We all know that the reason we have all those bicycles rusting away in Brisbane is because academics & planners like a holiday, [called a study tour of course], in Amsterdam, or Copenhagen, those cities of bikes. We know they will never wear out, because no one uses them.

Of course this is just one visible result of the stupidity that comes out of our ivory towers. Unfortunately they can be much worse, & deadly.

I would love to find out which idiot is responsible for the idea piling mounds of earth in the middle of roundabouts. I would hang draw & quarter them, then start with some real punishment.

A local councilor has advised this is a new "slow the traffic" idea from some boffin. Boofhead more likely.

Evidently by preventing cars seeing if the road is clear ahead, it will force them to travel slower than they may, if they knew the road was clear.

A friend who lives near a new one has finally learnt to sleep through the squeal of brakes, if not the occasional crashing noises. But it was the woman just infront of me yesterday I feel most sorry for.

5 cars were rounding this monstrosity, recently built on a sloping intersection. Any gardener could have told our boffin that earth absorbs water, but that water drains down, & out as it collects at a low point. With this bit of brilliant planning, the low point is where the road is downhill, & reverse camber.

Have you guessed where this is going? This poor lady, in a large people carrier was rounding this thing, on a dry sunny day, in a stream of cars traveling at slow to moderate speed, when she encountered the river of water draining from this synthetic hill, & across the road.

She slid into the curb breaking 2 wheels. She was sitting there crying, because some clown could not see the consequences of his plan. I would love to apply the sharp end of a pineapple to the place he keeps his brains.

Quote "How do we get rid of fool planners." easy answer you can't because they were given the job by an even bigger fool.

Every politician, with a portfolio, should have indemnity insurance.

At least then our taxes, their play dough, would be somewhat protected from the incompetence we see in all levels of government.

Now if they (the ministers) are found negligent (take federal labor, where the list is too large to mention) then they would have to forgo a portion of their TAX PAYER FUNDED golden handshake to repay at least some of the waste they resided over.

That's step one.

Step two is to have less pollies but pay them far more, as we are only paying for monkeys at the moment, and that's what we are getting.

There are no voices to balance those who demand such 'initiatives'.

A thirty something resident in a nearby suburb is a typical activist for all sorts of things. A continual nag and serial pest she managed to force the Council to require its park mowing contractors to stack clippings against tree trunks in the mistaken belief that it was good for the trees and 'green'. The brush turkeys move it anyway, so the contractors might as well not use grass catchers in the first place. The local fish wrapper always prints her letters and even gives her the occasional short column to expound her controlling views.

The mounds of concrete at the ends of her short street are her lasting edifice. The residents hate and avoid her. The local tyre and wheel alignment businesses rejoice. If anyone ever asks why council rates are high, just remember that there are dozens more interfering people like this one. But there are many hundreds even thousands more who do not contact the elected local representatives and media to say any different.

Hasbeen it is the kind of remark everyone of us has made, sometimes often.
Maybe rather than remove the planers we should replace them!
With real people.
As we say,often about those handing down judgment, from local magistrates to high couret judges, a wide gap exists between what we think and them.
Rather tragically, in my view, these non Representative folk find jobs for life, getting it wrong.
Bycle lanes that never see a single bike, highway planting, at great costs, of trees that are not known to grow in that area, and fall over and rot in the 5th year after planting.
Roads, concrete and good, with out breakdown lanes or room to park if needed for many kilometers.
Leave it to the experts, expert at not understanding the big picture.

My pet hate is for town planners in relation to bushfires. Take the number of homes lost in Canberra and Vic of recent times.

Yet for fifty years we have known that certain measures can reduce the number of homes lost and still they ignor these things and citizens pay the price.

It is also beyond me how Brisbane city council allowed home construction below the 74 flood level.

Only fools don't learn from history.