After writing my column last week I had an interesting conversation with a regular WOL reader with more than a little experience in road safety. And having raced cars and taught young drivers advanced driving skills, he had come to the conclusion that traffic accidents had little to do with speed.
Obviously the faster you go the less chance you or anyone involved has of surviving. But drivers are not taught nor tested on how to conduct themselves in a crisis. At only 60km/h very few drivers he taught knew how to perform an emergency stop. When anti-lock braking systems engaged, the car began to shudder and most fearing something wrong would take their foot off the brake, instead of recognising it as part of the braking mechanism.
When the brakes do lock, the car begins to slide and follow the camber of the road, drivers try to correct this and find themselves in even more trouble.
It made me reflect on the new learner driver program introduced by the state government. Longer learning periods, a minimum of 50 hours log book driving, zero tolerance for drink driving, reduced speed limits for L and P-platers and restrictions on the performance of the vehicles they are driving. The government has recently increased these restrictions on passengers and learners now have to perform a 100 log book hours.
These changes are a part of the government’s Road Safety 2010 plan to halve the state road toll in 10 years. I must admit, forcing young drivers to earn their licence is probably a good thing and has probably been a major factor in a large reduction in young driver fatalities but the plan is starting to become a solution looking for a problem.
The requirement of learner drivers to perform a minimum 100 log book hours is excessive. The learner driver program focuses on basic driving skills: obeying road rules, parking, stopping and giving way at appropriate times. After 50 hours most learner drivers should be able to perform at an adequate level. What the program does not teach young drivers is how to control a vehicle at critical times, when your skills as a driver are truly tested. Instead of increasing the driving hours of learner drivers, they should do an advanced driving course where they can learn how to perform an emergency stop, where they can reflect on their driving instead of just doing what they are told to do.
This highlights the problem of the Road Safety 2010 plan. The plan mainly focuses on speed. Crashes occur because the driver or someone around them has made a mistake, speed only determines the reaction time and how fast the car hits an object. It makes sense to limit drivers to 40 or 50 km/h in high pedestrian areas but even at this speed you can lose control of your vehicle if you make a mistake.
A recent head on crash on a local highway killed one driver and injured two more. If the road had been wide enough so that the two lanes of traffic could be separated by a median strip and a concrete barrier then there would be one less fatality on our roads. Even if both drivers were speeding, the cars would never have come in contact with each other had the government spent enough money on the road.
Image: Motor vehicle crash deaths 1985 to 2004 and hospital separations 1989-90 to 2004-05
NSW’s speed blitz since 2000 has lead to a reduction of road fatalities but has done little to reduce injuries from road crashes, as shown in the above NSW Health report. The benchmark was to halve fatalities from the 1998 road toll of 556 by 2010. There has been a reduction in deaths on our roads, there is expected to be 400-425 deaths on our roads in 2008 but this is falling short of the 2010 goal of 275. By 2006 there was only a 4% reduction in injuries and a 12% reduction in crashes.
The focus of the government on speed is the soft option, it’s easy to raise penalties, build more speed cameras and issue more fines. The government should be designing better roads and training better drivers if they really want to make NSW roads safer.
Your Opinion Counts. Click Here >>>>
You wrote about speeding cameras: The government has worked itself into such frenzy that it will even fine itself.
Not so far fetched as it might sound. Shellharbour City Council prosecuted itself when it took two of its own councillors to the Land and Environment Court.
Fergie. | 
