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We're back!

We spent the festive season with extended family in the Northern Rivers district of New South Wales. The drought was well and truly broken while we were there ... think torrential rain, wild surf and local flooding.

On our return, and as luck would have it, we beat the flooding of the Pacific Highway by a couple of hours.

It's been eight years since I've done the drive north from Sydney to Queensland. The highway has improved with some nice stretches of dual carriageway, but a lot of it is still the two lane goat track remembered from decades ago. I suppose that's why the authorities have chosen to regularly punctuate the inferior bits with fixed speed cameras.

The cameras are effective in making this driver aware of his speed, but you have to wonder their overall effectiveness when Victoria scored the worst road toll between Christmas and New Year. This is the state littered with cameras, but unlike other states, they don't warn drivers of their location, a move that various road safety "know it alls" have been advocating for years.

When you consider that Victoria has arguably the best roads and the strictest road laws in the country, their woeful Christmas road toll shows that punitive measures aimed at drivers don't always have the desired results.

And one other thing ... Would the NSW authorities please get some consistency when allocating speed limits on dual carriageways. Various sections of the Pacific Highway were posted at either 100 or 110 km/h with no noticeable difference in layout or facilities. These can lead to nasty consequences during periods of double demerits.

All four of you!

Used to be eight, but the renovations have done nothing for the readership! Perhaps I should post more ...

Anyway, "The Pigs" is taking a break but hopefully should be back in the New Year.

Many thanks to all those who've visited and left comments.

Have a safe and happy New Year.

Welcome to the remodeled Pigs. A publisher upgrade meant new templates which are a work in progress. Proper posts will be even more haphazard as a result of the back room work.

I caught this interview on Radio National a couple of weeks ago while driving to work. Normally, I would have missed most of it due to arriving at my workplace well before it concluded, but I was so taken with what this guy was saying, I stayed in the car to listen to the whole thing. I found it fascinating.

The transcripts and audio mp3 can be obtained from here.

The Doctor puts the finger squarely on the food industry as one reason why so many more people are fat today than was the case 20 years ago.

A few extracts follow, with my emphasis, but I recommend you read, or preferably, listen to, the whole thing.

I still find it ironic that in the aftermath of the 1996 Port Arthur massacre which claimed 35 lives, John Howard, Australia's ultra-conservative Prime Minister, took a politically brave stand against the Australian gun lobby and forced the states to restrict the ownership of semi-automatic weapons.

At the same time, he provided millions of dollars to buy back newly banned weapons, removing them from the community.

Critical as I am of Howard and his miserable conservative government, this is an action that earned my grudging respect. Popular political wisdom stated the gun lobby was untouchable. Howard proved that the lobby didn't have much support in the wider community.

I'd like to think, but I'm not convinced, that a Prime Minister from the other side of politics would have made the same stand.

Now, over ten years later, and after yet another firearm massacre in the US, it seems that Howard's action has shown a quantifiable benefit.

THE tough gun controls introduced after the Port Arthur massacre have probably saved about 2500 lives, economists say.

Debunking a widely reported study to the contrary, their analysis suggests that removing 600,000 guns from circulation has sharply reduced suicide and murder rates ...

... Andrew Leigh, at the Australian National University, and Christine Neill of Canada's Wilfrid Laurier University found a sharp, statistically significant reduction in murder and suicide.

"There were on average 250 fewer firearm deaths per year after the implementation of the National Firearms Agreement than would have been expected," they said.

Using deaths data since 1915, the authors estimated gun control had led to about 35 fewer murders and 247 fewer suicides annually since 1997. They calculate slightly smaller numbers when their statistical model is restricted to data after 1969.

It's heartening that there's empirical evidence supporting what many suspected. Restricting firearms in the broad community saves lives.

Background: For readers unfamiliar with Australian gun laws, here is a Wikipedia article that gives a good overview.

But not gone forever. Just incredibly time poor at the moment.

Some local residents enjoying a free meal.

If only our local member knew. He'd soon put an end to that!

Pretty, aren't they?

An afterthought ... Do you think they're as pretty as Maxine?

A safe and happy holiday season to my three regular readers, and anyone else who stumbles across this corner of the net.

The Sty will be in recess for the next month with even less posts than normal. (Hard to believe, I know!)

In fact, we may be off the air for a period of time. The ancient PC on which I host the site needs urgent attention, and one of the drawbacks of not paying someone to host the site is compromised availability.

We're looking forward to the coming NSW State and Federal elections.

See you next year.

In a performance that would make an ambulance chasing lawyer proud, the Pedestrian Council of Australia (PCA) managed, yet again, to get a mention in a news item related to a road accident. This latest instance was on ABC radio early on Monday morning, when reporting an accident that claimed the lives of four north coast NSW teenagers.

Included in the news item was the PCA pushing some of its extremist agenda regarding road safety. Raise the minimum age to obtain a licence and limit the number of passengers provisional drivers can carry. Simplistic solutions to complex problems.

The PCA, an anti-motoring lobby group, has a habit of obtaining this sort of publicity. Its access to the country's news rooms is extraordinary.

It's easy to imagine the PCA's CEO, Harold Scruby, having a bunch of generic news release templates on hand, ready to fax to news rooms at a moments notice. These releases make it easy for news writers to include a quick reaction to the event, before an official response is available.

The PCA has a right to state their views. I just wish that news editors would resist the urge to quote them whenever a road safety related news event happens. The PCA is unashamedly anti-motorist, and has undeservedly become the de facto voice of road safety opinion in NSW ... one that has far more influence than it deserves.

Footnote: Let me stress that I'm not trivialising the shocking accident that claimed the lives of four young men. As a parent, and knowing what I was like when first obtaining a licence, I am very concerned about the risks facing my kids when they are old enough to drive. But I also acknowledge that obtaining a licence is now far more arduous than it was 30 years ago when I obtained mine. Then, qualifying for a learner's permit was simply a matter of fronting with a birth certificate. No knowledge of driving was required. You could attempt (and often pass) a driving test with negligible driving experience. Provisional licences lasted only 12 months. There were no restrictions regarding alcohol consumption for inexperienced drivers.

Young drivers today face a far more demanding licencing regime, yet, tragically, some of them still get killed in accidents. Unfortunately, even if the PCA's measures were introduced, young drivers would contribute to the road toll. I don't believe that placing more restrictions on young drivers is the answer.

Eventually, parents have to hope they've instilled enough common sense in their kids to prevent them from placing themselves at risk, and pray that they won't be the very small minority who end up in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Strong winds experienced last weekend have played havoc to the Sty's power connection, which requires rectification work over the next couple of days.

As a precaution, I'll be shutting down the server while the repairs are taking place. Everything should be up and running by Sunday.