According to the World Health Organisation, approximately 1,250,000 human beings are killed every year in motor vehicle accidents across the globe. Here in Australia, 1,225 people died on our roads in 2017. Please ….. just think about those numbers for a moment.

If a politician suggested that the rights of Australians to own and use motor vehicles should be heavily restricted to combat the terrifying carnage on our roads ….. that politician would be out of a job in short order …. and rightly so.

In recent years, our government and governments all over the world have expended enormous energy and expense, fighting the good fight against the scourge of terrorism.

Over the last few years, when presumably something like 3,500 Australians died on our roads, the total local deaths from terrorism was almost zero. Globally, the number of terrorism deaths relative to the world population is almost nothing while 1,250,000 lives are lost in motor accidents every single year. That’s even allowing for the desperate desire of Government and the media to conjure up the terrorism bogeyman whenever there is any lunatic act of mindless violence in our midst. But here in Australia, our Government has used the alleged terrible threat from terrorism to severely restrict the rights of every single Australian .. their rights to privacy, rights to free speech and their right to due process under the law (if suspected of activities linked to terrorism).

While the Government has been busy collecting data on your private use of the internet, passing laws to remove your legal rights and expanding the so-called ‘security forces’ to ensure your safety from all those alleged terrorists, your response has been to applaud their every effort. We’ve got more heavily armed para-military style goons wandering around than you can poke a stick at.

How is it that you are cool with the Government doing bugger all, while thousands of your friends, relatives and loved ones are dying on our roads and …. at the same time ….. you don’t seem to give a toss that they are doing so much to destroy your personal rights and freedoms? How is it that you dare to venture out onto our roadways every day with no particular concern for the danger, but if some politician utters the word terrorism, you totally lose your mind?

Perhaps you imagine that, with all that publicity, we have a terrorist problem. The fact is, even if you’ve managed to survive the carnage on our roads, you’re far more likely to be killed by a member of our police/security forces, than by any terrorist.

Makes me wonder just what it was that all those heroes we like to celebrate on ANZAC Day actually died to protect. We’re giving it away without a thought.

Andrew Caddle

www.andrewcaddle.com