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I sympathise with your correspondent (Letters, 13/11) in relation to bike bells on shared paths. The self-styled lawyer of sound he encountered needs to recognise that supporters of adults and teens with disability (and probably also folks with prams or walking in groups) are most grateful for the bell-ringers, and occasionally befuddled by those who call out “bike”. Who wants to strike or be stricken by another on a shared path? I’m always conscious it is the cyclist who is going to come off harder than us. Beautifully worded letter. Long may your correspondent run, ride and ring.
Genevieve Tucker, Mitcham
Riders, forget the uncoolness
I, too, am one of the 10 per cent of cyclists who understands that it is not just a legal requirement to ring one’s bell to alert pedestrians and slower riders that they are been overtaken, it is also a safety and a courtesy measure. Yes, a few pedestrians turn around and glare at me (how dare you tell me to get out of the way), while the more thoughtful ones actually wave their hand to acknowledge me. Some even say “thank you” as I pass them. And yes, it is a legal requirement to warn others, as noted on VicRoads’ website: “A bicycle rider is required to have a bell or similar warning device on his or her bicycle. When overtaking other path users, a bike rider should use this warning device or his or her voice to warn others.″ Unfortunately, most cyclists think it is not cool to consistently follow this rule. Graeme Daniels, Balwyn North
If you can’t ring, get off and walk around
When I am on shared roads when school finishes for the day, I see schoolchildren get off their bikes and walk across the pedestrian crossing. Can I suggest to your correspondent (13/11) that perhaps a solution be that instead of ringing the bell on his bike, he get off his bike and walk around the walkers on shared paths. If there are too many walkers, perhaps he could use the shared roads.
Marilyn van Loon, Point Lonsdale
To avoid irritation, give a wide berth, silently
My experience with bell ringing on my bike is that it is preferable not to do it. While I have received the very occasional thank you as I have cycled past, more often than not I sense a level of irritation from the pedestrian, and some, on hearing my bell, have even walked over to the right to impede my progress. Others, in some state of confusion when walking two abreast, each move over to the other side of the path so as not to achieve anything. My preference is to not ring the bell and give as wide a berth as possible when passing. That is my preference as well when I am walking.
Graham Bridge, Morwell
Chime in more than once, please
Your correspondent has clearly met a walker with beyond super-human hearing. However, the rest of us walkers appreciate warnings from cyclists. Unfortunately, the few cyclists who give warnings don’t realise how inadequate those warnings are. A ding in a bike shop when buying a bell or a shout in your living room at home might sound loud to a cyclist’s ears. But that in no way replicates the outdoors. Add in ambient noise from traffic, wind and the like, and it only gets worse. A single ding, gentle or otherwise, is barely audible when you’re walking and talking, hard of hearing, or both. Alternatively, while a voice-only warning might be legal, people have nothing like as loud a voice as they imagine they have. Until a better bell is invented (and made compulsory), I suggest more than one single ding. It doesn’t have to be the full Westminster chimes, but even doorbells at a minimum have either one prolonged ring or a ding-dong.
Also, if more than one rider, more than one warning needs to be given, and a warning given when adjacent to a walker is as useless as a motorist turning on their indicator when they’re halfway round a corner.
Margaret Callinan, Hawthorn
FORUM
We’re not selfish …
I strongly object to Liberal Party MP Matthew Bach’s comments (″Selfish, rich geriatrics holding back Libs″, 13/11) when he implies that the elderly who live in Melbourne’s inner and middle suburbs are ″selfish, rich geriatrics″ because they want to keep regulations in place to protect historically significant buildings, open green spaces and tree canopies, all of which improve the health and wellbeing of not only current residents but also future ones.
Planning decisions should not just be made around the idea that destroying what we have to squeeze in more is the only solution.
Intelligent and careful planning decisions will mean housing shortage issues can be addressed by balancing preservation with development so that peace and harmony between all can be maintained. Generational division and animosity is not good politics.
Georgina Manger, Hawthorn East
… We’re not geriatric
Matthew Bach’s remarks concerning the older generation (Comment, 13/11) warrants replies from readers of all ages. Using the term ″geriatric″ so loosely to refer to some of that generation is unfortunate and emotive.
Not all are old, decrepit and in need of care no matter their financial position.
As a group they are not all cashed-up champagne-swilling property moguls either, and many of this older demographic are in dire straits, particularly older women. His use of the qualification ″minority″ is disingenuous at the least.
I suggest Bach exercises a little more care and discretion in the use of this term so as not to offend the remaining ″majority″.
John Paine, Kew East
Fix potholes properly
I travel extensively as a caravan-holidaying retiree, and I was not surprised to see the forecast repair bill for roads is $1 billion (13/11).
The biggest issue from my perspective is the slapdash approach to repairs — a bucket full of bitumen, pour it in the hole, whack it with a shovel, spread some stones or sand on top, job done. The first heavy rain or road train to come along lifts it out and we still have a pothole.
Let’s do a cosmetic fix and create a permanent job doing the same slapdash repairs. How about do it right the first time?
Keith Hawkins, Point Lonsdale
Inspiring words
Thank you to your correspondent and their comments (Letters, 12/11) – “if you have to be against someone, be against the people whose lives depend on conflict”, “demand change to the systems that conspire against the majority and to support the very few”.
Roderick Carmichael, St Kilda
Demands of democracy
Foreign Minister Penny Wong impresses with her earnest appeal to demonstrators to avoid allowing the Israel-Hamas conflict to divide our nation. ″All Australians … have a right to feel safe and to be safe.″ Thus we are reminded that we live in a democracy, a democracy that respects the dignity of the person, a democracy that enjoins the obligation to contribute to mutual wellbeing, a democracy that acknowledges points of difference but relentlessly demands that such differences be handled with respect.
At present, however, regretfully, many of our Israel-Hamas conflict demonstrators seem not to have grasped the moral imperative of living in a democracy and the role it expects of them to play to make our country and the world a better place.
Brian Marshall, Ashburton
Regarding antisemitism
Your correspondent (Letters, 11/11) says it’s important to remember that criticism of Israel is not the same as antisemitism. That’s true when you criticise it as you would any other country. However, when you hold it to completely different standards to other countries, or even deny its right to exist, then it can be regarded as antisemitism.
Robbie Gore, Brighton East
Right to demonstrate
Why are we criticising people’s right to protest over the Israel-Hamas war? Luckily, we are a multicultural society. Unlike John Howard, we can’t expect that our immigrants will take their ethnic and racial identities off at the airport on arrival. They have every right to show their allegiances in such awful times. Both sides have shown respect to the police and each other. There are, of course, some who cross the line. But these demonstrations are a celebration of Australia’s multicultural history not a denigration of it. Demonstrate if you want, but hold off the violence.
John Rome, Mount Lawley
A heart broken
In the Gaza-Israel conflict we need to look calmly at history and recognise the bloody and complicated story which has occurred over many years. I wish our government would take a step back before taking sides. It breaks my heart to see the violence and cruelty inflicted on the innocent from many areas in this war.
Wendy Hebbard,
Woodend
Drop in the rising ocean
I commend the Australian initiative to accept climate-change refugees from Tuvalu. However, reading the summary for policymakers in the latest IPCC report this is a drop in the ocean. Using scientific confidence levels, the IPCC estimates 3.3 to 3.6 billion people live in ″contexts that are highly vulnerable″.
These include exposure to acute food insecurity, floods, drought and storms which largely make indigenous small-scale food producers and those in low-income households 15 times more likely to lose their lives than people elsewhere. Where are the bright world leaders who can fix this problem?
Andrew Smith,
Leongatha
An atoll theory
Once the low-lying islands in the Pacific Ocean become atolls awash with melted ice sheet water, what’s the bet the Chinese government discovers a map with a series of dashes that prove the atolls are part of the South China Sea and thus justify the building of runways and naval bases, and need protection?
Mike Pantzopoulos, Ashburton
Surely mythtaken
It would seem that myths are very hard to break (″Voters cut support for Labor as cost-of-living concerns mount″, 13/11). Despite leaving the country with nearly $1trillion in debt with nothing to show for it, a decade of stagnant wage growth, never delivering a surplus, bungling our transition to renewable energy, wrecking our trade relationship with our biggest partner and wasting billions on pork barrelling, somehow, in the minds of voters, the Coalition remains the better manager of the economy. Baffling.
Ross Hudson, Mount Martha
Not a power of good
Jeff Kennett, when spruiking the selling of the SEC in 1994, said increased competition from the private sector would lead to cheaper electricity prices.
Our regular electricity bill increases since then would suggest otherwise. Now we are being informed that the state government’s new State Electricity Commission, because of its ″unfair″ advantage, may not cut electricity prices because it will be forced to compete on a level playing field with private energy companies (″A power of good? Doubts emerge over the new SEC″, 13/11).
One can only therefore conclude if the original SEC hadn’t been privatised we would have had cheaper electricity today.
Phil Alexander, Eltham
Fiction’s strength
Columnist Malcolm Knox suggests paying adults to read books (Comment, 11/11). The decline in the numbers of people reading books is alarming and Knox rightly points out reasons why this trend needs to change.
I would like to add that fiction, in particular, is what people should be encouraged to read. The Booker Prize-winning writer George Saunders puts it like this: “Fiction is the most effective mind-to-mind communication ever devised.”
Reading fiction is a private experience but the novelist’s imagination fires our own. We discover how other people see the world, from the ancient past to the future. Sometimes we recognise ourselves and get insights into our own lives and motivations.
This can make us more sympathetic to other people’s differences.
Elizabeth Sprigg, Glen Iris
Ebooks are easier
I’m 68, and I only buy carbon-based data retrieval media (aka dead tree books) when I go to book readings and want the author to sign it. Otherwise the considerable number of books I buy and read in a year are all ebooks (Letters, 13/11).
The font in physical books is often too small for my ageing eyes (as too is the printing on many food products, which I often can only read by using the camera on my smartphone).
Wayne Robinson, Kingsley
Never-ending crisis
Once again it has been suggested that we need more immigrants to provide the skills required to build more houses (“Migrants needed to build homes”, 11/11) but without acknowledging that the reason for requiring more houses is to accommodate the increased population. With this sort of muddled thinking we could see housing shortages continue ad infinitum.
Robert Braby, Eltham
Vale Broderick
Thank you to The Age and Brian Nankervis for the wonderful but somewhat overdue tribute to the great musical personality Broderick Smith. I, too, fondly remember his between-song patter and particularly one hilarious description of Bob Dylan’s transition from folk singer to Mexican outlaw bandit.
Ross Bardin,
Williamstown
AND ANOTHER THING
Whistleblowers
In relation to whistleblowers, are the wrong people going on trial?
Hans Paas, Castlemaine
Gaza
Benjamin Netanyahu has offered to help evacuate neonatal babies from a hospital in Gaza that is being bombed. Surely he must realise there is a more immediate and lateral solution to keep the babies safe.
Tony Devereux, Nunawading
The Israel-Hamas war will never be resolved while Netanyahu remains in power.
John Walsh, Watsonia
Perhaps all the protesters in Melbourne could march together for peace rather than separately.
Richard Leeder, Trentham
Furthermore
I don’t know where the reporter for the article ″Eager to please and eager for keys in a market all locked up″ (12/11) buys her milk, but the cost of two litres of milk is $3.10 at Woolworths, $3.09 at Aldi and $3.30 at Coles and IGA. If she is paying close to $5, it must have gold dust in it.
Alan Inchley, Frankston
The ANZ posts a record $7.4billion profit, so we can all have a Merry Christmas.
Paul Custance, Highett
As a regular frequenter of footpaths and shared walking/cycling trails, I very much appreciate the infrequent warning bell of a cyclist approaching behind me. So to your correspondent (Letters, 13/11), ring away loud and proud, especially if you are on the Anniversary Trail.
Marie Nash, Balwyn
Better a tingle than a bingle.
Robin Jensen, Castlemaine
With the state of roads being as they are, will a free tyre repair scheme be part of future electioneering?
Joan Segrave, Healesville
Finally
And I say to myself, what a terrible world. Sorry to spoil your lovely song, Satchmo.
Myra Fisher, Brighton East
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