Posts by Lucy Stewart
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Doesn't change the fact that aggressive driving in articulated trucks is inherently much more dangerous to my health than aggressive driving in SUVs.
Given the size of car I drive, the result is going to be pretty much the same whether it's an SUV or an articulated truck. And there are a lot more SUVs around.
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Keep people off the road?
Well, it'd drop the road toll pretty substantially, wouldn't it? ;)
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If a particular type of driver is not courteous, or drives unsafely, it is a driver education issue. This suggests a response aimed at improving driving standards is required. Railing against their vehicle seems a bit stupid, and unlikely to address the issue of driver behaviour.
Doesn't change the fact that aggressive driving in SUVs is inherently much more dangerous to my health than aggressive driving in small cars. Sure, I'd like to see better driver behaviour overall. But given the way SUVs aid and abet aggressive driving - as well as being more dangerous to other drivers, worse for the environment in city-driving situations, etectera - I think it's fair to wish heartily that people stopped driving the bloody things unless they had a need for them. Note that I'm not advocating banning SUVs - they definitely have their uses. I'm advocating people ceasing to use them as a status symbol in the inner city.
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It's like blaming aerosol cans for tagging, it just doesn't make sense.
SUVs don't kill people, people kill people?
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Vans, trucks, buses and horsefloats need to be that big by virtue of their function. Likewise, by virtue of their function, they are quite rare.
Furthermore, it has been my experience as the driver of a small car that buses and trucks tend to be quite curteous when it comes to matters such as letting one turn right on a busy road, being mindful of the fact that the vehicles in front of them might want to slow down and turn at some point, etcetera. The SUVs are usually driven by idiots who wouldn't stop for their dying grandmother and will sit about half a metre from your rear bumper because you have the temerity to be driving at 49kmph in a 50k zone.
It may be true that it's the driver, not the car, but in that case I'd question why SUVs attract that sort of driver. In fact, there does tend to be one exception to the SUV-drivers-suck rule: SUVs which are covered in about an inch of mud, i.e., are or have been used for a purpose suited to their size and power, tend to be driven curteously. It's the shiny ones that have clearly never left the city you gotta watch out for.
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This is entirely unscientific, but back when I first started driving in Christchurch (late 80s) people stopped when the light turned amber, so you could do a right turn then. Now though - people keep on going straight through until the lights on the cross street turn green.
That's definitely a big part of the problem. The worst bit is that you usually can't tell whether they're going to shoot through or stop until the very last second. And don't get me started on people in fricking great SUVs waiting to turn left who make it impossible to see whether there's anyone coming straight through anyhow. Forget the dangers to the environment; the things make driving actively dangerous for those of us in small cars.
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Look no further than the proposed strengthening of penalties for running red lights - 75 demerit points - which may or may not have come into effect yet. The police don't bloody enforce the red light laws now, so what's the point of giving them harsher penalties to not dish out?
And before they run around cracking down, they could also consider installing turning arrows at some of the many, many intersections in Christchurch where, during peak traffic, it is functionally impossible to turn right without running a red for at least some of the turn.
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They generally can't write headlines, standfirsts or captions either. It's basically a mess.
When I'm perusing the Stuff and Herald websites of a morning, my fiance is often subject to loud mutters about the quality of the editing. I mean, apostrophe misuse is present in headlines on a weekly basis. The only consolation is that I'm not paying to read it.
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I think I like this observation best:
Finlay Macdonald confesses: “I was talking to a friend the other night about the ultimate Listener cover. We decided it would be 'Do House Prices Make You Look Fat?' We would have to put something about NCEA in the by-line too - just to be safe.”
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It's always struck me as one of socialism's great problems is the association with Chardonnay. If Riesling had an ideology, that would be something to fight for.
Most of the wine-drinking socialist types I know go for a nice sav blanc, come to think of it.