Letters: Are roads really to blame?

Blair Hartley and other Hamurana and Kaharoa residents are taking action about roads in their area which they think are dangerous. Photo/File

Regarding "Our dangerous roads" (Rotorua Daily Post, Tuesday September 20).
All I can say about that is a bad craftsmen blames his tools, personal responsibility comes to mind.

GAVIN MUIR
Rotorua

Roads not issue

It's not the roads themselves which are dangerous as the subject of your September 20 front page suggests but the drivers on them.

The roads in general are not in good condition thanks largely to an inadequate railway system requiring the need to use heavy trucks on trunk routes. And some roads are not well designed.

Good drivers drive to the conditions whether they be dictated by weather, road surface, geography or traffic and not to a target speed.

We complain about foreign drivers and some have very poor skills, thanks sometimes to systems, of which I have had experience, in which licences can be purchased without experience.

Some licence-issuing authorities even turn a blind eye to applicants buying a test-sitter.

But there are many drivers in New Zealand who show remarkably poor driving skills and habits and survive more through the skill of others than their own. It is too easy to blame the roads.

RICHARD KEAN
Ngongotaha