I would like to dissuade the Land Transport Authority and National Parks Board from taking down the tree. I hope there is still time to reverse the decision or at least open it up for further consideration.

I love that tree for being there. Located in the middle of the road, it makes Braddell Road different from all the others.

And for the few seconds that one passes under the tree, one can actually feel the cool difference under its wide branches.

The decision to keep the tree two years ago was a right one, a good one. Perhaps the effort to keep it there had not been recognised enough. But that doesn't mean it was unappreciated.

Every time I get to drive down Braddell Road, I look forward to seeing this tree, sticking out in the middle of nowhere, allowed to live amid the advancing concrete jungle.

THE RIGHT WAY You stop drink driving by educating people about the dangers, not by removing alcohol from the shelves. In the same way, drivers have to be educated.

It is the same pleasure I get driving down Mount Pleasant Road, along parts of Ang Mo Kio Avenue 5, and Upper Thomson Road after Yio Chu Kang Road. It is a feeling I cannot put in words or quantify.

Lately, we have read so much about global warming and the effects of a thinning polar ice cap. Yet here we go again, chopping down another tree because motorists cannot learn to slow down.

You stop drink driving by educating people about the dangers, not by removing alcohol from the shelves.

In the same way, drivers have to be educated - to observe road signs, signals and rules.

A tree cannot walk to another spot. Humans can learn, can adapt.

Surely, Singaporeans are humans. Surely, we can learn to observe speed limits and put the foot on the brake pedal.

Educate drivers. Keep the tree.

Joanne Teo (Ms)