Please Play it Safe !

Hi Muz

I know all of us were affected , but I can't remember being so upset before at the death of a complete stranger.

It's not just 4x4s, a truck driver ran up the back of stopped cars here a few weeks ago near Dubbo, 3 dead I think, the cars were stopped at road works. he didn't stop. That is factual, a court case to come no doubt. Apparently a truck driver dies on the road every three days in Australia.. Michael

Going on the latest stats (12 months to Dec 2017) 185 people died in fatal crashes involving heavy vehicles (https://bitre.gov.au/publications/ongoing/fatal_heavy_vehicle_crashes_quarterly.aspx). This includes deaths of those involved who were not driving the heavy vehicles. That means one death every two days on average, and this is including affecting other road users.

In an article regarding these deaths 80% of heavy vehicle driver reported exceeding safe driving hours by over 25%, 10% reported working over 100% greater than safe driving hours!

They are frightening statistic and with the increasing population, there seems to be a truck to every 3 cars on the road. But there are fools and stupidity everywhere, how often does someone overtake you and three hundred metres down the road, they take the first left turn. Statistics also tell us that one five drivers on the road are drug affected. A scary thought! Michael

The really scary part is the simple of lack of driving skills amongst a very large proportion of the population.

Drivers who don't even understand who has right of way at intersections, T-junctions, and when turning.

Drivers who roll through stop signs at 15kmh with a cursory glance in one direction.

Drivers who constantly fail to indicate - particularly at roundabouts, and when changing lanes.

Drivers who barrel down a street full of parked cars, over the centre line, demanding that oncoming cars pull right over, or stop, to enable them to dominate the road.

4WD and SUV owners are in the majority of this group. I was taught that when you move over the centreline of a road - anywhere - you are conducting an overtaking manoeuvre, and you are therefore on the wrong side of the road - meaning that you're in dangerous territory, and you are obliged to pull back and give way to oncoming traffic.

People who back out of driveways onto the incorrect side of the road - facing oncoming traffic - and who then drive off 200M up the street, on the wrong side of the road!
This one infuriates me, who teaches these people how to drive like 3rd world drivers? I see this idiotic exercise 20 times a day!

Drivers who don't look or indicate when entering roads, from another road or from when parked.

Had a bloke in a flash new dual-cab Hilux, come barrelling out of a big paved area on my left, in front of a business, yesterday - at 45 deg to the road - and from behind a line of parked cars!
He never even looked! - and I had to swerve to the far (right-hand) side of the road, to avoid a near-head-on collision!

Texting drivers and drivers on the phone who place a low priority on proper control of their vehicle - placing vehicle control secondary to phone use.

I was heading up the Brookton Hwy in Armadale last month and had a small car coming towards me, wobbling in its lane - then it came over the double white line towards me, before it swerved back.

I was staggered to see the young female driving the car, holding her phone on the top of the steering wheel, and obviously and blatantly texting and driving at the same time!

There needs to be a greatly-increased level of driver skills testing, on a annual basis, or every 2 years at least.
I understand some of the more advanced EU countries do this, and it would be interesting to compare their accident rate and road toll to ours.

The bottom line is, the road toll is increasing, despite the authorities efforts to reduce it.
The multitude of speed cameras is a failed strategy, that needs to be replaced with more stringent testing, and supervision of MDL holders.

Cheers, Ron.

The facts are that the Australian road toll was lower in 2017 than 2016. It has generally stabilzed for the past 5 yeas or so after a very long decline from the highs of the 70's.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_Australia_by_year

One only needs to peruse the compilations of videos on the "Dash Cam Owners Australia" site on, sorry Nomadic Navarro & others, Facebook, to realise there's sh!tloads of seriously dangerous drivers on our roads. Not really recommended viewing, the night before one leaves on a lengthy road trip!

Silkwood,

Where did you get those figures, "80% of heavy vehicle drivers..........etc, etc". They are alarming, but from my experience in heavy vehicles, one would need a Masters in maths to beat the "system", with log books, roadside checks by police and/or scalies, truck ECM monitoring and satellite/GPS tracking, all working against such extreme figures that you've quoted.

Robin,

Terrible incident to witness, and hope the Coffee Club members can support each other as you come to terms with this.

Bob

Michael H9 - The facts are, the road toll has been rising across Australia since 2013.

The article below give the figures and graphs up until 2016 - and the road toll rose again in 2017.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/02/more-than-1290-people-die-on-australian-roads-in-2016-up-from-1209

Motor cyclists are heading the list with serious increases in road deaths, and country areas have seen a big spike in vehicle road deaths in recent years as well.

Many of the country road deaths are simply single-vehicle run-off-the-road scenarios, which indicate tiredness, carelessness, and quite often, booze or drugs - or a combination of two or more of these factors.

Cheers, Ron.

If you want facts then the Australian government statistics confirm that the toll in 2017 dropped from that recorded in your older linked article which uses the 2016 figures. Like I said, the figure has plateaued for around 5 years with little ups and downs, currently going down again. It's interesting to look at the toll per 100,000 people of population, generally going down as well. There are more people on the road and they are bad drivers being trained badly, you would think the toll would be going through the roof?

https://bitre.gov.au/statistics/safety/

If you run a ruler through the following graph, from mid-2013 to Jan 2018, it's not a plateau - it's a steadily increasing number of road toll deaths - from around 95 deaths a month in mid-2013, to around 112 deaths a month in Jan 2018.

https://bitre.gov.au/publications/ongoing/road_deaths_australia_monthly_bulletins.aspx

I look at the same graph and don't see anything significant. It's a plateau with bumps up and down, pretty normal. Certainly not an indication of drastically falling driving standards and general incompetence. Go further back and look at the figures pre 2013 if you want to see significant trends, all down.
To know that in general, drivers are safer today than when I was young, I only have to look at myself in the mirror and my two sons and their wives, all in their 30's. None of them are the aggressive impatient knucklehead that I used to be. I was driving for a living and thought I was an excellent driver. Not so. All the young people in my family have totally clean records. It's normal for old guys to look at the current state of affairs and have a pessimistic view. Most of the time us old guys wouldn't know if our bums were on fire. So I stand back and just look at the numbers.

Bob...

https://www.mq.edu.au/newsroom/2017/02/03/report-reveals-overworked-truck-drivers-fear-raising-safety-concerns/

Keep in mind this is a self-reported poll. Still, worrying data.

Also keep in mind the quoted statistics on deaths involving heavy vehicles does not necessarily imply the heavy vehicles were the cause of each death.

Michael, with a graph that varies substantially, one runs a line through the centre, to acquire the trend. The trend is upwards in that graph.

The regularly-reported news is that the authorities are worried about the increasing road toll, and are at a loss as to how to "develop new strategies" to deal with it.

https://www.google.com.au/search?ei=7QGQWpzNI4u60gSEyrjwCQ&q=AU%3A+authorities+worried+about+increasing+road+toll&oq=AU%3A+authorities+worried+about+increasing+road+toll&gs_l=psy-ab.12..35i39k1.28041.29631.0.31826.4.4.0.0.0.0.279.555.2-2.2.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..2.2.554....0.FYJRjp6WQ4U

Bob Y it is not 80% of heavy Vehicle Drivers, but 80% of Heavy Vehicle Drivers involved in the incidents resulting in the 185 deaths. The majority of Truck Drivers conduct themselves in a very professional manner. By the way, I am not a truck driver, but have been involved in the trucking industry.

Hey Ron, I retract all my arguments, 8 people killed here in NSW in the last 32 hours. Enough said, numbers are numbers and they are bad.

Thanks for clarification, Macca. I was so concerned about it, I was going home to burn all my old log books.........as well as the current one. :-)

Tragic events in NSW recently!

Bob