A long way to go
Wodonga councillor Tim Quilty hasn’t considered the fact that the Hume Highway is not a freeway for most of its length, but has intersections and poorly designed entries in many places. In other parts the road is still the old highway. It simply isn’t a good enough road. Another simple fact is that in this country, drivers are not taught how to go fast safely. Comparisons with the German autobahns are spurious because an autobahn is a freeway with at least three lanes, usually more, (each way) where trucks are limited to 80kmh and not permitted in the fast lanes. In addition, German drivers are taught how to drive at speeds of 150kmh or more and how to accommodate fast traffic safely. German drivers don’t need to travel for days to cross their country, fatigue is not a factor.
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Your editorial is correct in this comparison. A troubling fact aptly demonstrated in the NT a few years ago was the fact that a speed limit imprints a number into every drivers’ mind, coupled with the assumption that if it’s legal, it must be safe. Nothing could be further from the truth. The last thing we need is unconsciously incompetent drivers cruising the substandard Hume at 140. I believe strongly that no speed limit would result in lower average speeds than those we would see with a limit of 140. While not suggesting this as a solution in the current training climate, at least the absence of a speed limit forces all drivers to consider their choice of speed, rather than to blindly choose the stated limit.
Bruce Harper, Wagga
Congratulations, Dr Joe
Firstly we should all congratulate Joe McGirr on the byelection, convincing or otherwise is neither here nor there. Not bad for a candidate that hasn’t been on the political radar since 2011.
What Joe can do in the next few months is the question, what funds or projects (the pork barrelling exercise) that will now be delivered is another question.
What should surprise all voters and possibly the candidates is why there was very little rollout or comment on the recently released 20 year Economic Vision for NSW (July 2018) where Wagga is tipped as a growth centre with industries such as tertiary education, freight and logistics and defence singled out for the region. We also note that with population growth that there are specific needs in health and residential care, so as the region’s population expands so will the need for specialised help and residential care.
Not even the seven principles for the Government’s future investment raised a mention.
I also noticed many of the candidates are at last espousing the virtues of the Brindabella Road but no one raised that this vital piece of infrastructure, didn’t even raise a mention in the government’s Future Transport Strategy 2056.
On the whole it was a particular myopic election campaign with no real vision so let’s just hope our candidates for the state election are prepared to question the status quo and have a vision to take the voters and the region on a journey into the future not just tomorrow.
VISION 1 Road and rail tunnel through the Brindabella’s. VISION 2 Candidates with vision, not Yes men/women or hacks.
Have a great day and here’s to the state election.