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HOW TO SUBMIT AN IDEA - by Dieter Fischer

If you ever find the inspiration to write to the government to suggest one of your four-in-the-morning brain-waves, here's some good advice, given from first hand experience:

Do not write your letter on an A4 sheet of paper. Why waste a precious, processed woodchip that blends into zillions of other pieces of paper flooding officials every day. Invariably your letter will get buried amongst piles of files. I explain later what format your letter should take.

Don’t be disappointed if you hear nothing for six months. But don’t get excited either, if you see an envelope in your letterbox within days. It will just be confirmation that your letter was received (and has been buried for resurrection after the next ice age).

Some likely responses will include:

"It has already been suggested, but..."

"It was tried interstate but didn’t work."

"It costs too much." (Money was wasted on an enquiry about the causes of car crashes instead).

"Your suggested system operates overseas and they have more crashes than here."

"Motorists will not understand this concept."

"Road traffic changes take ten years to implement." (I was told this by an authority as we discussed one of my ideas). 

"We are looking into your letter."

This last phrase may put you on cloud ten for a week. But it only means that someone read your letter and thinks there is a possibility of putting a feather into their own cap.

Your idea will be taken to the next annual meeting of the ‘National Road Traffic Vehicle Accident Reduction Strategic Planning Committee’. They meet once a year, which annual meetings usually do. At the first meeting your item is last on the agenda; but there’s no time left to deal with it.

At the second talk-fest, a year later, it is being tabled, but referred to the next meeting. At the third meeting it appears under business arising from previous minutes and eventually passed to a subcommittee. The following year’s meeting is cancelled because of lack of funding and because the road toll had been dropping steadily anyway.

When the subcommittee reports on its finding five thousand car crashes later, it is finally discussed. The delegates from each state raise concerns, because your idea clashes with one of their by-laws. But there is a glimmer of hope: All committee members agree to bring the matter up at their bi-annual state conferences.

How lucky can you be, they all agreed on something!!

Try this to make an impact with your next road safety idea: Order a king-size pizza with the smelliest topping available. Eat it if you can and wash it down with a bottle of Bourbon. This gives you extra courage and inspiration. Do not throw away the Pizza box. Instead, write your suggestion on the inside of the box and mail it. 

You will literally be up their nose and your correspondence won’t get lost under tons of rubble. 

But most of all, you are making it so much easier for those bureaucrats to look into your letter!