Letters to the editor: Fed up to the bumper with tailgating drivers

One reader is fed up with SUVs, utes, big trucks and cars tailgating on main highways. Photo / Getty Images

I see police will be investigating why somebody suddenly braked hard causing others behind to do so as well.

Might I suggest it was because somebody was tailgating them.

I used to stab the brake pedal to try to get them to back off but now I turn on the
hazards.

My wife and I are fed up with SUVs, utes, big trucks and cars tailgating us every time we go away on the main highways - even at 105km/h.

I frequently see vehicles 2m behind another. It seems that a large number of people don't consider reaction time.

Drivers need to count, one thousand and one, one thousand and two on dry roads and up to one thousand and three or more on wet roads.

We let tailgaters pass, pulling over at the first opportunity.

Garth Bagnall
Mount Maunganui

Housing a bigger priority

Government spending is at record highs and taxpayers are paying more than $100 million to house homeless people in motel units throughout New Zealand.

Undoubtedly, in this group, many of these people collectively include Māori who the Government has compassionately pledged to help.

In the 2021 Budget, politicians set aside $48m to fund Māori language, so the question is, is this a greater priority than being housed?

At least 120 houses each at $400,000 could be built with $48m.

Luckily, we have enough communication skills to get by and it would be interesting to canvas those (particularly Māori) in homeless situations for their opinion as to their preference so as to derive a people's opinion rather than the political stunt.

Of course, in my raising of this point, someone is bound to pull out the racial card, but this is not what it is about, I am merely suggesting addressing the housing crisis is more urgent.

A prudent Government should use taxpayer funds wisely for the greatest benefit while avoiding a debt-blowout risk.

Jos Nagels
Brookfield

Totally disgusted

I cannot imagine why you have even let the editorial by Jo Raphael about the stench of racism in the air even go to print.

Can people not come to terms with the fact that no one is 100 per cent one race or another and we are all of mixed race?

Get your DNA done as I have and you will find I am right.

We all have perhaps different ancestry but that is all.

Underneath we are all the same. No one can say they are of a single race in this day and age.

Please stop trying to fuel a fire that really isn't there by allowing these sorts of inflammatory editorials. I thought newspapers were supposed to be neutral or at least print both sides to this?

As a proud New Zealander, I am totally disgusted.

Linda Askin
Bethlehem

Thank you

I wanted to thank the kind and quick-thinking Courier Post driver, and dog walkers, who found my mother unconscious outside her Otumoetai house on Friday.

Thankfully, they called for an ambulance, and she was taken to hospital in a very short time.

My mother is recovering well but without the intervention and help of these great citizens, the story may have turned out very differently.

Chris Buckley
Matua

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