A belated reply to the response by councillor Peter Stewart to a resident’s complaint (September 16).
First, it is very true that the City is doing nothing to prevent littering.
Ring JMPD and nothing will happen. Is it now the responsibility of citizens to patrol the streets and ‘take photos’ and then wait for JMPD to arrive?
Removal of rubbish – Pikitup will not remove any plastic bags left out for removal. These do not affect the truck mechanism, it just means a little bit of extra effort.
Purchasing a wheelie bin is expensive and they are easily stolen. Again, this is putting another responsibility on ratepayers, but never mind, the rates will be just increased. Same with petitioning for skips. How long would that take?
Cleaners are not seen in park areas or on our suburban roads. These are very rare people indeed.
I totally agree it is the public’s very wrong attitude to littering, but this is the general change over the years of “I don’t care”, coupled with a total lack of policing, not just on littering, but in behaviour.
Traffic lights, stop signs, lane indicators, (left, right, straight), are routinely ignored, even by police members.
Nowadays, when a traffic light changes to amber this is the signal to speed up with the consequent change to red ignored for at least two or three vehicles.
This changes dramatically where there is a right turn arrow either before or after the green. To inconsiderate drivers this means they have the right to continue turning right regardless of traffic coming towards them.
These acts were, in my opinion, started by the Selous Scouts of the highways and byeways, the taxi drivers.
I have seen JMPD officer’s ignoring this habit regularly.
I stay in Mondeor and there are three ‘rivers’ bordered by parks.
The roads along the park areas are now being taken over by grass, weeds and even trees growing in the road gutters.
Again, no cleaning by either the Parks or JRA. There are pavements that are now part of the parks as the grass has been allowed to grow and cover them completely, and this is continuing.
The road gutters are now breaking up by this uncontrolled growth in areas. This will increase costs exponentially to be corrected, again, no policing.
The same ‘rivers’ are also being choked by weeds, trees, indigenous and exotic plants with cutting and clearing sporadically and selectively being done and others left as is.
The rather sanctimonious remark by Stewart about a behavioural and attitude problem, in my opinion, applies to himself more than the resident. Possibly he should check the role of a councillor with regards to providing services, or the last sentence of ‘concerned resident’ will happen as the ratepayers are definitely ‘gatvol’.
The government has now introduced a merit system for driving, which should be a good thing if the existing traffic laws were enforced correctly instead of having roadblocks for ‘checking licences’ and sometimes the vehicle.
This doesn’t stop the main thing, moving violations.
Why, oh why do we not have compulsory third party insurance anymore?
This would possibly lead to drivers being more careful. Considerate drivers they should be – wishful thinking, but still.
Chris Leach
