SOLAR POWER
DAVID Parker must be joking to suggest solar powered desalination plants to provide water to fill the hydro dams (The Examiner, April 23). Pumping water from the sea to dams would use more power than Hydro would produce, without considering the massive cost of desalination and inefficient nature of solar power.
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Robin Claxton, Dilston.
ROAD SAFETY
ABC News on April 21 said that a Tasmanian Road Safety Advisory Council discussion paper will recommend use of devices which block mobile phone signals when drivers enter their cars. Since research continues to show that inattention is a major cause of road crashes, this idea is worth pursuing. But less welcome is the council's Jim Cox again raising the spectre of reducing highway speed limits, a move which has already been discredited as failing to address major causes of road trauma. Studies in Europe and in Tasmania (under the previous government) show that driver fatigue and inattention top the causes of serious road crashes, not excess speed. In fact arising from such studies, jurisdictions like Italy and our own Northern Territory lifted speed limits to reduce fatigue caused by overly-lengthy road trips, and incidents of road trauma went down. Boneheads who regularly burn rubber in souped-up cars will not pay any more attention to newly reduced speed limits than they may currently, but the rest of the law-abiding driving population would suffer the increased fatigue which has already proved to be so damaging.
Bruce Lindsay, Scottsdale.
FOOTBALL RIVALRY
HERE we go again. AFL is in the sights of various people and we all know that what we have in the north those down south want. This time is seems to be more football games down south from maybe Hawthorn. If we lose them from Launceston we might as well pack up and all migrate down to where the action is supposed to be. I hope the council and all those involved in Launceston stand firm and we retain Hawthorn, otherwise that club may find they have many less members.