Dangerous driving in Victoria

There are offences that need to be controlled by the police, Transport Malta or the LESA. Dangerous driving can also be stopped by those who have a role to plan safety on our roads.

The recent public electric night light being used in the centre of Victoria is imposing a danger to drivers during the night.

It is also to be noted that this poor light gets dimmer after midnight.

From the roundabout leading to Fortunato Street along to Republic Street leading to Sabina Square this system is hazardous to people crossing the street and to drivers themselves. Even passers-by walking along the pavements find it difficult to walk safely.

It should also be noted that the zebra crossing lights need attention too, especially those near the schools.

Prevention is better than cure.

Carmel Saliba – Victoria

Blame the owners not their dogs

Photo: Shutterstock.com

It has become like a status symbol to own a dog. Nothing wrong in that.

But what is wrong is taking the dog out for its daily walk (or walks) to do its business on the pavement, in the street, in a public garden, etc. and leaving a mess behind by not collecting the said ‘business’.

Taking a walk along some streets in Buġibba is risking stepping onto one poop or another. I don’t blame the animals. I blame their owners who should know better.

Joseph Cachia – St Paul’s Bay

You cannot harm who does not exist

Charles Pace, in his opinion piece of February 4, addresses some points of my own opinion piece of January 16. But he completely misses the salient point, which I suspect comes from the inability or difficulty of most people to grasp the concept of non-identity, which includes the non-existence of a mental life that gives a body personhood with sentience, awareness and interests.

Science shows us that while a human being starts existing at conception, personhood, which necessarily entails a mental life and an identity over time, starts at 24 weeks after conception when a brain is sufficiently developed to give a foetus at least rudimentary sentience and consciousness of the world.

Self-awareness comes even later, after birth.

Prior to having a sufficiently developed brain (at least at 24 weeks), a person does not exist at all and, therefore, cannot have interests, preferences or desires because there would be no one to have them. At that stage, an organism is only a body with the potential of becoming a person with any interests and, therefore, rights.

Pace fails to even address any of these salient points.

I have written a more comprehensive response under the heading of ‘You cannot harm persons that do not yet exist’

in my blog at https://prochoicethoughtsandarguments.blogspot.com.

Kenneth Cassar – Marsaxlokk