Road toll a bit High!!, Why?.

Speed is the only factor the government told me so, we need more speed cameras

G/Day Axle

I don't know either, but I'm sure Speed, Booze, Fatigue, and possibly Defective Vehicles contribute to the Carnage, let alone the Mindset of some drivers, we all have been guilty of having a heavy foot on the Go Pedal at one stage of our lives, but fortunately we have been able to know when to ease up, but a lot of drivers have a Death Wish.

Cheers

the manufacturers make the cars more technological and complex but its going to take another million years to improve on the human condition. Meantime some bird that died from heatstroke gets more attention from the media than any number of deaths on the road in the same period.

A reality show that tracks the trauma of victims and their families might help but would it make money for anyone? Bit like asking for a similar show tracking the victims of smoking through the health system and to the grave. Sorry but the big bucks wont stand for it. Big bucks and little politicians.

owen

Its just a sad state of affairs and it does not seem to get any better as time goes on.

here in Qld i blame a distinct lack of visual police presence.
Xmas day i drove from one side of brisbane to the other just after lunch time and didn't see a single police car or bike about. the next day i drove 200 klms up to gympie and still hadn't seen a police car about.
lastnight at 6.30 p.m i drove from Brisbane to Gympie again, and then back to Brisbane again at lunchtime today. on both those trips all i saw was 2 speed cameras (one on way up and other on the way back) located on the highway on the outskirts of Brisbane (roughly Morayfield area).
IMHO i should be seeing alot more police then that on the road, especially on those days and times mentioned around xmas.

One thing that gets me is they always play up the ones that include a truck and write it up as if it was the trucks fault.

How is a wide load, Legally travelling, at fault when a ute coming the other way runs into the load.


I would like to see some figures that show out of all the crashes that trucks are involved in just how many are shown to be at fault.

Then maybe the guy who passed on double white lines coming towards me at MT Compass today would probably either not notice a truck or choose to ignore it.

He then gave me the fingers when I had the audacity to flash my lights at him because he didnt really have room.

Cheers

Alcohol is still the largest single cause of road fatalities yet the Governments still appear to hammer the issue of speed (I wonder why ?). In Australia approx 35% of all road fatalities are alcohol related but it varies from year to year and from state to state – in the NT it was a few years ago 71%.

50 years ago you could legally drive an FJ Holden with drum brakes, poor suspension and handling, no airbags etc etc at 60mph (97 Kph) on our highways. Today with all the latest technology (ABS, EBFD, BA, ESC, Traction control,airbags etc etc) the maximum speed limit in most states (not sure about NT) is 110 kph. And yet speed is hammered as the big killer? There is not doubt that excessive speed can be dangerous but in Qld you can get booked now for doing 103kph in a 100 kph zone. How many police resources could be put to better use than sitting behind speed cameras on good quality highways and booking a modern safe motorcar doing a few Ks over the limit?

Here is another “never talked about” issue. There have been two road accidents in recent weeks (one in Qld and one in NSW) that resulted in a total of 6 fatalities that were both front wheel drive cars. In both cases the drivers lost control of their vehiclesand drifted into on coming trucks with disastrous consequences. The point is while FWD cars are excellent in normal operating condition (even better cornering traction than RWD cars) in normal conditions, they are very difficult to recover if a driver loses control. How many drivers are taught how to recover a car that’s out of control – especially a FWD one - its not done at any driving school as far as I know.

The other big “sleeper” in road accidents is illicit drug use. States are now only starting to test for random drug use. Some believe that up to 15% of road fatalities could be drug related.

Thus the solution to lowering the road toll is complex and will not occur by just focusing on 1 issue – we need better and safer roads, better driver training for adverse conditions, crack down on drink driving (perhaps zero tolerance), random drug testing and some form of excessive speed monitoring as starters.

Cheers

With governments undoubtedly using speed as an excuse to raise revenue I would love to see new cars fitted with GPS that have electronic control over the car's speed through the ECU. Essentially a built in speed limiter that will limit the car's speed to the posted limit of the section of road that you are on. Of course this should be manually overideable for safety reasons (as ironic as that sounds!)

Then you can just plant your foot down and the car will stay on the posted limit without the distraction of looking down at the speedo and just about everyone will be doing the same speed as you, reducing the need to overtake.

Now that would reduce the road toll but it would be interesting to see what State Governments think of the idea...

Fatal five

Speed
Fatigue
Alcohol / substance abuse
No seatbelts
Distractions

And I would add Tailgating

Sadly if everyone obeyed the road rules all the time we could cut the road toll massively

Travel at or under the speed limit

take a rest if you are tired

and leave a minimum gap of 2 seconds between you and the car ahead

There should be no one here who would think of driving drunk or without seatbelts done up correctly.


If a disease or some other cause was killing and mutilating so many people every year there would be panic in the streets because it is "Just car accidents" we seem to become very complacent about the dangers.

Hi Axle

Been here in Oz 41 years. When I came population was 10 million. Now population is 22 million...statistics!

I can't say that it won't happen to me but as a rule of thumb I would say that people are just careless.

I concentrate in what I am doing when driving the big roads!!!


Cheers

Axle,

I don't pretend to have all or maybe any of the answers to what others have stated is a very complex issue but if I remember the numbers correctly and at my advancing years that is getting harder to do, something like 97% of fatal or serious injury road accidents are directly attributable to driver error and 3% to vehicular failure. Drivers under the influence of alcohol or drugs seem to be a major contributor to the road toll. Inattention or lack of ability to handle anything other than the most mundane road circumstances encountered probably run a close second. The car manufacturers can put the very latest primary and secondary safety features in vehicles and we will still find ways to kill ourselves on the roads. Unfortunately no car maker, government agency or law enforcement body can find a way to fix the most commonly failing part of a car, namely the nut behind the steering wheel.

Cheers Pop

This post has been read by the moderation team and has been moderated due to a breach of The Foul Language Rule .

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On boxing day we went upto Caves Beach NSW. I was in a 90 zone and slowly passing another vehicle (dual lanes) and I was doing 90 obviously other vehicle travelling slightly slower. Out of the blue a VP commodore flying up behind me then decides to sit on my rear and I mean sit on it, I increased my speed by about 5 k to get passed then move back over to the left. While slowing getting past this VP commodore starts flashing it lights then pulling to the right of me trying to see past me, this is when I spotted the p plate. I got over and let this clown go past me, I heard him kick it back as he went passed so was doing over the 100 k mark (all on wet roads might I say). I pulled up along side him at the lights, winding my window down (wife screaming at me to shut it) I give this clown a mouth full and told him hes going to kill himself and his 2 mates with him. He gave me the finger told me to f--- off then lit the tyres up and took off, managed to smoke them and the roads were wet. Shook my head flashed the driving light at him and that was that. Unfortunately unless he wakes upto himself he will be another statistic and his 2 mates and whoever he hits as well.. Raise the age limit I say, 17 these days seems to be too young..Regards steve

The quicker you can get to B from A the less likely you'll have fatigue set in,
I had to laugh when I seen the sign in Qld ..."Every K over is a Killer", what a load of BS , So I guess if you have an accident at 100Kph you wont get killed but will get killed at 101 Kph , Now I see they idiots are getting more camera's and they want zero tolerance, meaning if your doing 61 Kph in a 60 zone your pinged. if thats not revenue raising crap then I don't know what is, BLIGH'S BLIGHT.

I like my little town, No cameras, no peak hour, no traffic lights, sometimes a little roadside breatho or radar, I can handle that,


.

Statistically Australia has one of the LOWEST fatality rates in the world, about half what it is in the USA.

In the USA the Blood Alcohol % ranges from .08 to .10 depending on the states, there is NO random checks, Kids can get an unrestricted license at 16.

On the freeways you won't get a ticket until you go at least 10 MPH over the limit. Speed cameras are vertually non existent, Some states don't even have helmet laws for motor cycles

The statistic I would like to see is the number of accidents say per million km travelled back in say the FJ era of the 60's and compare it to the accident rate now. I think you would see that the accidents now are far more survivable
with the increase in technology.

In motorsport a prime example is the introduction of the Hanns Device to restrain the driver's helmet, it has increased the chance of survivability significantly since 2002.

On our news NBN last night it stated the police were out trying to save lives and to some extent this is true.

In this last week being in a tourist area we have been inundated with two wheeled and four wheeled police vehicles.

My granddaughter coming home from work had an oncoming car with lights on high beam and she could not see so she flicked her lights to advise and the lights dipped but the car brakled and turned behind her it was a patrol car and he booked her for flicking her lights on high beam at him.

My son driving a truck and dog in a line of traffic heading out of town where the 50K had been extended around a corner still in a line of traffic was singled out and booked for being over the speed limit.

Im pleased in these two incidents that those Police involved saved my son and granddaughters lives and werent just revenue raising.

Ian

I live in Cairns & whenever there is an accident on the Kuranda Range or the Port Douglas road the road is called dangerous. If it is the road, how can 2,000 cars & trucks travel the same road without a problem then when an accident happens the road is at fault. If people drive to the road conditions there are no bad roads only bad drivers.

In Victoria, the level is approaching record lows, so it might be appropriate to look carefully at that State's legislation and general driving conditions.
Travel of any sort is by nature hazardous and the faster and bigger the type of travel, the nastier the results will be when things go pear shaped, as they sooner or later will. Like all things, it's a matter of how much legislation and restrictions and how much tax the punter is prepared to put up with.

As a follow up to my previous post, when my father taught me to drive over 40 years ago he told me to treat the other driver as dangerous & is out to get you so you have to be aware of what the other drivers are doing.

I'm with Doug T on the fatigue- slowing the speed limit just makes us be on the roads longer, thus more tired and more likely to crash.

On a recent trip up the Newell I noticed the speed limit had been reduced to 100kph instead of its previous 110 (at least, I am pretty sure it was 110 along there!). This might be ok if you're driving for a couple of hours, but for people who are on the road all day (for example, a 945km trip) it adds more than an hour to an already long journey. Speaking of, the Newell was the nicest bit of road we drove on the whole way- much better than the Oxley and New England highways (did anyone say pothole?)!

My partner tells me that in QLD they are thinking of upping the speed limit again to 110kph for the same reasons.

Of course, accidents are also caused by doozies and we have all seen them- the people who overtake into oncoming traffic, across double lines, tailgate, rubberneck with the person next to them, the list goes on. I imagine the situation would be improved if everyone just chilled out a little bit, but that's a big ask isn't it!

I reckon the following are contributory:

Too many cars on the road (Bruce Hwy north of Bne, Kings Hwy east of Canberra).

Vehicles, driven by poorly trained amateurs, travelling in opposite directions with a closing speed of 200 kph plus, and nothing separating them! When they do miss each other it is by less than a meter. Often the road is twisty, uneven, pot holed, slippery. They cross into the other vehicles path and duck back to their own side just in time to avoid collision. If this feat isn't enough, the drivers are often angry, tired or intoxicated.

People driving on highways with little or or no country driving experience (certainly no tuition). Kids released onto roads without ever being taught emergency braking, skidding etc

Roads in poor condition (especially in QLD) with insufficient opportunity to overtake vehicles travelling much slower than a reasonable speed.

People talking, texting or otherwise playing with gadgets instead of focussing on the life and death matter of driving.

Too many trucks on the road, why not use rail? Truck drivers being forced to drive when fatigued in order to make a deadline/quid. (Termeil)

Emotionally unstable, intoxicated, enraged, fatigued drivers who drive like there is no tomorrow. There sometimes isn't.

The Police and RTA losing credibility as agents for safety by blatant revenue raising and in many cases acting like aggressive hoons (examples above plus many I have personally experienced).

Excessive speed? Every time because if the vehicles were going slower the incident wouldn't have happened in the first place, and the damage/injuries would have been less. Does this mean we should limit all vehicles to 0 kph?

The majority of collisions (NOTE - I deliberately didn't use the word accident) are are as a result driver error.

Inexperience, inattention, speed, fatigue, drugs/alcohol, unroadworthy vehicles are ALL contributing factors. It's NOT the Govt's fault, or the Politicians fault. It all comes down to the D R I V E R .

There is no such thing as 'average for the amount of vehicles out there'. Anyone who drives around thinking that if they are involved in or cause a collision it's O.K. because everyone expects that to happen, should NOT be allowed to continue driving. FULL STOP !!!!

Anyone who drives a vehicle on a road is obliged to comply with ALL road rules at ALL times. If this were the case, many of the deaths and injuries sustained in collisions would be reduced or eliminated.

There are many 'knockers' of Police and any form of authority that may at at some time hold them accountable for 'doiing the wrong thing' (committing an offence whilst driving a vehicle). Speeding is one of the major contributors to collisions. Hundreds of thousands of motorists are detected yearly exceeding the speed limit. There is on-going publicity and discussion regarding the success of Speed Cameras and their cost to the community. If motorists were NOT speeding (a major contributor to collisions resulting in death and/or injuries), then there would no longer be any requirement for Police and authorities to deploy Speed Cameras and/or other devices, used in the detection of the commission of a crime. e.g. speeding, running red lights, entering intersections/junctions against a yellow light, illegal turns within an intersection or junction, etc.


The definition of policing:

The word "Police" means, generally, the arrangements made in all civilised countries to ensure that the inhabitants keep the peace and obey the law. The word also denotes the force of peace officers (or police) employed for this purpose


Crime and Crime Prevention:

The primary object of an efficient police is the prevention of crime: the next that of detection and punishment of offenders if crime is committed. To these ends all the efforts of police must be directed. The protection of life and property, the preservation of public tranquillity, and the absence of crime, will alone prove whether those efforts have been successful and whether the objects for which the police were appointed have been attained.

CRIME:
crime /kra?m/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [krahym]

–noun - an action or an instance of negligence that is deemed injurious to the public welfare or morals or to the interests of the state and that is legally prohibited.

Hi all,

I believe the main contributors to the road toll are

- People acclimatized to driving short drives to and from work, then comes hol's and they try driving 10 hours straight to get to their destination

-I would like to reduce the number of trucks on the road and put most freight onto rail, but it would need to be done slowly so truckies dont suddenly get put off. (and the rail system isn't up to scratch). My Old man is a trucky, done it for 43 years, guys like him would struggle to find other work especially if a lot of them were going for the same jobs.

-I would like to see stricter penalties for 2nd and 3rd offences especially for the bad driving crimes.
I can understand someone making a mistake, Everyone will do it in their lives, But getting caught drink driving, speeding excessively, Driving whilst on drugs, unlicensed, unregistered etc 2 or 3 times is unforgivable.
The person is an oxygen thief and should be banned from driving for life then if it happens again from them in jail for a very long time (20 years/life).
I dont want to share the roads with Imbo's deliberately breaking the law.

I dont think we will ever stop the road toll as we cant stop the human error factor, but the above would go a way to help.

Cheers Wilko

We couldn't agree more Axle. However we believe that reducing the speed limmit would be of some use. It's not going to stop the speedsters, some people think that they are such good drivers that they can handle any situation that throws itself in front of them. The slower the vehicle is travelling gives you more time to react and the vehicle more time to react. I have a perfect exam ple of a person like this, we used to work with him. He always brags about it and his friends justify it by saying that he knows where his wheels are!!! Just stupid, arrogant and selfish. Yes, I know you can drive too slowly but sometimes you have to take road conditions into account. Also,we live in an area enroute to a very popular tourist area. Many whov'e become lost come into us for directions. We have a map handy. Nol trouble, pleased to help. We go down to the city, looking for a number or a businees name, we get the finger & the "F"word ..Flying past driiving with one hand & head swivelled round to look at you! not watching the road. Take care. Safe travels. Bye, Sally.

All of the above theories make sense and go a long way to explaining why the road toll is the way it is.
Thinking back to when I was a teenager, I cringe at the thought of some of the things I did behind the wheel. Generaly, as one matures, one becomes more aware of the consequences of speeding, drink, drugs, fatigue, inattention, vehicle condition and a host of other factors, an important one being anticipation.

Can anyone remember a time when driving an old bomb, driving after a few beers, putting the boot down on a straight all while yawning your head off was the accepted and done thing. You would have been regarded as more of a 'jack the lad' rather than a danger to society.
No matter how progressive governments legislate stiffer laws, rules and penalties, they cant adjust attitudes of people the same way. Sometimes it may take generations for attitudes to change.

Examples can be made say with - Tobacco, Alcohol, Obesity even Race Relations as well as Driving. The facts and figures are out there, laws, rules, guidelines, education, you name it, its all available.
The fact that all those things are still problems in society points to the fact that attitudes are slow to change.
I believe they will change eventualy, but not tomorrow.

In the decades or generations to come, I think the road toll will steadily decrease. Well I hope so.

Cheers......Lionel.

But if I am a "P" plater.........why cant I send text messages while I am doing 130 km's and hour up the highway. I do it all the time and I am a really good driver..................I haven't had a crash yet! My GPS will tell me when to turn off the highway, I programmed it while I was driving along out of Melbourne.


This is what a policeman friend of ours was asked after pulling up a P Plater!

Now if he had of had a head on with a truckie, it would have been the truckies fault for sure.....................................

Get real!

Will they ever learn?

Karen

The thing that really intrigues me is that there hardly ever a mention of road conditions as a contributing factor. This I suppose is easily ignored by statements that the overlying speed limit reflets that but I am not sure that this is a totally fair dismissal. I can never understand why there are so many poles or trees so close to a road or why some drains always overflow in times of rain. Or why some roads I drive have the same potholes in the same place after every resurface. Or why we have some blackspots that only seems related to speeding drivers. Pedestrian crossings or none where brdges or tunnels would work a lot better but won't be funded until the umpteenth pedestrian is killed. Sufficiently confusing signage for strangers to be totally confused when approaching an itersection. The list is probably endless.

I think that the whole contributing negligence of these situations is grossly underdone as it is way too easy to blame pilot error!

Having just come back from a European driving holiday I was initially intimidated by the speed limits on major highways and autobahns but soon realised that speeding along without being worried IF you are speeding or spotting the next camera etc was a lot more relaxing. As were some of the common sense road rules like not allowing truck to overtake on inclines and the like made driving so much easier.

Dropping speed limits to accomodate deteriorating road conditions will only see us all walking in due course. Australian freeways and toll roads are up to the same standard as those in Europe but for some reason we need to drive slower not smarter.

Kind regards

Only one group that can be blamed. Road users. Yet to see an accident on an unused road. Of the five main causes/contributing factors (Speed, Fatigue, Alcohol / substance abuse, No seatbelts, Distractions) ALL of them are in the road users control (this includes drivers, bike riders, cyclists and pedestrians). So who is a fault? We all are as road users. Why do we need speed traps and random breath tests? Because as a community we are inherently untrustworthy. The governmant is not at fault here, it is the attitudes of the community as a whole that are the problem. This will be an issue until the community as a whole takes responsibility for there own actions.

Steve

Quite simply, the never ending carnage will be never ending whilever we continue to accept it. If you think of any other invention, if it were killing as many people as our cars, it would banned (or severely restricted) immediately. But with the conveniences that our cars bring us, we just can't bear to make the difficult decisions...

If you are mentally unstable or depressed you wouldn't be able to get a gun licence, but no one will even consider those things before giving you a car licence. What if you were caught using a gun without a licence? Or if you were found using a gun recklessly, it would be confiscated, and what would be the changes of having your gun given back to you? So long as you keep paying the fines, you can have your car back.

The answer is (IMHO):
1. We need to decide that the carnage is no longer acceptable
2. We need to make some tough decisions about who has a proper attitude for driving and who doesn't, and yes, this will take away the 'rights' of some to drive, but it would prevent some from losing the right to live.
3. We need to get tough on deliberate offenders, particularly serial offenders (and no, I don't mean the people who accidentally creep up to 61km/h in a 60km/h zone - I mean the deliberate offenders who have no regard for the law eg. the drink drivers, the unlicenced, those with unroadworthy vehicles, those tearing around the streets late in the nights, etc.) - money seems to be no problem for some people and fining them seems to have little or no effect.
4. We need to change community attitudes to driving - driving a car is NOT like operating a dishwasher or a photocopier and mistakes have serious consequences.
5. Perhaps we even need to target those who have had collisions and take steps to reduce the risk of further incidents (eg. further training, debriefing, etc.)