Page 1787 - Week 06 - Thursday, 30 July 2020
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John’s service to his club was much appreciated by all members and friends of the Belconnen Rotary Club, including his management of the website, the club’s database and its weekly newsletter. He was well known for his attention to the minutest detail in anything he took on. Remarkably, John has left his entire estate to his college to provide ongoing schooling opportunities for special needs students.
John was not concerned at failing. His personal credo was, “But what if I hadn’t tried?” Because of this, the way John lived his life became a gift to others. Rest in peace, John.
Roads—traffic calming
MRS KIKKERT (Ginninderra) (5.04): Three years ago, I wrote to the then Minister for Transport and City Services to share concerns that had been raised with me by residents who live in and near Hawker’s Delamere and Walhallow streets. One of their main concerns was repeated occurrences of dangerous driving in the two streets. I informed the minister that reckless hooning had been occurring in the area for years and pointed out that these residents had repeatedly asked for traffic calming measures to be installed in order to help address the problem.
The next time I wrote to the minister about these streets I had spoken with residents who told me that they had personally witnessed drag racing taking place in front of their houses, with cars lining up three abreast to race each other—a very dangerous situation. Around this same time, a car that had been travelling well over the speed limit had swerved off the street and smashed into a resident’s fence, leaving skid marks in the driveway and pieces of its headlights embedded in the fence. I included with this letter photographs of the crash site and others showing an abundance of tyre marks in both Walhallow and Delamere streets, many of them showing clear evidence of intentionally erratic skidding. Still no action was taken by this government.
My next step was to write to the Minister for Police and Emergency Services. I shared with him everything mentioned above and asked what he could do to help make these streets safe for residents and other users. In response, the minister stated that law enforcement is the single most significant method of controlling the types of antisocial behaviour that I had reported to him. He then promised that police would conduct patrols in the area, as operational priorities allowed. Again, nothing changed and these problems have been allowed to continue until now.
Two weeks ago I wrote to the current Minister for City Services to again raise the issue of dangerous driving on behalf of residents living in and near Delamere and Walhallow streets. I let him know that I had received numerous reports since 2017 of speeding, hooning, burnouts and drag racing and the many attempts since then to obtain assistance on behalf of these worried residents.
I attached to this letter an image of the change room facility located near the intersection of these two streets. I was told the side of the structure facing the street has been completely smashed as a consequence of still more reckless driving. Residents rightly fear that at some point the property damage caused by drivers using their streets as recreational speedways may turn into serious personal injury.
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