Not only but also...

#13 - Their gut-churning, head-spinning, hand-wringing, downright stupidity.

This, while seeming quite a broad category, actually isn't. I'm referring to those people who, following the collision between a four year old and a car outside a child-care centre, are now calling for the 40km/h School Zone to be applied outside all child care centres and kindergartens.

Apparently this child 'ran away' from his mother, and managed to throw himself in front of a car in the process. This is the Speed Limit (and ipso facto, the Driver's) fault. NOT the parent's fault...

Why don't we just go the whole hog and make ALL roads 40km/h, because you never can be too sure when a kamikaze toddler isn't going to do his dash???? I mean, he could sneakily wait until he was passed the 'School Zone' before making a break for it... and then what would we do? Hmmm? Better to be safe than sorry...

This has got me as cranky as when they changed the speed limit on the Highway at Heathcote to 50k/h...

GRRRRRRR.....

Lordy! And yet MORE things...

I'm adding to my 10 Things list, having given myself poetic licence to extend it to infinity (and beyond. obvs.)


11. Their inability to use appropriate child restraints in cars.

I don't care how inconvenient it is for you to strap your 3 year old into a booster seat. Seeing him sliding around the bench seat of a Tarago with NO SEAT BELT whatsoever makes my blood boil. Seeing it happen every single week when I drop my daughters off at child-care raises my ire to the point where I Will Slap You.

You have been warned.

12. Their incomprehension of the term 'Presumption of Innocence'

Messrs Iemma, Hatzistergos, O'Farrell et al - I'm talking to you (and completely leaving aside the Haneef case). From TVNZ:

A 25-year-old man will face court next month charged with maliciously inflicting grievous bodily harm as a result of the incident on the Princes Highway at Kiama, in southern NSW, in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Wollongong Police Sergeant John Klepczarek denied media reports the man was only granted police bail because of a lack of space in the region's police watch-house.
However, Premier Morris Iemma said he would seek a briefing from NSW Attorney-General John Hatzistergos over the granting of bail.
"I'm deeply distressed and disturbed by this incident," Iemma told reporters.
"It appears that ... the alleged perpetrator was not a young person or a juvenile who might not have been mature enough.
"Leaving aside whether this person is guilty or not, an incident of throwing a rock off a bridge that straddles a road or motorway, leaving aside individuals concerned, is an act of gross irresponsibility...

...Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell said the granting of bail to the man charged over the incident was sending "the wrong signal" to the community.
"We're talking about a serious issue, so serious that the law says that up to seven or eight years' jail should be served if a person is found guilty," O'Farrell told Southern Cross Broadcasting.
" ... clearly it's always about striking a balance and I just think that the balance in the application of the bail in this particular incident is sending the wrong signal to the community.
"Something horrendous has happened and it should have been met with, I think, a more serious response in terms of the application of the state's bail laws."

This man has been apprehended, charged and released on conditional bail until he faces court in a month's time. I always thought that bail was only NOT granted in exceptional circumstances. Apparently I was wrong. We need to keep everyone who has been charged with any offence locked up. It's what the community expects you see...


Expect more peoples... I'm cranky and I ain't afraid to show it!