Road tolls and stuff

Tragic, just tragic. Another accident, and another 5 people killed in an horrific accident in Melbourne – http://urlg.in/1nl

My heart goes out to the families of these kids, and indeed to all those people forced to attend the scene and deal with the aftermath of this accident. It still happens all too regularly, despite all the warnings from police and road safety groups.

No doubt we will shortly hear the impassioned pleas from some in the road safety lobby crying out for lower speed limits, more speed cameras, and perhaps even more controls on the types of cars P-platers are allowed to drive.

The problem is that these knee jerk reactions to road deaths have been going on for years, and it is arguable that the effect of these measures is negligible.

To take this accident specifically, it would seem there were 6 people in a vehicle designed for 5 (which means that at least one wasn’t wearing a seat belt). The driver was apparently travelling at 140km/hr – so clearly had disregarded whatever the speed limit was on that stretch of road. The driver was also clearly inexperienced and got himself into a situation that tragically, he was unable to recover from.

How would an accident like this be avoided? It’s difficult. Young people (particularly young males) are genetically wired to be thrillseekers. Pushing the boundaries and the adrenalin rush that goes along with it is in their blood. A smaller, slower car wouldn’t have saved them (indeed, it could’ve been even worse, if that’s possible, due to the smaller crumple zones and potentially less safety features in a smaller car). If the car wasn’t overloaded, chances are there would still have been fatalities. The only way to avoid an accident like this is for drivers to change their behaviour.

It seems clear to me from the millions of dollars that our state governments reap every year in speeding fine revenue that behaviour is not changing much.

Why do people still speed? The simple fact is, for the vast majority of speeding fines getting issued today, we’re just people making mistakes. We all do it – even the Deputy Police Commissioner of Victoria Police does it, as was controversially revealed this week. We have a bad day, we get distracted, we get annoyed with fellow drivers, and quite frankly, we sometimes watch where we’re going (quite rightly) instead of watching the speedo. And because of the enforcement strategy that most states appear to be using, most people’s speeding offences go unnoticed and uncorrected.

Our governments have become lazy, and instead of funding proper police on our roads, they’ve become addicted to the easy revenue of speed cameras. They’re a licence to print money – like poker machines, except they don’t have to return any money back to the punters. Motorists don’t receive a fine until weeks after the offence, by which time the horse has well and truly bolted.

In raising a dog (and raising kids, though I can’t speak from experience) the general idea is that when your subject does the wrong thing, a quick sharp correction is required immediately. If you try to punish someone for something they’ve done weeks ago you’re likely to upset them and not likely to cause any change in behaviour.

I have some suggestions, dear government, and while I am fairly cynical about the likelihood of anything changing, this is what I would do if I was (hypothetically) charged with fixing this problem:

1. The first thing we have to do is accept that there will never be a zero road toll. People will screw up, no matter what you do. Every death, however, is a tragedy. The media sensationalism that accompanies every holiday period simply drives more knee jerk reactions and less effective strategy. Provide the media with some proper context on our road toll, and rather than simply publishing numbers of deaths, publish numbers of deaths per vehicles on the road. That would be a more truthful way of judging the effectiveness of your road safety strategy. And while I think about it, let’s redefine what is actually a road accident. The toll currently counts such things as a recent accident where a man was unloading a machine from the back of his tilt tray (in the road) and it rolled over and killed him; or the girl who was killed while trying to jump out of a car while it was rolling backwards down her driveway. These are tragedies, sure, but are in no way reflective of our road safety strategy and should not influence policy.

2. A higher, more visible police presence. Our police are grossly underfunded and the government’s perception seems to be that cameras can do the same job. We need more police on our roads – targeting not only speeders but the blue rinse brigade that drive 40km/h under the limit, the morons that think indicators are optional, and the impatient folks who are quite happy to risk their lives (and the lives of their fellow road users) with silly overtaking manouvres around blind corners and generally crazy behaviour. I see this stuff on a daily basis and the fact is, speed cameras don’t fix this. These people get away with these habits for years and years, and are largely ignored by the ‘speed kills’ mentality of our current strategy.

Supplement the higher number of vehicles and police officers with cardboard cutouts and other visible means of slowing people down. Let people know that the chances of them being caught are high! People need visible reminders, not a nasty fine in the mail weeks later.

3. Better driver training. Our teenagers can get a licence by passing a simple test, with little training and little experience, while they’re still developing proper judgement and maturity. Even worse, they’re at an age where they need to push the boundaries of all things in order to progress to adulthood. It’s no wonder teenagers are so over represented in crash statistics.

Give them advanced driver training, on a track, where they can learn how quickly things get scary if they push the boundaries. Put them on a skid pan so they can understand that cars are lethal weapons in the wrong hands. And finally, give them some graphic insights into what happens when things go pear shaped. There’s nothing like a good old glimpse of the consequences to make people think twice before making a stupid decision.

Above all encourage people that if they want to drive fast, to take it to the race track. Most states have a dragway or a circuit (or both) and sadly, motorsport venues seem to be neglected by our governments due to the ‘hoon’ stigma that is permeating our culture. We need to encourage higher participation in motorsport and make people understand that there is nothing wrong with wanting to drive fast and hard, in the right place at the right time.

The only argument the government has against advanced driver training is that it might encourage youths to get cocky and show an inflated sense of their own ability. The fact is, that most youths have an inflated sense of their own driving ability already – wouldn’t you rather they learn their limits on a track, rather than public roads?

4. Mandatory retesting every 5 years. Annually for drivers once they reach the age of 60 or so. There are people in this country driving around who have not had their driving ability tested for 40 or 50 years. We see older drivers doing u-turns on dual carriageways and killing themselves, and the road safety lobby complain that the signage wasn’t sufficient. I’m not kidding, by the way – it has happened here in Tasmania. Get incompetent drivers off our roads.

There is more, so much more… but I gotta go.