Inadequate safety provisions: what do they think they’re running, a gold mine?

Let’s close Targa down permanently if it can’t lift its game.  It’s bad enough that they’re wasting fossil fuel resources in the name of ‘sport’ and/or ‘tourism’.

Justa Bloke, you’re lucky you obviously don’t work in an industry that relies on ‘sport’ or ‘tourism’.

Would that I could be so disparaging.

Wasting fossil fuel resources? I can only guess this was meant to be funny.

We need events like Targa. Speaking as a young person in Tas, I’ve watched many of my friends leave to chase bigger opportunities in mainland states. Leave for the improved ‘culture’ or financial benefits.

I am not a forestry spokesperson.

I am not a government stooge.

But I want Targa, and some of the things other posters on this site don’t want - because if we don’t have them, we’ll just become a backwater for rich retirees and paupers.

Obviously, the safety standards need to be in place, but one accident in ten years is no reason to pull it completely.

Yeah…let’s close the “footy” down too…all those injuries taking up valuable hospital beds and thousands of cars going to matches every week burning all that fuel, huge amounts of money spent on grandstands and the like.
Cabin fever is upon us…………..

Tasmania is not an appropriate place for young people to be if they want those ‘bigger opportunities’.  Of course they should go at least to the mainland if not overseas.

In case nobody else has noticed, Tasmania has always been a backwater for retirees (rich and poor) and a source of raw materials for processing elsewhere.

Tourism has changed this somewhat, but tourism does not create nett wealth.  It merely transfers it.  Forestry, on the other hand, like mining and wool, makes a genuine contribution to the economy.  Pity about what it does to the environment, though.

Nobody needs events like Targa.  This latest accident is not the only one in ten years, Mr G.  Get your facts right.

Racing motor vehicles constitutes an irresponsible use of a finite resource.  It is in a totally different category from other sports in this respect.  There was a time when we had aircraft races.  Nobody would dare do that now.

An irresponsible use of a finite resource? 

Motor racing? 

I can think of more irresponsible uses. Like thousands of people commuting in cars to the Hobart cbd each day, with no passengers.

And I guess little things the safety of the modern motor car owes nothing to initiatives created, and refined by motorsport enthusiasts. 

Like ABS, seatbelts.

I agree that the use of almost empty cars as a means of getting to work in cities each day is much more wasteful, but there is no number of wrongs that will make a right.

It cannot, of course, be proved one way or another whether safety features in modern vehicles would have been developed without motor racing.

Perhaps Targa 2006 will lead to the establishment of better safety procedures for the protection of spectators.  Somehow I feel that they exist already and it is only a matter of whether organisers are happy to put them in place, whatever the cost.

Can’t ban cars…..what about all our pollies and their chauffers…think of all those jobs!!

Then there are all the associated jobs…the trough makers, snout makers etc.

Bless Targa!

OK, Justa, I apologise for generalising when I said one accident in ten years.

And while we could debate exactly what tourism does for the State, I think Tassie can still offer things to young people. Hopefully more in future. There’s no reason we can’t be like other states in Aus, like Victoria or NSW, and have opportunities, arts, cultural benefits.

I look forward to a promising future.

You’re argument about motor sport wasting finite resources is, however, still mental.

I can list a hundred other things to ban first.

I can tell we’re probably just gonna have to agree to disagree this time around though.

Cheers.