ACT Policing has recorded a single digit road toll of six in 2011, making it the lowest road toll since 1959 and a two-third reduction from 2010.
The last fatality on ACT roads was recorded in March, making the ACT the only jurisdiction in Australia to not record a road fatality over the past nine months.
Acting Superintendent Jeff Knight said achieving the lowest road toll in half a century was an indication of changing attitudes in Canberra drivers to road safety.
“Any fatality on our roads is a tragedy, however achieving the lowest road toll in over 50 years marks a noticeable improvement,” Acting Superintendent Knight said.
A NRMA-ACT Road Safety Trust-funded study into the ACT’s driving culture found that the ACT has Australia’s second highest rate of registered passenger vehicles per 1,000 people at 599. Despite this, the ACT has recorded the lowest road toll for 2011 across Australia.
“The ACT has a relatively good road safety record in comparison to other Australian states and territories. One of the reasons for this is because the road systems are established, well planned and it is a small jurisdiction,” Acting Superintendent Knight said.
Over the last 12 months, ACT Policing has been working proactively and cooperatively with the ACT Government and other stakeholders to prevent and respond to fatalities in the ACT.
“There is no magic bullet for preventing tragic deaths on our roads. So many factors have contributed to last year’s low road toll, including increased driver awareness, advances in our technology, increased police patrols targeting traffic and joint ACT Government and ACT Policing road safety campaigns.”
“While Traffic Operations conducts the planning for many operations and can undertake specific targeted enforcement activity, all police in the ACT, particularly General Duties officers, are crucial to our road safety plans,” Acting Superintendent Knight said.
The introduction of the Recognition and Analysis of Plates Identified (RAPID) technology in July 2010 has also had a real impact on ACT roads, by identifying drivers who pose the greatest risk to other road users.
“Statistics show approximately one-third of fatal collisions in the ACT involve unregistered/uninsured or unlicensed drivers. By getting these drivers and vehicles off the road before they are involved in a collision, we are making our roads safer.”
“Many of the deaths recorded on our roads this year were preventable, as alcohol or drugs, speeding and other unsafe behaviours were a contributing factor. We are aiming for a further reduction in the road toll for 2012,” Acting Superintendent Knight said.
The ACT is only jurisdiction in Australia to have recorded zero road fatalities so far this Christmas-New Year holiday period.
Double demerits continue to apply until midnight Monday 2 January.
The ACT road toll for 1950 to 2002 can be accessed from the Department of Infrastructure website.
Loading ...
No doubt that most of the act can afford newer cars helped in the stats. its much easier to die in a car without an airbag.
Not to mention the act has some of the fewest intersections.
Clearly this is due to speed cameras.
I assume that, with the introduction of more speed cameras, point-to-point cameras, and the plastic bag ban, we can see this figure dropping further, possibly entering the negatives by 2013.
gooterz said :
I’m pretty sure over the last 10 years the same amount of people have been able to buy new cars, yet the road toll was still pretty high.
All the speed cameras must have kept the Mullies away. I guess they really work.
(Didn’t see any tigers around, either.)
Road toll goes down, speed cameras must be working.
Road toll goes up, we obviously need more speed cameras.
I suggest that the biggest variable in the road toll is luck. Stupid people do stupid things all the time. Sometimes they have the good luck not to run into other cars and/or stationary objects. Sometimes they get unlucky and do run into things. The underlying stupidity is probably fairly constant.
Ian said :
Perhaps this is why the RAPID system works so well. Stupid people will not register or Third Party their car, and will have a problem owning, renewing or maintaining their license.
Seems like this could be a study topic for the School of Not Inconsequential Studies.
Ian said :
Completely agree. I have been saying this for years. Extra effort to get unregistered/unlicensed drivers off the road is a good thing – but in a place the size of Canberra, with excellent roads, it really is a matter of luck whether we have 5, or 10, or 20 fatalities a year. It’s a few split seconds here and there.
Would be interested to know whether there were any less accidents overall??
I refuse to believe there’s any change in attitude, as quoted. On the contrary. In my observation drivers are more aggressive and impatient than ever.
gooterz said :
Explain the 2010 road toll then.
Tooks said :
I’d have thought our number of fatalities is small enough that chance plays a large part in changing the stats.
In other news, I did about 1000km on NSW roads this week, and saw some absolutely retarded behaviour from the cars with white and blue plates… I wonder how many ACT drivers died on roads outside the ACT?
So NRMA is going to put our CTP premiums down?
Sorry, wait, no… I’m just stuck in ‘silly season’ thinking.
I’d like to know how many people were maimed on Canberra roads in the past year. How many people will live for the rest of their lives with a disability or injury due to a car accident? How many people didn’t make the evening news (or this press release) because they somehow survived?
Celebrating a low death toll, while ignoring the harm that non-fatal accidents can cause, seems somewhat disingenuous to me.
Tooks said :
Fuel prices went up in 2010 so forced people to change cars. Today cars weigh so much more and much safer then they have been in the past.
Also seems younger people are living at home longer and spending their savings on cars.
Anyone else noticed the lack of old lemon type cars around?
thatsnotme said :
+1
I have been driving the same roads in Canberra daily since 1978, the thing I noticed is that speeding in rush hour has been reduced due to cameras and increased police radar use. As recently as 2010, it was still common to have all traffic on Monaro Hwy or Adelaide Ave cruising at 100 and even higher after nightfall, but lately people are keeping under or at least closer to the limit at all hours. Also, I note that there is less likelihood that if you move to the right lane to go around a slower vehicle or anticipating a right turn while doing the limit, you don’t instantly have some impatient idiot tailgating, they are being more tolerant. (As am I). I think this has contributed to lower toll…
gooterz said :
I don’t know about that, I mean the lemons may be 20 years newer than 20 years ago but there are still plenty of older car around. Dont forget any 90′s model car is 12-22 years old now.
gooterz said :
What!?!
They record the lowest figure in half a century, and they want it “even lower”? How low do you want to go? What are they, perfectionists? They’re dreaming if they can have a zero toll every year!!! Sorry, the world (including the small jurisdiction called the ACT) is not perfect!
Mr Gillespie said :
You, sir, are an idiot.
I’m sure the families and friends of the 6 who died would prefer if their loved ones were still alive.
Classified said :
Had a VW van with blue and white plates aggressively tailgate me down Brown Mountain on Xmas Day. I couldn’t go any faster for two reasons – the speed limit is 60, and I had two cars in front of me, and even in a V8 Commodore, it is not sensible to try and pass them while going down the Mountain.
Sadly though, bad behaviour on NSW roads is not limited to blue and white plates. On Friday, I did a trip halfway to Syd and back, and the number of people dawdling in the right hand lane on the Federal and Hume Highways was stupid. Obviously they forget to use their rear vision mirrors, and also appear to lack any judgement of their own speed and that of others.
There is no need to pull out to pass another car, when you are a long way behind it, and therefore forcing faster cars to undertake you and weave around the slower car in the left lane.
The biggest offenders where cars with Victorian numberplates, but also a few with NSW plates.
However, agree that ACT’s lower road toll in 2011 is due to luck, as driver behaviour/attitude/competence is not addressed by speed cameras or even the RAPID system.
Disagree, RAPID consistently targets the group statistically most likely to cause accidents, unregistered drivers.
It is good this year had a low road toll, however it gets under my skin when people (especially those in power such as the Superintendent) try and correlate road toll, over a 1 year sample to driver behavior.
Bottom line is in a place with a population the size of Canberra, an arbitrary sample of a calendar year is not going to produce any meaningful data. I mean to say look at what happened, we had 6 deaths in 3 months and then none in the last 9. Was there a massive change of driver behavior since March, I think not. The only way that this can be explained is luck, or a statistical abnormality. Same is true in the years where there is a sudden jump.
If we want any meaningful information from road toll, we need to look at trends over a number of years, and that trend has been downwards, thanks to safer cars, better roads and policing.
The only
goggles13 said :
Too right with those that dawdle along in the right hand lane, when they could be in the left doing that. Saw one yesterday that I couldn’t work out, heading Canberra bound about 4:30pm on the Federal Highway just near the NSW/ACT border and overtook a car (ACT rego dark blue Mitsubishi lancer) doing about 90km/h in the left hand lane. However the moment we crossed into the ACT he moved to the right hand lane. He was not overtaking, and clearly the next right hand turn isn’t until some distance away so no idea what he was doing. He caught up to me at the first set of lights still sitting in the right hand lane and then followed me onto the Barton Highway.
Again on the Barton he stayed in the right hand lane this time doing about 70km/h despite the left being empty, except of course for a few cars that over took him on the left. I lost site of him just after where the the speed limit changes to 100km/h still driving in the RH lane.
The ABS has a neat little graphic of national figures;
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/1370.0~2010~Chapter~Road%20safety%20%284.9.2%29
If any finds the full history of downloadable stats in xls please post the URL
My pet hate – driving the Barton to Yass a lot in recent months – slow drivers that speed up to 105 when they get to overtaking lanes.
All the best for 2012.
Ian said :
Agree. A family member who is under 24 but has never had a traffic fine and is a very safe driver (taught by his granparents who warned him to always look out for the other idiot) got cleaned up by a young inerstate lady at an intersection who “didn’t see the red light” 2 weeks ago. If her car had hit him one metre closer to the passenger cabin he would have been killed. It was a matter of good luck alone. There was a big reduction in road fatalities when seat belts were introduced some 50 years ago and no doubt the modern motor vehicle is safer than its predecessor. I heard an emergency services official stating on ABC Radio a while ago that a high percentage of fatals were the result of drivers losing control while using mobiles. The penalties for using a mobile while driving are too lenient – there should be mandatory custodial sentences.
dungfungus said :
I will agree that mobile phone useage whilst driving is a distraction. To claim that this constitutes a “high proportion” of fatals is an overstatement.
To the best of my recollection, half the fatalities on the ACT roads in 2011 were motorcyclists. I have had a motorcycle license for over 45 years. I consider them dangerous enough that I will not ride one again. Last rode about 40 years ago. Purely personal opinion and preference. And not conducive to mobile phone use whilst on the move.
They are cheap, they are fast, they are economical. They are also often ridden by the younger, less affluent general public. Risk takers, from a wide variety of origins. Peer pressure, alcohol and drugs all play a part in the conduct of these riders. Add in the incompetent, unseeing motorist, and the recipe for a major bugger up has been created.
I wish I had an answer to resolve these coming togethers. An answer would result in a greater decrease in the road toll than banning the use of mobile phone useage whilst driving.
welkin31 said :
http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/roads/safety/road_fatality_statistics/fatal_road_crash_database.aspx
click the accept button at the bottom of the page, bring up the stats you want and then you can use the “save as” button at the top right to get an xls file
dungfungus said :
You may well be correct, but, regardless of the penalties, I cannot comprehend the lack of enforcement in relation to mobile phone use.
The police do a blitz and brag about catching 20 mobile phone users in a week. I would easily see that number myself in half a day. Now that is bloody pathetic. With all the strategies put in place to catch speeding motorists there is NO strategy to enforce the non use of mobile phones while driving.
johnboy said :
+1 on that. I’ve been thinking about this, and I would lay money on RAPID being a contributing factor, apart from statistical variation in small samples, luck etc.
The unregistered/unlicenced/uninsured crew aren’t your typical law-abiding drivers. Because they are very dim they’re also likely to be drunk and speeding or doing something else that is stupid and likely to kill themselves or somebody else. Getting these tools off the road can’t be doing any harm.
And in this vein, I’ve been amazed at the number of fatalities over the last week of the “Driver of a lone vehicle ran off the road, hit a tree and was killed” variety.
I wonder how much of the decrease in fatalities in past decades is due to better emergency response and medical care.
In Iraq and Afghanistan the US are saving injured soldiers who would have died not long ago, and this has had a significant impact on their death rates (although the solders are often disabled for the rest of their lives). A similar effect might be in play here.