Unintended Consequences

On my many travels along the Warrego, I have noticed a strange and growing phenomenon.

There are heaps of Hi-Luxes with hi-viz markings tooling up and down the highway. Invariably, they clump together like some form of mobile soap scum – you know, the pattern that develops on the top of an old washing copper.

I’m old enough to remember that.

Anyway, these utes are all owned by mining companies. These same mining companies have pretty much colonised the Surat basin.

Each and every on of them is fitted with a GPS tracker. This cunning device, sends a signal back to a base somewhere. This signal contains real time information about speed and location.

If a unit exceeds the speed limit, an alarm goes off back in base, and the driver comes in for a grilling.

Consequentially, they all stay 1kph below the limit.

Given that you need to exceed the limit to overtake anyone travelling less than about 90 kph, mining vehicles don’t overtake.

Hence the “clumping” which is inherently quite dangerous, as motorists not carrying tell-tale GPS will try to pass long convoys of slow vehicles.

It indicates centralisation taken to extremes, and is a text-book example of unintended consequences.

And it is dangerous.

Ouch

My bride's car is looking sad after an encounter with a hailstorm

Almost every panel has sustained some damage. It came from nowhere, and there was nowhere to go.

The picture doesn't look too bad, but the turret, the boot lid, and the door panels are all damaged. Even the plastic trim around the number plate was smashed.

We've had a series of evil little super cells which have been popping up everywhere, and moving very quickly.

This is the way these small super cells look on radar.

The insurance companies are thoroughly geared up for this eventuality, and I was able to lodge a claim over the phone, and book an appraisal at the same time.

That's happening next Monday, so unless there's a backlog of vehicles being repaired, repairs shouldn't take too long. It will be interesting to see how much it costs. I reckon at least $2000.

Update
It was closer to $8000!
Car is therefore written off.
Actually, it's an ill wind, as we were in the process of getting quotes on a trade on a new car, and the payout was $3000 better than any dealer was prepared to give. They're doing deals and are swamped with cars at the moment, so are trading low.
Consequently, the order is in for a new car, and the dimpled Focus will be departing forever on the back of a truck tomorrow.

Driving the Warrego

I've been driving up and down the Warrego Highway in this job since 2006, 

and have seen lots of changes.

Not all of them are for the better.

This was brought home to me yesterday when I arrived on the scene of an accident at 6.30 am on the journey West.

It was an all-too-familiar scenario. Two young men in a small sedan had been heading East and had stopped on a three lane section of road (two lanes West; one lane East) to turn on to a side road. A woman driving a larger car had not seen them (sun in her eyes?) and ploughed into the back of their car at full speed.

On that section of road, full speed was probably about 80kph.

By the time I'd pulled up, a bloke in army uniform had helped her out of her car and was doing a good job of looking after her, so I went to the help of the two men in the other car. It had copped a helluva whack, as it was about two-thirds its original length. The fact that it folded up pretty comprehensively, probably contributed to the fact that neither were badly injured, although shocked and bruised.

I sat them down, offered reassurance, and set about trying to make sure that no one else ended up adding to the chaos, as the position of the sun was a problem for the Eastbound traffic.

Most drivers slowed, but about 10% didn't. Unfortunately this 10% are always on the road. I see them all the time.

The towies turned up  in about ten minutes, and the emergency services people in about fifteen. The towies obviously monitor the police frequencies.

Fortunately, none of the injuries were life threatening, but I'd be surprised if the woman in the second car didn't need to spend some time in hospital.

I resumed my 350 km journey, pondering how much more dangerous this road has become since I started driving it seven years ago.

The explosion of mining development in the Surat basin has a cost. There's so much more traffic, the road has been steadily destroyed by the heavy machinery, and seems to need rebuilding every two years.

Your taxes and mine are paying for this. It's a pity the mining companies aren't paying their share, and it doesn't look like they ever will.

A Factor of Ten

Today is Remembrance Day, and our thoughts turn to the winding down of the commitment of Australian troops in Afghanistan, the longest military conflict in our history.

In reflecting on that, two apparently unrelated images caught my eye.

One was a recent video grab of a C-17A landing at Tarin Kowt. On board were the next of kin of Diggers killed in Afghanistan. There was also an interview with a father. It was dignified, but there was a pervading sadness which characterised this man’s responses to the journalist's questions.

The other was a shot I took on a visit to Vietnam a few years ago.

 I was with a group of Vietnam vets conducting a service in the Long Hai hills commemorating the loss of nine diggers from 8RAR in a mine incident in February 1970. I took this photo, because my son, at that time the same age I was when I served there, read the service. I was revisiting – my son was there for the first time.

Caught accidentally in the top left of the shot is one of the 8 RAR crew, a big man, over six feet and built like a truck. Tears were glistening in his eyes.

I rediscovered the photo when I was cleaning up my computer hard drive, eliminating images that were no longer worth keeping. I kept this image, and it immediately connected in my mind with the Tarin Kowt grab.

There is a strong sense of loss associated with both Vietnam and Afghanistan, but that’s not all they have in common.

They were conflicts that hummed away in the background of our daily lives. As a nation involved in both, we weren’t officially at war, but young men and women were in harm’s way 24/7 in countries that most of us hadn’t heard of prior to the military commitments.

There were regular media reports, but generally they skimmed across the surface of the reality experienced by the diggers and their families. Like dingoes howling in the night – we heard them, but there were not affecting our lives. They were always there, always menacing, but well in the background.

For the fathers, mothers, partners and children of these Diggers, they were not background. Whether these soldiers served in Vietnam or Afghanistan their next of kin dealt daily with the understanding that at any time they might hear dreadful news. They accepted this as part of their lived reality.

For most Australian’s however, this was someone else’s dread, someone else’s fear and someone else’s problem.

In 1970, I was the one that was away, so I have no real understanding of how my parents dealt with this dread. It would not have been easy. The two hundred and fifty letters they wrote gave me some inkling.

Both of them detested the policy that sent conscripted men off to war – my father, as was his way, volubly and loudly – my mother, quietly and hidden in her heart.

It’s only since I’ve had children of my own that I’ve begun to appreciate the pervasive dread that came with this situation of separation in conflict. Adapting to separation is difficult enough when children are living normal lives. They do grow up and leave home, after all.

Parents and next of kin living the forced separation driven by involvement in conflict endure a vastly different situation.

For my parents, and the families of the serving soldiers then and now, whether they were in Vietnam or Afghanistan, the fact that their loved ones were constantly in harm’s way must have been hard to accept.

Nothing can be done when living this situation, except to endure, to manage, to focus on the mundane and to carry on. My parents obviously did this, as did my five siblings. I came home safely, and life went on.

For about 500 families, in the case of Vietnam, and 40, in the case of Afghanistan, life changed utterly. Many returned, completely changed, both physically and mentally, and they and their next of kin had to live with that.

Our government sought to honour them, and they did this passably well in the case of Afghanistan. Fallen soldiers were brought home with honour. The Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition were present at the ramp ceremonies. And so they should have been.

Looking back to Vietnam, they did less well. Initially, bodies were not repatriated, but interred in Malaysia. Twenty four casualties of the Vietnam War are buried in the cemetery of the Terendak Garrison at Malacca, in Malaysia. After 1966, they were repatriated, but without any of the ceremony afforded casualties of Afghanistan.

This situation was a product of the times. The war in Vietnam was almost always divisive, and it probably made political and practical sense to treat repatriation in a low key manner. Only the kin of those killed know whether this has been a source of bitterness.

Given that 249 of these casualties were conscripts, it would indeed be surprising if there was no residual hurt. Some of this may have been assuaged to a degree when the recent stalwart efforts to repatriate soldiers missing in action in Vietnam are considered.

The Repatriation of Flying Officer Mike Herbert and Pilot Officer Bob Carver in 2009 were the last two. They went missing during my tour. Bob Carver was from Toowoomba. Now that these two are back, all are home.

It is encouraging to note two other recent developments.

One was the joint visit of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition to Afghanistan to honour the drawing down of our commitment.

The other was the visit of the next of kin to Tarin Kowt.

Maybe in the last forty years our nation has learnt something about honouring our servicemen and women. Maybe we have also learnt to honour the suffering and sacrifice of their next of kin.

As this is written, casualties in Vietnam exceed those in Afghanistan by a factor of ten. Is it reasonable to conclude that during the last forty years our recognition of the sacrifice of our servicemen and women has improved by the same amount?

Paul Kelly at the Empire

I post this because I attended this live performance at the Toowoomba Empire Theatre.

I can't remember the date, think it was 2008 - but I'll stand corrected, gentle reader.

The large unit second from the right, is Mick Albeck, a Thallon lad. The harmonys are magnificent, and the performance electric.

Paul Kelly - Australian musical genius....

Incompetence Vs Conspiracy

Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.

This quote from Napoleon Bonaparte is relevant in the context of a new book written by an Australian ex-detective.

The gist of the story is that John Kennedy was actually killed by a member of his own security detail on November 22nd in 1963.

That, on the face of it, sounds far-fetched, but given the variety and range of conspiracy theories produced since the Kennedy assassination, it’s at least as credible as most.

The interesting point, of course, is that he claims incompetence, rather than a malicious conspiracy, killed Kennedy, and given my personal experience and memories of the weapon in question, I find it strangely compelling.

Put briefly, McClaren (the author) claims that although Kennedy was wounded by a shot fired by Lee Harvey Oswald from the book depository, the shot that killed him was actually an accidental discharge from an AR-15 carried by agent George Hickey who was traveling in the open-topped vehicle following Kennedy’s car in the motorcade.

He bases this on ballistic evidence, and claims that he went to the case in the same way as he did as a detective, with no pre-conceived ideas, and relying purely on verifiable fact.

McClaren claims that the shot that killed Kennedy was a hollow point high velocity round fired from a .223 AR-15, a weapon which in 1963 was a novelty to the security detail. He says that Hickey was not trained on it and was carrying it for the first time on 22nd November 1963.

Occasionally I carried an Armalite rifle 40+ years ago. The Armalite is the military version of the Colt AR-15. I remember that the rotating safety switch had three positions – safe, semi and full auto. Safe was 180 degrees across from full auto. I remember an incident in my unit when a digger (a company clerk) went out on an overnight TAOR patrol carrying an Armalite.

In theory, he was trained on it (a couple of sessions in rookies in Oz), but had never carried the weapon in country.

On the way out through the wire, the clerk tripped, the weapon discharged on full auto, and the high velocity rounds did terrible mischief to the lower leg of the digger in front of him. This bloke was RTAd, and after extensive surgery, his leg was saved.

It was discovered that the weapon was on full auto, which the digger carrying it had confused with the 180 degrees opposite safe.

In the light of this memory, McClaren’s explanation of Kennedy’s death is entirely believable. It’s probably worth a read.

The Great Queensland Bikie Scam

Photo courtesy Mackay Daily Mercury

I've lived in Queensland most of my life, and have never had an encounter with an outlaw motorcycle gang.

That experience would be shared by most Queenslanders. I doubt many of us lie awake at night worrying about bikies.

The Newman government, however, have cottoned on to the obsession the media have with outlaw motorcycle gangs, and are milking it big time.

Big blokes with tatts, big black motorcycles, and fortress-like clubhouses make great TV.

Every night for about a week, the television news has featured a raid on a clubhouse. You'd wonder why they're not all raided at once, until you understand that there's more media mileage made out of stringing it out.

Our police minister says we will now all be able to sleep nights n the clear certainty that we are safe from bikies. I'm not sure that curing insomnia comes within the operational brief of the Police minister, but there you go.

I'm unaware of anywhere else in the world (including one-party and totalitarian states) where it's illegal to wear certain regalia. It was illegal to wear green in Ireland under the British occupation, so I guess it comes from the same colonial handbook.

You can also be charged with gathering in a group of three or more if you are a member of an outlaw motorcycle club. This kind of legislation is typical of one party states. Given the numbers in parliament, and our lack of an upper house, a one-party state describes Queensland pretty well.

Collateral damage is likely.

This article in the Mackay Daily Mercury describes the effect on the Vietnam Veterans' Motorcycle Club - a charity.

From that article -

Wolf believes all motorbike riders are being lumped in with the criminal gangs.
"It's not the guys up here that are causing the problem."
A big concern for him is being forced to remove his patches.
"We're Vietnam Veterans and that's something to be proud of and a way we express our pride for our country," he said.
"It's an insult to the veterans of this country if they try and take our patches off us."