Look, all of us know surgeons do a great job. But what you probably don't know is they are rabid publicity hounds. Their PR machine pumps out more releases a week than Sportsbet.
One of the latest calls on the NT government to put an end to unrestricted speed zones on the Stuart Highway, and implies if you are an NT voter you should vote the current mob out if they don't agree with Dr Phil Carson and his colleagues. Now, while the NT has a road toll on a par with Indonesia, Pakistan or Bhutan, since sections of the Stuart Highway have been unrestricted the prang rate has improved and there have been no fatalities.
Here's the thing. For the last two years the road toll in Australia has been going up. As Sydney's Daily Telegraph reported this month, "speed and red-light camera revenue is up (in NSW) — and so are road deaths."
"While the camera revenue used to fund NSW road safety campaigns has risen by 10 per cent to $183 million and the state death toll is up a shocking 25 per cent … the NSW government is spending about $2.3m less on road safety awareness than it did two years earlier."
And if you are the owner of a car made by someone in the VW Group, you would have been heartened by the headline in this week's New York Times: "In the US, VW owners get cash. In Europe, they get plastic tubes."