Eucalyptus Branch Fall in Mugga Way Red Hill 6/3/2014

Gum trees seem to be the sharks of the land. They lurk beside the road and then suddenly attack without warning or reason. Can’t we just get the Western Australian government to identify which ones are dangerous, cull them, and throw the rest back?

The kid who was killed by the falling branch wasn’t in Qld. It happened in Pitt Town, which is a dormitory suburb in Sydney’s north west near Richmond and Windsor.

Well, this really means that everyone travelling on the CapMetro Eclectic Tram (some time in the future) up the Northbourne Avenue transit strip will have to wear helmets.
Then again, if the helmets save them from a falling branch they will be electrocuted from the falling overhead wires or if they survive that they will be cremated by the residual fire.
I hope there is insurance available.

What about meteorites? They fall down sometimes too. What is the government *doing* about them?

And hailstones! Some fo them are really big and really dangerous – the government should *do* something about hailstones.

And lightning! How unsafe is that? Instead of allowed uncontrolled multi-million-volt discharges into populated suburbs without warning, the government should *do* something about lightning.

I am amazed about your story of a bunch of humans pulling together to clean up the road. If it was me, I would have stood idle, gawking, wringing my hands and demanding that the government *do* somthing about the mess.

A seven year old boy was killed by a falling tree branch at Brindabella Christian College in 2001 as well.

Reports from the similar death in Sydney recently point out that there was no sign that the branch was going to fall – the tree appeared healthy, the exterior looked fine, but a branch still came down. That tree wouldn’t have been removed or cut back due to being identified as dangerous, because nothing indicated that it was.

I’ve experienced a similar near-miss at home. Friends who were over a few years back, during a very windy night, were just leaving. We were saying goodbye to them on our front porch, when a tree across the road came down. It pretty much landed where our friends car would have been while reversing out of our driveway. Luckily, they weren’t doing that – 30 seconds later, they probably would have been. There was absolutely nothing to indicate that tree was going to come down either.

I guess the point is that near misses happen all the time, and you never hear about them – because everything ends up ok. I’ve had many, many more near misses on the road than I ever have from trees, but I still drive every day.

I question the point that dangerous trees can’t be removed though? I’ve seen plenty of large eucalypts cut down over time. I wonder whether the real issue is that people perceive a tree as dangerous, just because it’s near them, and don’t accept it when experts decide that a tree is healthy and not actually dangerous?

The reaction from the tradies and others, to pitch in and get things sorted out themselves, is just brilliant though. Good work to everyone involved!

I don’t like the imposed lottery of very strict tree protection laws as they apply to trees on private land. The glib “stuff happens” philosophising which comes out, on cue, and at length, whenever anyone dares to question these laws, just does not cut it with me. I tend to assume that some, if not all, of the people who take that position think big trees are a good idea when they loom over other people’s homes, but not theirs (i.e. they’ve never had such trees near their home /apartment /townhouse or took steps to remove them before the tree protection laws came into force).

All of that said, I am somewhat more philosophical about the risks from trees in public spaces – although I think we’ve had at least one fatality, in recent years, from a tree branch falling on a man on a suburban street.

Oh dear, the old ‘everything must be sanitised and safe’ chestnut rears its cotton wool head again.

Trees grow, provide environments, shade and scenery. Once in a blue moon a tree will drop a branch. The chances of anyone being under that branch are mind-bogglingly minute. Smaller even than the chance of getting hit by lightning. Much much smaller than winning Lotto. How many people do you know who have won Lotto AND been hit by lightning? They would probably be in the same risk category as being killed by a falling branch.

The notion that every single risk should be removed from our lives is not only unworkable, it’s ridiculous. Where would you draw the line after chopping down every large gum tree in Canberra? Would we build a large Faraday cage over the city to prevent lightning from hitting the ground? Would we lower the speed limits to 5km/hr and mandate cars be covered in polystyrene? Would we force cyclists to wear helmets that do little in the grand scheme of things? (well yes but let’s not go there) Would we ban peanuts entirely? Would we make it illegal to ride horses as they are the most dangerous animals in the country?

Re. Q1) Agree – well done to all. Great story of everyone chipping in together. Wish there was more of it.

Re: Q2) Relax man. You live on planet earth which has tree branches falling and all sorts of other unanticipated events just like this. Life happens.

In particular, you live in Australia where eucalypts are all over the place – cutting down trees is last century thinking. We need to be planting more trees in as many places as we can.

It’s great that everyone pitched in and cleared the roadway quuickly but I think falling limbs is just “nature” and short of chopping down every single eucalyptus tree there’s not a lot that can be done.

Should everything that might harm us be banned or killed? I heard someone got hit by a car the other day, we should ban them. Someone else got bitten by a dog, let’s kill all dogs.