Xmas road toll inquiry to look beyond speed?

[Captiva Fan]

Well, "lack of driver ability", if the driver is going too quickly for the conditions, is IMHO attributable to the fact that the driver was "speeding". If a lot of crashes are attributable to this, then it's an argument for the pro-speed-camera camp.

[foxy^roxy]

I aggree with most of whats been said already.

My main beef is this... Cops should focus MORE on being stricter redgarding to speeding, drunk/drugged driving, people talking on mobile phones, etc etc and LESS on whether a car is a cm too low, the windows 1% too dark or the wheels 1inch too big.

There are obviously factors they should concentrate on like those that are actually casuing accidents. Stop wasting time on useless defetcs. And if theyre gonna defect people, get all those ****in rust buckets off the road, theyre the ones causing trouble.

[rowdytoot]

Roxy--the one thing we are saying-- is the should concentrate a whole lot LESS on speeding.. cos it's not a major causative factor.. it's just revenue raising... end of story.. in the majority of cases..

Forg--- ahh, BUT if the driver is travelling below the posted limit, then enforcing the posted limit its going to have zero effect on these people isn't it!! and it completely validates the poor driver education aspect.. if they can't handle a car at less than the posted limit then there is something very wrong with them in the majority of cases...


Rowds

[foxy^roxy]

hehe ok well they should concentrate LESS on speeding AND LESS on defetcs :D there!

[stylin]

Why dont the they get driver training into the highschool curriculum like in the USA ?

The revenue they are making from defects and speed traps could be used to fund it !

[SuperMat]

From my experience being born and growing up in Darwin, the major factors of crashes (in order of frequency):

1) Fatigue. The NT is a big place.

2) Drunk driving.

3) Outback communities trying to put too much gear or people into a car.

4) Interstate or overseas drivers not having experience in long-distance Territory-style driving.

5) The "Dickhead-look-at-me" factor.

6) The start of the Wet Season. 6 months straight of no rain then 24hrs of solid monsoonal downpour = greasy roads and dead people.

7) Lack of judgement.

Speeding itself rates very lowly from my experience.

Originally posted by stylin
Why dont the they get driver training into the highschool curriculum like in the USA ?

The revenue they are making from defects and speed traps could be used to fund it !

They do in the NT. We have "DTAL": Driver Training and Licensing. We get free theory lessons, the theory test is free, and when you pass, you get a voucher booklet for 8 standard driving lessons at MVR (Motor Vehicle Registry) approved schools.

[carlo]

Originally posted by Forg
Oh no, they're real statistics; I'm not saying that the statistics aren't real. It's just that their meaning is misrepresented; they are pushed as showing that speeding is a cause of crashes & injury, when in fact they prove no such thing.

I completely agree..

The wonderfull thing about figures is you can make them prove or disprove almost anything...

[Fangio]

Terminology is a wonderful thing too with statistics. They love to use the term "contributing factor" which is very different to a cause. The fact that someone started their car on the morning they had an accident was a contributing factor.

Also in any form of statistical analysis if you can't accurately measure all of the contributing factors then any conclusions must be called into question. By measuring skid marks and crash damage it is possible to get a good idea of speed, blood test will give you alcohol/drug levels and age is easy. But how do you accurately measure fatigue, poor judgement, bad driving or stupidity which are all valid factors in causing crashes?

Until this can be done ALL road death statistics offered by the authorities are inherently flawed and biased towards those things that are easily measured.

[DSMAZDAGTR]

I've always wondered... Why don't those figures get compared to non crashing cars... If 1000 cars travel in australia, and 10% of them have an accident. Of those 10%, 48% were caused by speeding, 25% by DUI, 20% by Fatigue and 7% by mechanical failure.

Now, that would point to higher risk of crashing when speeding if taken to be read like that.

Lets add in some extra statistics though. Of the 1000 cars assuming they are on the raod at once, 80% exceed the speedlimit (even 5km/h is above the limit), 5% are DUI, 2% are fatigued, 1% is likely to have a mechanical failure, and 12% are doing nothing wrong at all.

Hmm...
Of the speeding drivers (800), only 48 had accidents. 6% of them caused accidents.
Of DUI drivers (50), 25 had accidents... Hmm... 50% causing accidents.
Of the fatigued (20), 20 had accidents. Damn... 100%.
Mechanical failure (10), 7 had accidents. 70%.

Now.... Which of these shows up as most likely to cause an accident when looked at like that? Hmm... better not fall asleep behind the wheel hey... Oh.. But wait, 48% of accidents were caused by soeeding motorists.. Better setup more speed cameras. Only 25% were drunk drivers, so we don't need to worry about them so much. And the fatigued. That's only 20%. Not worth worrying about. Hmm... SOund familiar anyone???

Of course, these figures are totally fictional, and were just used to illistrate a theory that I've had for a while. Anyone else have any comments on that, or want to flame me, feel free...

[Svek]

Its funny how everyone has forgotten about other factors that effect road tolls, alot of serious accidents are because of shocking road conditions > like telegraph polls to close to roads, busy highways not been separated by barriers.

How many times have you passed a telegraph poll 2 feet from the road with a flower reef hanging from it?

[rowdytoot]

Svek--- thats where being a "trained" driver comes into it-- it's only the roads fault if every single car goes off into the telegraph pole... and everyone dies.. if the majority of the population can avoid an accident there (and not even come close to having one, or even worrying about it) then it's the driver of the car that hits the pole thats caused it... IMHO ... either through, excessive speed for the prevailing conditions, lack of attention, skill, brake failure or whatever..

Rowds

[Mike V]

There is docco that plays on Fox sometimes about a European country (I think it is Sweeden but I can't remember) who adresses this issue.

They are constantly focussed on reducing speeding and the road toll continues to go up.

They decide to try something different and start to look at road black spots one at a time where people are getting killed every year and solve each one, one at a time.

For example on one stretch of highway they fixed the bad road camber, divided the road and installed much better crash fencing.
Instantly accidents went down from a few per year in this particular spot to nil.

Also since they introduced better education for motorbike licencing, bike deaths have gone down. Surely this is cold hard proof that education works ??

[hardcoregtr]

here's another slant for vic I reckon this guy is close to right..... take the focus of speed pollies. maybe if we didn't have to dawdle at 100kmh we wouldnt get so tired.

http://www.drive.com.au/news/article...XDMKBZQAD.html

[skitz_supra]

i have been told that the most dangerous road in australia is a small strip between ipswich and toowoomba, why? because it is about 1.25 hrs either side of these places, perfect for driver fatigue, and it's also a very popular truck route....

another road i'm really worried about, the ipswich motorway, not one month goes by that i don't hear about some fatal accident in the goodna/redbank/gails area, why? because the road is in such a shocking state, even in a turbo 6 i find it hard to maintain a constant speed, how would other traffic cope? trucks? anyone who drives this road will probably agree with me that there are more pot holes, blind curves, telephone polls in crap places and general other shit, than i have seen in 6 months living on the north side of bris....

a triple J science guy called karl krusilnitsky (spelling...) also has some theries about traffic in one of his "great moments in science" books, a very interesting read.....

c-ya,

[RotaryRocket]

Originally posted by rowdytoot
Svek--- thats where being a "trained" driver comes into it-- it's only the roads fault if every single car goes off into the telegraph pole... and everyone dies.. if the majority of the population can avoid an accident there (and not even come close to having one, or even worrying about it) then it's the driver of the car that hits the pole thats caused it... IMHO ... either through, excessive speed for the prevailing conditions, lack of attention, skill, brake failure or whatever..

Rowds

Thats definately on the money as far as i'm concerned rowdy!

Every time in the papers its "Rain blamed for (insert accident details)", "Dangerous Corner blamed for...." etc.

They always fob it off on the road or the conditions never on the driver. It is the drivers responsibility to look at whats going on, look at the road and weather conditions and make a decision as to whether or not they should be slowing down or even stopping to wait out bad weather.

My point here: We need better driver education. The system in NSW is really only suitable for first time trolley users at woolies, not for people going out onto the roads with a 1 ton 100 kmh weapon. Alot of people drive their cars like weapons too i might add.

It continues to astound me that there are roads where the posted speed limit is 100 kmh and there are huge stretches of 30 kmh bends snaking along the side of a mountain/cliff with no more than one single yellow speed advisory sign and sometimes no sign at all. An example of this is on the highways between kyogle and beaudesert in northern NSW.

My point here: the roads are shitty too but cannot be blamed for accidents. Drivers need to asses each piece of road as it comes.

Well thats the end of my rant, sorry about the length

Cheers

P.S. I have participated in two defensive driving/ emergency braking courses $120 each (not that expensive). I have had my provisional licence for nearly 2 years, what i learned has saved my ass more than once. I will continue to seek out more training in the aspects of car control and defensive driving.