ag-23nov2012

Page 1

www.guardianONLINE.co.nz

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Guardian

Ashburton

www.guardianONLINE.co.nz

Friday, November 23, 2012

FIRST PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 27, 1879

Deadly warning on fakes

Call Mark and Rachel Allred M:(027) 490 9991 P:(03) 303 3093 AH:(03) 303 3190 Licensed Real Estate Agents www.professionals.co.nz

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College puts wannabe tradies on course for jobs By Myles Hume

By Sam Morton Carrying a fake gun can have fatal consequences, says Canterbury’s Armed Offenders boss. Inspector Bryan Buck said police officers do not have time to decide if a fake gun is the real thing or not and all callouts are treated as serious incidents – until officers can prove otherwise. His comments follow a recent incident, involving a small group of teenagers pointing an imitation handgun through a car window and jokingly shooting dead a Chertsey resident in an Ashburton carpark. The boy’s mother Dianne Butters said the incident had left her shaken and she was worried for her son’s safety – pointing out the gun could have easily been real. “The boy comes over to the car, sticks his hands down his pants, pulls out a handgun, points it through the window at my son and yells, ‘BANG, YOU’RE DEAD’. “My son is putting on a brave face and he knows it wasn’t real, but for that split second, you just wouldn’t know,” Mrs Butters said. Mr Buck said people acting irresponsibly with fake guns in public were continually frustrating police and in the worst case scenario an incident could result in a tragic outcome. “It could end very badly for some young person – from a police point of view we always treat every AOS callout with a high level of urgency and until it is proved the gun is of no threat – we cannot act otherwise,” he

Methven Real Estate Ltd

A hammer in hand and a tape measure nearby only feels natural now for Tom Soal. The experience he gained throughout the year as a builder has meant he has been able to seamlessly slip into his new role, all thanks to the Ashburton College trades course. Tom was one of 10 boys on the course who have secured jobs in Ashburton, marking one of the most successful years for the course that has seen a lull of employment in recent years. Two job offers from building companies left the 17-year-old with a difficult choice after making an impression while he was on work experience during the school year. “I initially wanted to do panel beating or painting, I was always quite good at metalwork and woodwork so I thought I would give building a go. “I realised this is what I wanted to do and worked real hard, and then I got offered something.” The course offers pupils an

A fake or a real firearm - do you want to want to make the call? said. “I would challenge any person whether they are from the media, the community or anyone at all to tell the difference between a real gun and an imitation one – it is almost impossible to tell between the two and that’s why we treat all callouts as the real thing.” Mr Buck said people choosing to use a fake gun irresponsibly can expect to be arrested and prosecuted. “If people choose to use the toy guns irresponsibly and start pointing them at other people, then they can expect a full AOS callout to follow. “It’s not ideal, but until it can be proved the gun doesn’t fire bullets – then we cannot afford not to treat it as serious and in our view it is always the real thing,” he said. “If an officer was faced with someone holding a gun, the most awful scenario would be the officer could shoot the person – it is not up to the officer to decide in the spur of the moment if the gun is real or if it is an imitation gun – they could be crucial seconds wasted,” Mr Buck said. Carrying a gun of any kind, fake or not, could result in an arrest and further prosecution.

Photo Tetsuro Mitomo 221112-TM-234

LEFT: Tom Soal, 17, has landed a job as a builder after making an impression in the trades course at Ashburton College. Success has flowed through the course where nine other boys had also secured jobs in the trade sector.

extensive list where they can pick eight trades from. They get to sample these occupations with on-job work experience then focus on the industry they enjoy the most. Ashburton College trades course co-ordinator Chris Thompson said it was “extremely satisfying” to have 10 of the 16 boys who were enrolled in the course out in the real world. “It’s neat when you go down to get your car fixed and there’s one of the former trades boys working there on my car,” he said. Mr Thompson said it was showing no signs of slowing down, with 26 boys showing interest for the course next year, however after an extensive interview process that will be whittled down to 16. Mr Thompson agreed with local employers, saying the high number of employed pupils appeared to be down to growth in the district, which meant the trades sector was inundated with work. While some of the boys had picked up jobs as a vehicle mechanic or auto electrician, most were building or in building related trades, which were vital to the swelling dairy industry, Mr Thompson said. “We are lucky here with farming going well and things picking up in Christchurch, meaning there’s a demand for students.” Abundance of work here, P3

Highway 77 has Canty’s highest risk factor By Erin Tasker A stretch of a Mid Canterbury highway is the riskiest in Canterbury when it comes to the chances of being involved in a serious or fatal crash. According to the latest KiwiRAP report, released yesterday, the stretch of State Highway 77 which runs from Ashburton to Darfield is 93.7km of high risk road, with an annual average fatal and serious injury crash per 100 million vehicle kilometres, personal risk factor of 13 – Canterbury’s highest. KiwiRAP is a partnership between the NZ Transport Agency, the NZ Automobile Association, Ministry of Transport, ACC and NZ Police, and produces reports evaluating nearly 11,000km of New Zealand’s state highways. It is an interna-

tionally recognised road assessment programme that aims to identify state highways where crash risks are highest, so that safety improvements can be better targeted. It shows that the highway between Ashburton and Darfield has gone from a low risk, to a high risk, when it comes to personal risk between the 2002-2006 and 2007-2011 data periods. It’s one of five high risk stretches of highway in Canterbury. Personal risk is a measure of the risk to each individual using the highway and takes into account the traffic volume on each section of the highway. There were 21 serious injury crashes on the road between 2007 and 2011, and six fatalities. The road’s collective risk is classes as low to medium though, with an annual average fatal and serious

injury crashes per kilometre risk of 0.06. Collective risk is a measure of the total number of fatal and serious injury crashes per kilometre over a section of road and roads with higher traffic volumes generally have a higher risk. There are no sections of highway in Canterbury which carry a high collective risk. But overall, New Zealand’s state highways have had a significant reduction in fatal and serious injury crashes and become safer over the last five years, the report shows. The state highway network accounts for more than half of New Zealand’s road fatalities. So far this year only one of Mid Canterbury’s six road deaths has occurred on a state highway – that death occurred just this week. NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) Canterbury-West Coast State high-

ways manager Colin Knaggs, said over 80 per cent of state highways in the regions were now in the mediumlow or low collective KiwiRAP risk bands. There were no high collective risk highways in these regions. Mr Knaggs said KiwiRAP was a powerful tool for increasing public awareness that not all roads were equal. “This can help road users to know where they need to take more care in some areas in comparison with others, including always driving to the conditions, Mr Knaggs said. The report looked at two other stretches of Mid Canterbury highway. State Highway One from Ashburton to Timaru carries a low personal risk and a medium collective risk, while State Highway One from Ashburton to Christchurch carries a low personal risk and a medium-high collective risk.

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