Letters: Let's have a simple traffic fix

A Dublin Street Bridge car jam. on Wednesday, May 22.

THE traffic congestion illustrations in yesterday's and today's (May 25) Chronicle show hold-ups on the City and Dublin Street bridges caused by the cock-eyed Dublin St roundabout and the ridiculous phasing of the Taupō Quay traffic lights.

In New York and other United States cities, traffic lights go green for the avenue and then green for the street. Pedestrians cross with the lights.

In Whanganui the Taupō Quay lights go green for Taupō Quay north, then green for Taupō Quay south, then green for Victoria Ave, then green for the City Bridge. New York's traffic is probably 100 times greater than Whanganui's and seems to cope quite well with their simple system.

We don't need a new bridge, we don't need expensive experts from Auckland or Wellington to tell us what to do. We do need a practical engineer with just an iota of common sense to look for simple fixes that will make traffic flow instead of blocking it.

Like it does when our lights are switched off?

STEPHEN PALMER
Whanganui

End of life choice

I am guessing Frank Glover (May 24) was in a light-hearted vein (no pun intended) when he suggested he might be able to ask for peanut slabs intravenously to relieve his end-of-life suffering.

Clearly he was not being light-hearted when he wanted "those Doctor Death types" to stay away.

No problem, Mr Glover, because under the End of Life Choice Bill only YOU can make the request for help to hasten your death. Perhaps if you read the bill, only 29 pages of plain English, your mind will be at rest.

You are free to experience all the suffering your condition brings at the end of your life, for as long as you want. Hopefully, you won't be among the unfortunate few (6 per cent, according to the experts in palliative care), whose suffering cannot be relieved. It's hard to imagine why anyone would approve another human being to be forced to endure unbearable suffering, which is what we do now. If we did it to our pet, we'd be criminals.

Animals cannot ask, but we humans can. We need to have the choice.

DIANNE COOPER
Waikanae

Drug legalisation

Mike Hosking, in a Chronicle article, calls me an idiot. I won't be so crass; I will just point out he is a shallow thinker.

He of the shallow mind thinks keeping drugs illegal makes druggies safe. He won't accept that making alcohol illegal did not stop the problems alcohol caused, because it did not stop the supply. Same with drugs. He says making drugs legal is crap policy followed only by idiots.

Making drugs illegal does not stop supply, so we have to find ways to manage the damage. So that is where the thinkers are trying to take us — you too, Mike. Good thinking is done in social isolation; you should try it. We make drugs legal, produced by licensed operations, quality controlled, taxed, and sold through drug stores to people with identifying points cards.

This allows us to know who is using and how much, the computer will red-flag excess use, so, as they are not criminals they can be approached and offered help from the massive sums of money we have saved from policing, court action and jailing costs.

Mike, have you ever stopped to wonder why these North Auckland young people are unemployable because of their drug habits? A bit too deep for you, I suppose.

I'll explain: When you are a child growing up, how difficult it must be to live with pride when your parents are before the courts or in jail. We know the kids that do well grow up in homes where they can develop pride in themselves. These kids don't have that opportunity. It grinds them down, sure doesn't lift them up.

We don't like the problems drugs cause, but we have to have a new approach. Same with abortion. We don't like it, but criminalising it doesn't stop it. Education and free contraception would be a good start.

G.R. SCOWN
Whanganui

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