My introduction to the Shared Zone was when a middle-aged couple waited for my car to approach before stepping off the median strip right in front of me and then abusing me for having trouble stopping in time.
It reminded me of the unsafe procedures going on around Warwick High School where kids flooded out into the busiest street at the busiest time of day, as if they had forgotten everything they had learned about Road Safety in primary school. Rather, had been ALLOWED to forget and no one seemed to see what was so very wrong with what was happening, and still happens now.
Over the years here I have seen numerous adults walking their kids across the busy road to Central State School when they were only 20 feet away from the controlled crossing. I see people do that near every crossing in town, so I understand that a deeper issue is involved.
And this is the crux of my argument against the use of Shared Zones in Warwick. The responsibility for the safety of people with apparently little intelligence, teens with their focus on their mobile phone screen, and anyone else who intends to take a risk is now squarely on my shoulders.
It’s bad enough that many people in Warwick can’t seem to comprehend how to use a roundabout correctly without turning it into a game of chicken to see who is the fastest to enter and force right of way. Of course this includes those who simply refuse to give way to their right no matter what, as I have seen an off-duty police officer do.. and one who was on duty but with no lights blazing to not have to give way. If these Public Servants flaunt the road laws it is no wonder that the rest of the people do too.
It should come as no surprise then that with this kind of attitude from so many drivers and pedestrians in Warwick that the whole scenario of roads and crossings in Warwick needs to be overhauled into some semblance of sanity.
Perhaps the introduction of speed bumps before roundabouts and pedestrian crossings would be a sensible move, as was done in Kingaroy in the late 1990’s. It works there.
I am opposed to the extension of this Shared Zone all the way up to the high school. It is sheer insanity and only panders to the less intelligent, which then creates further problems for the rest of us. I do expect to see someone getting run over sometime in the next 6 to 12 months because of this Council’s lack of foresight and intelligence in town planning.
Mark Aubrey
Warwick
