Towards the Final Curtain V

The police are at their wits end and are at a loss on what to do next. Hardly a week passes without there  being a death on our roads, drivers taunting police and engaging in police pursuits, which have to be terminated because it’s too dangerous for the police to continue. And if the clown ( not the word I really want to use)  crashes the car and is killed- guess what – it’s the police fault – it was only a car for goodness sake!  And it’s not just males. What made the police and the rest of us, shake collective heads in despair.? Less than five minutes drive from here ( my house)  a driver rolled the car in the scrub,  one passenger was  badly injured and was flown by the RFDS to Adelaide, where he died. The other passenger  suffered “multiple limb injuries” and treated here in hospital as was the driver of the car, who suffered minor injuries. This was NOT the outcome of a police chase.          Ok having taken that in, now take this in – The driver of the car was charged by Major Crime Investigators  with causing death and harm, by Dangerous Driving. There was also a raft of other charges. The Driver of the car was 12 years of age.  The  passenger who died was his 20 year old brother and the other injured person was 11 years of age. In Heaven’s Name – where do we go from here? This is not over – there will be more to come out of this.  The main area for these deaths on the roads is Adelaide and surrounds and it is

concerning me that I have to drive down there in a couple of weeks and right at the moment I am not greatly enthused. A few days later a teenager walked free from court after a crash that killed his passenger, The driver suffered head injuries and said he doesn’t remember the crash or the fact that he was high on drugs and alcohol when he lost control of the car,  so the  Kindly judge gave him a suspended sentence and he walked free from court. In South Australia you can kill someone, go to court, plead guilty and get 40% deduction of your sentence just for pleading  guilty and saving the state the cost of a trial.

I have had an email yesterday which now tells me that there will be no physical meeting next week. The people cannot come to Adelaide from Queensland so the Conference will be by Zoom- which is yet to be set up, so no doubt I will get all the necessary information in the fullness of time.`My problem is that the NBN is not stable in this area and I keep on dropping out. This is what happened at the RFDS Conference – freeze up, then drop out.

I have been doing some further reading on  the South Australian National and Conservation Parks and discovered that with the exception of parts of the Flinders Ranges National Park, to even have  a dog in your car within the bounds of a National Park can still attract a hefty fine. The reason for the part exemption of the Flinders Ranges National Park, is simply that the main road runs through the middle of the park.  However, here’s an interesting thing – I have said that dogs are banned from National Parks – Service Dogs are not. Interesting.

On the subject of the Flinders Ranges, the weather, which is cold, wet and miserable was soo  bad these last few days that it was snowing at the Flinders National Park and there are reports that it looked like a ski area. Apparently it has snowed there before but that was about 60 years ago. So, really, it has been cold here the last week or so. Down here it has just been raining almost constant, but a couple of times it has not really been “rain” but a continual wet and cold Scottish Drizzle. Might not be heavy but it’s just as wet.