Traffic control – or lollipop people, as we know them – has become another growth industry, but don’t you think all the signs and directions are often overdone?
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
And isn’t it annoying when you cop a ‘work ahead, prepare to stop’ instruction only to find there’s nothing happening there?
The workers are probably having morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, have knocked off for the day or haven’t even begun work, but the signs are still up.
Drivers, too, are often frustrated by a 40km/h speed limit at roadwork sites that at times is far too slow when there doesn’t seem to be any need for it, although if they ignore the signs it could lead to safety risks for the road workers and other drivers.
To prevent this, traffic controllers should keep the 40km/h speed zones to minimum lengths and put up ‘end roadworks’ signs as close to the end of the work as possible, rather than two kilometres farther down the road.
And if a speed zone is put in place for road worker safety, then there should be road workers actually working there.
Isn’t that fair enough?
RUBBISHING OUR OVERUSE OF PACKAGING
MOST Orange garbage bins were overflowing this week with discarded packaging from Christmas presents.
We’re told not to rubbish Australia but it seems inevitable that soon the whole country will disappear under the weight of cardboard cartons, plastic foam, plastic boxes, aluminium cans, bottles and miles of wrapping paper as well as millions of those slippery little foam balls used as packing.
A Christmas present shirt came sealed in cellophane, a piece of cardboard to stiffen the collar and a cardboard insert in the fold.
The whole thing was held together by 16 pins and it took about 10 minutes of rummaging to break the packaging defences, cleverly conceived for some reason or another, to stop you opening it.
And it’s not only at Christmas that we’re forced to dig or cut your way into a magnificently-decorated package to get the contents out.
Even pies come in foil, ice creams like Drumsticks are done up like a sore thumb, and cans hold lots of things like shaving cream, cooking oil, insect repellent, hair spray, paint and, of course, beer and spirits.
Coffee tastes OK in paper cups, milk is fine in cardboard containers, and you’ve got to put corn flakes in something. It’s just the left-over rubbish that’s the agony.
THAT’S THE LAST STRAW … I HOPE
TALKING about packaging, here’s a tip to help the environment. More than 10 million plastic straws are used and discarded in Australia every day, so when dining out over New Year simply say ‘no straw, thanks’ when ordering your drinks.
Most of us don’t use a straw with our drink at home so why use one when we’re out? Plastic straws take about 200 years to break down.
OUR OWN SYDNEY-TO-HOBART LINK
ORANGE had a link (well, sort off) in the Sydney to Hobart, with the super-maxi Black Jack named after motor racing ace Sir Jack Brabham.
Its owner, Brisbane multi-millionaire Peter Harburg, was a close mate of Sir Jack who started his road racing career on the former Gnoo Blas track in Orange.
Sir Jack, a triple F1 world champion, was a regular visitor here for the Gnoo Blas races and the park around the old track is named after him.