An extraordinary claim
I write in regard to The Border Mail story about wire rope barriers ('Saved by barriers', August 17).
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A VicRoads spokesman said wire rope barriers (WRBs) were hit nearly 250 times this year. He/she stated that "each strike has averted a potentially serious collision".
A picture of a red Holden sedan that ran with the story showed the front passenger wheel ripped out of the car, presumably by wire rope barriers.
The wire rope barriers are easily damaged and when that happens, the entire structure is weakened. Repairs require a trained two-man crew with a truck, appropriate tools and spare parts so repairs cost more than repairs to other types of barriers. VicRoads diverted money from country road repairs to WRB repairs.
Wire rope barriers also have a short working life. Replacements cost more than other barriers over time. WRB work for up to 20 years. Concrete barriers, which are much safer for motorcycle, scooter and bicycle riders, last up to 80 years.
What I found extraordinary about the VicRoads statement in The Border Mail was the claim that each strike averted a potentially serious collision. How can even VicRoads spin doctors make such an outrageous claim.
If it's based on science, let's see the reports and the methodology used to prove this claim. Perhaps, given the huge number of our tax dollars spent on WRB, the VicRoads spokesman was more of a VicRoads salesman?
Damien Codognotto OAM, Motorcycle Riders Association
Hope, not despair
Roma Freeman in her letter, 'Well done Justin', The Border Mail, August 15, discusses suicide and abortion and whether either act should involve prosecution under the law. I wonder how we as a society should decide which acts that involve the deliberate taking of a human life should be prosecuted and which should not?
But what a very unenlightened world it seems when the majority of suicides (and attempted suicides) are a desperate cry for help or the result of a person falling into a state of hopelessness; and the termination of a pregnancy which the 'enlightened' science of today shows clearly is the ending of the life of a human baby (a baby's heart beats at 21 days) so often occurs because the mother feels she has no other choice. Let us work towards being a society that chooses hope not despair, love not hate, life not death.
Clare Ryan, Jindera
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