SO, Mark Parton’s opinion piece (“Smile, for the broken camera”, CN, July 3) seems to confirm the notion that speed/red light cameras ARE just there as revenue raisers. And he supports this blatant cash grab as a viable source of income for the ACT Government.

And I thought they were there to punish drivers doing the wrong thing and assist in accident prevention.

If we educate drivers not to speed, not to run red lights etcetera, this income source will dwindle to nothing and make these cameras obsolete. Better to invest the money on a physical traffic police presence as a deterrent. But what would I know? Silly me.

Jeff Kealley, Yarralumla

Wrong on dogs

I’M frustrated and disappointed at the comments made by John Griffiths (“But when it comes to dogs…”, CN, July 3) saying that “the surrendering of their dog to the RSPCA or Domestic Animal Services, [is] a death sentence on a short delay”. This statement, in particular for how it relates to the RSPCA, has no merit or facts.

RSPCA ACT sees almost 7000 animals each year with about 4500 being domesticated animals. I want to make it clear that we DO NOT euthanise animals for space here in the Canberra area.

We will put an animal to sleep for medical, behavioural or humane reasons though. As a result of our policies, we had a 93 per cent  returning/rehoming rate for dogs and an 83.5 per cent rate for cats in 2013/14 for the animals in our care.

With only 15 per cent of our total budget coming from government, uneducated statements like that made by Mr Griffiths do not achieve public support, and nor do they help us fund our mission to prevent cruelty to animals in the greater Canberra community.

Tammy Ven Dange, CEO, RSPCA ACT