[municipal officers] brain scans called for

Wastage, sheer wastage. Apoplexy. I need to calm down enough to explain.

I live on a six lane highway and to give the town planners credit, it is neither noisy nor excessively dirty. There are trees down the centre and on either side. Pretty. But people have to cross that road and there are no crossing points, no lights, nothing.

So we take our chances. Because of the traffic light configuration half a kilometre away in either direction, the traffic comes in waves and if one is patient, crossing is no big deal. Noone steps on the grass as there are a number of regular, well worn paths which serve well.

Question - how much would one of those wrought iron fence sections cost? $100? I've just been on our median strip now and they've sunk holes for pouring concrete today and I estimate they have about 2 or 3000 of these fence sections lying on the grass down the length of the road on either side of the median strip.

Purpose? To stop residents crossing. Ostensibly to protect the grass and trees. To stop older residents getting hit by cars and killed.

Guess what? It's going to stop no one. We MUST cross to get to the carparks and bus stops. People will continue to cross and here's the thing - they must now negotiate waist high fences instead of being able to step onto the pathway as before. Can you imagine the mayhem this winter on the slipepry icy roads?

This is going to leave people, especially the older ones, vulnerable to speeding traffic and will cause injuries from falling and the biggie of them all - leave anyone who crosses vulnerable to fines for crossing there instead of walking the half kilometre to the traffic lights and then half a kilometre back again on the other side.

By putting up these fences at an estimated $250 000, they will recoup it from fines from residents and from taxpayers over the next ten years. This also means police deployed to keep an eye on recalcitrant residents.

And for what? For what? Why bother in the first place? Isn't this typical of authority everywhere:

1] No concern whatsoever for the ordinary resident;

2] Half-arsed, super expensive solution to a non-existent problem when the real problems go untouched;

3] The ordinary resident pays through the nose for the inefficiency of the authorities;

4] Rather than the residents having the municipal authorities working for them, the latter see themselves as somehow a governing body to impose their own will on the very people who ostensibly elected them;

5] The lifestyle well-being index drops another five points and makes modern city living just that little bit more unbearable.

I did not order these barricades to be bought. I demand a brainscan be done on all municipal authorities and officers to ascertain the cause of the blockage. You are not "bosses" of us in any shape or form. We are the bosses - the taxpayers. You are just paid, elected officials doing your job for as long as we pay our taxes and deem that the job you're doing is satisfactory.

That's all.