The malls and shops in Wagga Wagga look beautiful and very festive decked out with their Christmas decorations.
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However, the same can’t be said for our main street.
A couple of flags on the Baylis Street crossings with the word “Christmas” just don’t cut it!
Come on Wagga City Council, lift your game and bring a bit of festive cheer to Baylis Street.
If you’re not sure what to do, just have a look at the Christmas decorations in smaller towns in our area or Sunbury, Victoria, who have dressed the trees in their main street with solar fairy lights which create a magical and festive feeling.
They put our city to shame.
Surely you can spend a small portion of our ratepayers money on a few Christmas decorations?
Sue Leighton, Wagga
Time to re-think the road safety message
A fresh approach is needed.
The road toll is tragic and life changing for those involved, serious injury is also life changing.
Repeating this fact and reliving stories of peoples’ loss, while well meaning, is too easily dismissed by the “it won’t happen to me” factor.
Fortunately, for most people this is the fact, it doesn’t happen.
There is no doubting that we should all behave as though it might happen to us, but do we?
This tactic has been used by the government for years and it hasn’t worked. Our road toll is going up.
Other initiatives have also not worked, in particular speed limit enforcement.
We need something for people to think about, something that causes people to know when their driving could be better.
Apart from obeying rules, how often do we give much thought to how we drive?
Driving is a thinking process and should demand all of a driver’s attention while in motion.
We need, obviously, to continue the successful random breath testing, distraction (especially mobile phones), fatigue and seatbelt campaigns, but much more needs to be said about the ingredients of poor driving, without threats and shock tactics.
It would be great to see the government consult with driving experts outside the RMS about defensive driving, planning, looking ahead, assessing speed for appropriateness (not the speed limit, which is so often unsafe), how to deal with a wet road (it’s more than just slow down), for example.
It would also be wonderful to see some intelligent videos on a wide range of topics to educate our drivers.
It’s not automatically safe if a driver is sober, awake, not using his/her phone, wearing the seatbelt and not exceeding the speed limit.
Plenty could still be unsafe.
It’s quite dangerous to assume that these factors are all that matter.
Indeed, many lives have been lost without breaking any rules.
Fresh, new advice is needed, constantly.
Your recent articles contain nothing new.
There is ample speeding fine revenue to easily pay for a wide-ranging and penetrating campaign that’s constantly updated.
I believe that almost all drivers try to drive safely, but have our authorities provided complete advice about how?