Herald on Sunday editorial: Celebrate the season but take care

Take care and have a happy new year. Photo / Michael Cunningham

Editorial

As we ring out the old and ring in the new, the question is always the same: where did that year go?

It seems no time since we were looking forward to 2017 — until we remember everything that has happened. Nobody at the dawn of the year expected a change of government, not even the Labour Party. Nobody dared predict Team NZ would regain the America's Cup. Nobody imagined a Lions team would draw the series with the All Blacks.

Certainly, nobody predicted the weather. It turned from one of the stormiest years on record to perhaps the earliest summer New Zealanders can remember. Who ever heard of a heatwave in October, lasting through November, driven by an unusually warm La Nina current in the Tasman Sea?

Though it has cooled a little in the last two weeks, and rain belts have passed over a grateful country, usually at night, the warm sea has made the weather more settled than we have come to expect at this time of year.

January is normally the true start of our summer when the ocean has warmed sufficiently and it stays swimmably warm on northern coasts through February, March and into April. So higher ocean temperatures this summer should mean this weather lasts even longer than usual.

The first half of 2018 could be a happy new year indeed.

So lets not spoil the season with more tragedy on the roads. The festive season had barely begun when innocent people were killed by a reckless speeding driver running a red light. Everybody should think, ever time we get behind the wheel, that we and our loved ones could be those innocent people. If that thought does not make us drive carefully, it is hard to imagine what will.

Our so-called highways can be treacherous. A white line separates single lanes of traffic on roads and bends not designed for the speed permitted. Passing lanes seem to make some drivers more impatient.

Dual carriageways with median barriers are gradually coming to the busier highways, south of Auckland, north of Wellington, in the Waikato and around Tauranga. They permit higher speeds which modern cars can do comfortably, but that is not a signal to put the foot down everywhere.

We need to take more care in the water too. A warmer sea this summer is just as prone to rips, holes and surges. Swim between flags where provided.

Take care and have a happy new year.