Talking Point: Don't believe everything you read on social media

Traffic headed along Kennedy Rd toward Riverbend Rd can no longer turn right into Tom Parker Ave, to shortcut through to Taradale Rd. And it's created a safer street, says one resident.

Traffic headed along Kennedy Rd toward Riverbend Rd can no longer turn right into Tom Parker Ave, to shortcut through to Taradale Rd. And it's created a safer street, says one resident.

Napier people are turning into sheep on Facebook, one myth is posted as fact and suddenly everyone follows in behind, repeating the same mistruth.

It's sad and sometimes it's just nasty.

Take the Tom Parker/Herrick/Morse Street roading changes and councillor (bias) involvement accusations as an example.

I live on Tom Parker and have done for many years.

In about 2014 our neighbourhood support group contacted council after a six-month period where three vehicles, two trees and a dog were hit by speeding cars in the street.

With some corralling by residents the council put speed counting strips out over the next three years, they reported back to us a top speed of 130km/h, a really high average speed and an average car count 7x the normal residential street.

Finally in 2016/17 we, along with works on Morse and Herrick streets, got into council's plans for traffic management changes, even though it was to be four years to wait on the priority list.

In this waiting time we've had numerous more car accidents, fences ploughed into, near misses with children from the childcare centre on the bend and many other car incidents.

Everyone used Tom Parker as a way to avoid the Riverbend lights, that's probably why everyone has noticed the left in and out change, the road hasn't been made one way.

The two (great) councillors we have in the street were really clear with us they couldn't champion the street changes (despite us asking them to) because they lived here, one also moved in years after we had approached council.

In my opinion they kind of went above and beyond to stay at arm's length from driving the work, they even knocked on doors to show residents the plans and make sure no one was unhappy with what the council engineers were proposing (which actually held the project up not fast tracked it).

I think it's absolutely disgusting the comments online about these councillors.

I asked one of them why they don't jump online and defend themselves, she essentially just said she didn't feel like being called a liar and was just happy everyone felt safer, which is a sad reflection of the online world.

If you've participated in that online flogging without asking any questions you should take a step back and consider that everything you read on Facebook certainly is not true!

Stick with newspapers - at least the journalists try to print the truth/both sides to any story.

It's nice to see council every year making roading changes to make streets safer.

Tom Parker, Morse and Herrick Streets are all grateful for the seven-year journey to make our streets a little safer.

Thank you council and best of luck with the Riverbend changes in the mix now.