Instead of negativity it would be good to hear some positive suggestions for sites suitable for the colourful work that can enhance bare and unattractive sites.

The city of Melbourne has benefited from allowing many laneways to be decorated; the number of visitors viewing such sites is amazing. It could be that Wagga would benefit from encouraging this art of the 21st century as well as limiting the impact of unauthorised graffiti.

Look at the benefits of graffiti sites from a tourism and colourful and creative point of view. Perhaps councillors should visit Melbourne to understand the benefits of encouraging graffiti artists.

Who knows, Wagga may have another Banksy in our midst.

Thanks to Jenny Moxham for her letter regarding sheep and cattle welfare during heat waves. Jenny might also need to consider the welfare of plants.

Recent research indicates that plants have a highly branched, excitable nervous system that stretches throughout the whole plant.

Signals that cause pain in animals (e.g. damage, heat, cold, etc) also induce action potentials in plants. Plants can receive multiple environmental signals and may be able to prioritise a response.

On Saturday and Sunday the cucumbers, lettuce and carrots in my veggie garden were clearly stressed. I did my best for them but they just weren’t made for days of 44 degrees Celsius. Perhaps with more botanical research into plant sentience and intelligence there won’t be “a cruelty-free vegan diet”?

Richard Newburg and Elizabeth Maher are fresh voices in the road safety discussion. 

Road safety is becoming more complex because the “low hanging fruit” are being picked to great advantage, but now we need to work harder to effect continuing reductions in the toll. 

Law enforcement has probably approached its capacity to achieve further reductions. While the role of law enforcement should not be reduced, it needs to be assisted by other initiatives targeting the driver error factor.

The typical mistakes people make need to be identified and an education campaign created to address them without menace or labelling.

The Federal Government’s “keys 2 drive” program should be expanded. Perhaps funding for a driver test could be established by our very wealthy State Government so that drivers could spend time with a driving instructor in a non-threatening way to assess their driving and take advice before renewing their licence.

There’s no shame in it, we all should be open to suggestion and learning. Indeed we never stop learning and our best protection against crashing is learning as much as possible. It has been suggested that the ATSB (Australian Transport Safety Bureau) be utilised to investigate crashes.

Causes of crashes could be identified and appropriate strategies that target them could be initiated by government on the strength of the published findings.