The headline stat from the 2013 national road toll is promising news showing fatalities fell by 8 per cent. New South Wales and Victoria registered record low numbers, with South Australia and Tasmania the only jurisdictions to record an increase compared with 2012 numbers.
A total of 1193 road users were killed on Australian roads last year, down from 1298 in 2012. While the drop in the headline figure is encouraging a closer look at the stats shows 14 cyclists were killed in 2013, twice as many as 2012. Also, older road users registered an increase in fatalities.
Speaking to ABC’s AM program Professor Max Cameron from the Monash University Accident Research Centre said consideration needed to be given to the speed limit on the country’s rural roads.
“Our analysis has clearly shown that on our traditional Australian undivided roads that the speed limits are too high,” Cameron said. “The idea of travelling at 100km/h on our poor quality rural roads is really not justified on any grounds.
“The analysis suggests that it should be speed limits of no more than 90km/h, and preferably around 80km/h.”
While acknowledging Cameron is speaking from a more informed position than myself, I would have to question what the outcome of a 20% reduction in the speed limit on country road’s would have on driver fatigue.
Australia is a big country and we’re used to covering long distances on the road. It would take a massive cultural shift for road users to embrace such a measure as Cameron proposes.
Despite the increase in representation of cyclists in the road toll Sean Sampson from the Amy Gillett Foundation says there is ongoing discussions with state and territory governments to broaden the awareness of road safety for cyclists.
“Queensland have announced they will be having a trial of minimum overtaking distance,” Sampson said. “Tasmania in the last couple of days have said that they’ve got a strong interest in looking at the parameters of implementing their own trial. And there’s an inquiry in the ACT as well.”
ACT Policing Traffic Operations Officer in Charge, Station Sergeant Rod Anderson, sums it up best: “There is no magic wand for preventing tragic deaths on our roads. At the end of the day it all comes down to driver attitudes behind the wheel.”
[Source: ABC | Pic: News Ltd]
| 2012 | 2013 | change | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Australian Capital Territory | 12 | 7 | -58% |
| New South Wales | 369 | 339 | -8% |
| Northern Territory | 48 | 37 | -23% |
| Queensland | 280 | 272 | -3% |
| South Australia | 94 | 97 | +3% |
| Tasmania | 31 | 36 | +16% |
| Victoria | 282 | 242 | -14% |
| Western Australia | 182 | 163 | -10% |
| Total | 1298 | 1193 | -8% |
11 replies on “2013 national road toll falls by 8 per cent”
Whats this “minimum overtaking distance” BS?
I’d say it’s referring to the “A metre matters” campaign, where motorists are encouraged to leave a minimum 1m gap when passing a cyclist.
http://cyclesafe.gofundraise.com.au/cms/ametrematters
I heard on the TV the other day that VIC’s road toll is the lowest in 90 years… So back in 1923 we had a higher road toll than what we had in 2013.
The question I have though is, is a target of 0 road toll deaths achievable? Given that motor vehicles are driven by human beings which are said to be fallible from time to time. Could the money spent on the TAC adverts instead be used to fix roads and maybe, here is a thought, fund new infrastructure projects?
The problem with 100/110 km/h is that most Australian drivers are not skilled enough to handle that speed outside of an arrow-straight freeway. I did plenty of country road practice with my dad because he rightly thought it important, but it wasn’t necessary for me to tick the necessary boxes to get my provisional license to drive on my own.
The improvement in morning peak driving standards on Adelaide’s Southern Expressway during construction work would support this claim about driving skills. The roadworks have cut the speed limit down the steep descent into Darlington from 100 to 60, which has all but eliminated the frequent closing speed crashes in the morning rat race and has made the traffic flow far more smoothly. I think the very minor increase in travel time (the descent takes just under 3 minutes instead of 2 – if that is the difference between being on time or late for work you should set your alarm five minutes earlier) is a worthy price to pay for those gains. The leadfoot bogans will protest, but it would be a good outcome if the speed limit on the descent stayed at 60 once all the work is done, it’s simply a far more appropriate speed for the road conditions.
I don’t think a zero road toll is achievable because the random idiot element can’t be worked out of the picture like the driver skill element can be – no amount of driver training was going to stop the moron in the silver Mercedes C200 with plate BB-194J choosing to drive around North Adelaide without his lights on at 10pm tonight while thousands of cricket fans were spilling out onto the streets after the T20 match.
Mandatory re-testing of drivers when license renewal comes up (full road rules written test, full on-road driving test, and a basic practical screening for issues with eyesight, neck flexion and reaction time) would go a long way to helping things. Renewing a driver’s license should involve some burden being placed on the driver to prove they are worthy of being entrusted with that privilege.
“Renewing a driver’s license should involve some burden being placed on the driver to prove they are worthy of being entrusted with that privilege.”
I agree with that.
Pleasingly, I didn’t see too many dodgy incidents during my road trip. The worst thing I saw was a Honda Civic cruising along near Cooma with its wing mirrors folded in. I did like that, haha. I’m prepared to give the driver the benefit of the doubt and say there was a fault with the mirrors rather than him/her being too dumb to notice.
The other issue of note I saw on single lane roads was people being unwilling to pass a slower car when they had plenty of time to do so. Presumably this was because the faster car felt it couldn’t overtake without speeding (even by as little as 5–10%). In isolation that’s not so bad, but when you start to see a tailback of a handful or more of cars it can cause a bit of frustration, which may lead to drivers taking unnecessary risks.
The overtaking issue is an interesting one. The fact that most manufacturers calibrate their speedometers to read at close to the maximum +10% margin allowed complicates things. The main problem is the lack of courtesy shown by lots of drivers – both those at the front and those behind.
Those at the front of the queue could easily lift off a little on a good overtaking section (or at least NOT put the foot down when an overtaking lane finally arrives!) or pull over at a driveway if they’re not very confident on a winding road.
The courtesy issue also applies to the drivers behind who get impatient – chill out and get up five minutes earlier so you can afford to lose 20 seconds or so when waiting for a safe opportunity to overtake a slower vehicle or a cyclist. If you want to see dodgy incidents caused by impatience, try driving the Dukes/Western Highway route between Adelaide and Melbourne where a <5 km/h difference feels like a lot more on the long straight sections.
If a cyclist is exercising their lawful right to take the lane it's 99% of the time in your own interests to 'let' them exercise that right, usually a cyclist only takes the lane when there's some kind of pinch point (a tight or unsighted corner, or parked cars on the left) and they'll usually move over for you as soon as they are through that pinch point – or if they are on a fast descent where the speed difference is less. That's certainly how I and the majority of others cycle, and also how I approach cyclists when I'm driving a car.
Remember – the thing that is common with both cyclists and drivers is that it's a very visible minority whose poor conduct lets down everyone else, and unfortunately it's far easier to remember the one moron you saw than the 99% of other cyclists/drivers who didn't give you any reason to remember them. See my Merc C200 example last night and your Civic with the mirrors – I don't have the foggiest clue of what other cars I saw on the way to/from the cricket apart from an Aston Martin I thought looked cool and a PT Cruiser I followed for a bit and felt thankful for not having to see the front end.
Well said again Dave.
Patience, courtesy, anticipation and a preparedness to share the road are all things drivers need to possess when they’re on the road.
“I would have to question what the outcome of a 20% reduction in the speed limit on country road’s would have on driver fatigue.”
It may be related to the increased distance travelled if and when someone falls asleep behind the wheel. The consequences of a momentary lapse of concentration may be of an order magnitude higher at 100km/h when compared with a driver travelling at 80km/h.
Very right Matt, in a crash the damage to the human body is done by the change in energy, and not the change in speed. Kinetic energy is proportional to velocity squared, which for 100 km/h compared to 80 km/h is a 56% increase, and it would be far worse when you consider that what matters most is the energy passed through to the vehicle occupants after the crumple zones and airbags have done their work, which would be a much bigger change than 56%.
I haven’t seen any research which supports the popular bush logic which asserts the lower highway speed limit is worse because of the increased fatigue level. My guess is that it would be hard to prove conclusively thanks to the higher speeds emphasising the impact of poor driver skill and having worse damage for any given crash
I would love it if our main interstate journeys were able to be duplicated by functional fast train shuttles where drivers could take on their cars and have the train do the work at a higher speed for the next few hours – it would be safer for the interstate road users, safer for the remaining people using the highways for local/regional use, more convenient having a car available when you get there, faster and more energy efficient if they were powered by cheap nuclear-fuelled electricity.
Of course it’s impossible to argue with the physics being discussed. If 80km/h is safer than 100km/h, then surely 60km/h is safer than 80km/h. And 40km/h safer again.
What is the practical balance between past experience, convenience and safety?
By and large the vast majority of country journeys are completed at speeds of 100km/h or more without any incident at all. Of course, slower will be safer, but if we’re going to go down that route then just ban driving; 0km/h is safest of all, right?
The elephant in the room is that we, as a society, already make a deal with ourselves that (on current numbers) 1200 or so people (0.005% of the population) being killed annually is the price we pay for having the luxury of driving our cars every day.
We all want that number to be lower, but it will take a massive cultural shift to get the majority of people to accept and embrace a significant drop in highway speed limits.
And let’s not bother with the fact that on a single lane highway all that separates oncoming traffic is a strip of paint.
Or that anything as vulnerable as a kid on bicycle with no training on road rules at all is legally allowed to share the public roads with a B-double.
Yet, practical experience tells us that these things are, by and large, safe to do.
The problem with the “price we pay for having the luxury of driving” line is that the brunt of that luxury is not borne by the drivers who choose to partake in that luxury.
Pedestrians and cyclists are massively overrepresented in the injury and fatality numbers (I was one in the injured column for 2013) from avoidable collisions caused by the choice of car/truck drivers to not obey the road rules.
Maybe some tougher laws on just *bad* drivers are what is needed – make it a strict liability offence for motor vehicle drivers to not collide with pedestrians and cyclists under any circumstance. Tough mandatory license suspensions (with a reset to learner’s permit after completing a suitable rehabilitation course) of no less than one year if no injury requiring hospital treatment results, two if it does, five if there is a fatality or long term disability or the driver is drunk. No consideration should be given to whether the driver uses their vehicle for work, they should think about that before choosing to use their car as a killing machine.
Standards to reduce the amount of noise insulation in new cars should be brought in as well. Being cosseted in a totally insulated cabin hardly helps people remain completely aware of their surroundings.
I would also support the reduction of the free reign given to governments and councils around speed limits. Within a ten minute drive of my place I can find streets and roads with permanent limits of 25, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 and 100 km/h – the majority of speed-related crashes are caused by those breaking the law so changing speed limits isn’t always going to help. It would be better if we just had a simpler regime of four predictable speed limits – 30 for streets, 60 for urban roads and narrow hills roads, 80 for urban expressways and rural roads, 100 for well-separated freeways and straight country roads with sealed shoulders.