Target the offenders

Howick reader Graeme Barlow writes: "According to the Good Oil column, the percentage of road deaths involving alcohol in New Zealand is almost double what it is in Britain. Hang on a minute - Britain doesn't even have random stopping or "booze buses". Alcohol-impaired drivers are identified only when they have an accident or their driving attracts the attention of the law, yet clearly we only manage to catch about half as many as the British do before they cause a death. Obviously this is yet another indictment on the tragically flawed road safety policies of the Land Transport Safety Authority and police. Yet they keep ramming it down our throats as though they're the experts. Targeting the serious offenders with a vengeance rather than wasting resources by putting the whole driving population through a gill net is the only way to make progress, and the same applies to speeding."

Carmakers feel the pinch

The drop in the value of the US dollar is putting pressure on many of the world's carmakers. Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz have already reported that the combination of an appreciating euro and a declining dollar has done serious damage to their balance sheets. The rise of the value in the euro also is behind the wave of cost-cutting and the demand for labour concessions that have swept across Germany and much of Western Europe. It's also given rise to speculation that Ford might soon move production of its Jaguar and Volvo vehicles to the US, where it has spare production capacity. Meanwhile, the Japanese yen, up 5 per cent against the US dollar in recent weeks, is putting more pressure on Japanese carmakers, who will be faced with either raising the price of vehicles exported to the US or watching profits dwindle.

We are the world

* Paul Michael Callahan's career as a bank robber started badly when he held up a photocopying shop in Boston, believing it was a bank. "Do you know you're in a copy store and all we can give you is copies?" the shop assistant said. Callahan, 32, fled and then robbed one bank of $200 and another of $2500. But the red-dye pack buried in the $2500 haul exploded and Callahan lost control of his getaway car, veering into a kerb and flattening a tyre. The Boston Globe said police found him hiding in the toilet of a petrol station holding a bag of dye-stained money.

* Patricia Frankhouser was walking on a railway track in Jeannette, Pennsylvania, when she was hit by a train. She suffered cuts and bruises and a broken finger. Now, says the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, she is suing the railway company for not posting signs warning people not to walk on the track because trains might be coming.