger and leads to an impact.

JOHN ATKINSON: This article (Speed denialists zoom past the evidence) looks like a “cut & paste” from a Greens climate change press release, with the reference to “skeptics” as a derogatory term. It is a scientist’s duty to be skeptical.

I assume the author is not a road research expert or he would have pointed the finger at the appalling state of the SA roads as the major contributor to road deaths.

ROGER FLAVELL: I don’t disagree with a lot of things in the article except some of the speed reductions are in places that make no sense.

Fifty km/h through Summertown and Uraidla with 60 in between is crazy because when you hit the suburbs on Greenhill Road it stays at 60km/h where there is far more traffic – both vehicular and pedestrian – and therefore you would think far greater likelihood of accidents. There are a number of other situations where the changes look more like setup speed traps than life savers.

Another issue is that in other states speed limit changes are identified much better with large numbers painted on the road, and in the case of school zones, yellow triangles painted in more or less a saw tooth pattern on each side of the road. In SA if you are not familiar with the road and you are distracted by a pedestrian or another motorist briefly it is easy to miss the speed limit sign.

B. BADDAMS: I suppose that, given the narrow political views of her Senator husband, we should not be surprised at Walkerville’s Councillor Bernardi being “disgusted” at the existence of Dr. Nitschke’s shop-front euthanasia establishment (“Dr Death’s” new clinic scary: councillor, InDaily, 18 November 2013). For the good doctor’s sake,I hope that burning at the stake has been removed from the council’s statutes.

PETER CLEMENTS, President, Natural History Society of SA inc: Allan Holmes and David Paton are correct (State environment boss lashes local media, InDaily, 18 November 2013). The environment is no longer being reported on as much as it used to be. As managers of five wildlife reserves in SA, we in the Natural History Society of SA are dealing with ever changing DEWNR staff. We just get used to one officer and they get moved on. The department has reducing resources to back up our efforts to preserve the habitat of iconic animals such as the southern hairy nosed wombat.

The reason the press are not interested is probably that it is hard to constantly parade the doom and gloom message that most of us in the environment business constantly see first hand. When we look at the damage that our human activities have done to precious environments like the Coorong it is hard to be positive about the future, and this turns people off. However, our society has managed to maintain five wildlife reserves, the largest of which is home to around 2000 wombats. While this is not news, it is a demonstration that private groups can also contribute to preserving our precious wildlife habitat despite dwindling government money.

BETH MYLIUS: The attention being given to the car industry and mining are clear indications that the environment has fallen off the public agenda in South Australia. Both these industries are detrimental to the environment. The government and opposition have both failed to recognise any of the environmental issues surrounding the increasing use of cars and their manufacture or the huge issues relating to water use and environmental pollution stemming from mining. No alternatives are being discussed.

In addition, the failure to take the opportunity of converting the Port Augusta power plant is another indication of a lack of courage or strategic planning and leadership. A comprehensive environmental strategy, public education program and inspired leadership are needed in South Australia and Australia in general.

PETER MADDERN: One has to admire Jill Bottrall’s chutzpah in her new found role as an economic rationalist for SA (Jay Weatherill’s real enemy, InDaily, 18 November 2013). Just where was she when her boss Mike Rann was, to use just a few examples, installing $360m trams that didn’t fit the tracks (and had to be retrofitted at great cost), $40m film studios that hardly ever get used, a $2.1b desal plant that will never get used and an unnecessary new $2.5b hospital to be funded at 20% when the state could have repaired the old for $1b at 6%?

Just imagine how much good all that waste she was spruiking could have generated in exactly the areas she now identifies as crucial for the future of the State.

The problem Jay Weatherill has is that there is nothing left to drive the State’s economy given the weight of debt racked up since the GFC by the very Labor Party stalwarts she tries to dress up as heroes of a bygone age. The budget papers don’t lie – every dollar now required for interest payments comes out of grants to promote the issues she speaks so wisely about.

Rather than criticise poor Jay, Jill Bottrall should be apologising to him because the task left is totally beyond our Premier and probably anyone.

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