A new road safety strategy

A couple of years?!

Grail said :

You shouldn’t be driving if you view driving as a form of entertainment. Go to the fair ground and drive dodgems or karts if you’re after entertainment.

Whilst I agree about the basic premise that the driver should both be in the right frame of mind prior to driving and they need to have the right attitude towards driving prior to getting behind the wheel (see my comment about a ton of metal at 110km/h) I disagree that driving can not be a form of entertainment provided it’s done safely.

Give me one good reason why driving can not be a form of entertainment. A few years back I was part of a car club, one of our favourite things to do was go on drives.

We’d pick some out of the way roads and drive along it, it was a great way to see some countryside which we otherwise wouldn’t have seen.

It’s all going to be moot in a couple of years when the cars get fully automated and only holders of advanced licences are allowed to actually drive themselves.

Focussing on skills used inside the car is not going to lower the accident rate. What we need to focus on is reshaping the attitudes of people before they get in the car: you’re getting in the car to travel from here to there.

For example, you shouldn’t be driving if you’re worried about how late you are: accept the fact you’re late, ring ahead, drive safely. Once you’re behind the wheel of the car your only concern is getting to your destination safely. Time is irrelevant, you should have taken care of that before you got in the car.

You shouldn’t be driving if you view driving as a form of entertainment. Go to the fair ground and drive dodgems or karts if you’re after entertainment.

Once you take the controls of a motor vehicle, you are in control of a deadly instrument, not a toy.

For those going on about driver inexperience:
“Advice from ACT Policing is that the main causal factors for serious injury
and fatal road crashes in the ACT are:
– Alcohol and/or drugs
– Speeding
– Failure to wear a seat belt, and
– Driver distraction including mobile phones and other electronic devices.”

42% of fatalities are people under 30. I think this has all to do with the brain not maturing until the age of 25 and the increased risk taking that comes with that and much less to do with experience.

This is interesting too:
– 11% of all crashes are “single vehicle crashes” (indicative of driver error
or actions independent of the road system or other traffic)
– 45% of all crashes are “rear end collisions” (the most frequent crash
type), and
– 35% of all casualty crashes are “right angle collisions” (the most
frequent type in terms of severity).

And then for those who are quick to point out that the evil cyclists and pedestrians should share the blame:
In terms of road user casualties over the last five years:
– 68.5% were car drivers or passengers
– 15.3% were motorcycle riders or pillions
– 10.1% were bicycle riders, and
– 5.6% were pedestrians.

You gotta love stats!

And I think there are some useful points in that report. Their comments on the consultation outcomes in regards to speed are funny to read.

Some of their intentions regarding safer roads make sense.

And this gave me a chuckle: “calming treatments at signalised intersections to reduce speeds
and the impact energies involved in right angle crashes.”
WTF are ‘calming treatments’??? Will they be burning lavender oil and play soothing music?

It is light on detail, but they refer to the 2011-13 plan for more in depth strategy implementations.

Many people keep saying studies show that advanced driver training could lead to over-confidence.

Hmm, that may be true, which comes back to the point you need the right attitude, which, obviously, could be discussed during any training courses.

Just out of interest, are there any studies that consider how appropriate our current driving education procedures are? Seeing as we keep getting bombarded by gory television commercials, speed cameras under the guise of road safety and “vision zero” policies I’m guessing the general consensus is that the current education standards and attitude of our road users is not up to scratch.

Despite what the studies say, perhaps a more practical approach might actually make a positive difference. Or is it just easier to throw it in the too hard basket, I mean, it will turn us all into maniacs.

Advanced driver training need not mean how to drive fast on a track. In this context it should be about all aspects of driving, from attitude, to seating position, to anticipating traffic flow, to understanding emergency procedures and so on.

What if we rename advanced driver training as “improved driver education” would that make the doomsayers more comfortable?

Martlark said :

harvyk1 said :

You don’t really believe that crap do you?…… Which is true, except when something goes wrong, such as a kid runs out onto the road or the wheels lose grip in the wet which can happen just by going over a slight hill.

My dear departed father undertook a study to determine if advanced driver training could reduce the accident rates by drivers in his government department. After reviewing most of the research he found that it actually increased accident rates. The reason was the increase in confidence and subsequent increase in risk taking and margin shaving was far greater than the increase in skill at avoiding accidents.

I believe.

Care to share the study with us?

I couldn’t read anything specific about what they were going to actually do.

Solidarity said :

That’s another issue, people relying on the car to save them.

Take every car, and replce the airbag with a giant spike.

I bet that’ll make people drive more carefully.

Can’t argue with that…

Of course the other problem is that a person who is used to traction control, ABS, ESP, and a whole lot of other things has had the belief in their skills artificially boosted. When you reach the limits in a modern car you’re travelling a lot faster.

I remember one of my old cars, you go around a corner with the throttle wide open (at virtually any speed) and the back would slide out from under you at quite a slow speed (although it seemed pretty fast if you weren’t expecting it to happen). You quickly learnt to control exactly how much throttle to use and the speeds which you did around corners. In my current car on the other hand traction control is likely to kick in and bring the back of the car back into line, and then keep allowing enough power to speed the car up around the corner. I would imagine that if I hit the limit of what traction control (and the tyres) could do I would be travelling at a very high speed.

Admittedly it would probably also be an illegal on any road type speed as well, but not everyone who has a car keeps to the posted speed limits.

Martlark said :

harvyk1 said :

You don’t really believe that crap do you?…… Which is true, except when something goes wrong, such as a kid runs out onto the road or the wheels lose grip in the wet which can happen just by going over a slight hill.

My dear departed father undertook a study to determine if advanced driver training could reduce the accident rates by drivers in his government department. After reviewing most of the research he found that it actually increased accident rates. The reason was the increase in confidence and subsequent increase in risk taking and margin shaving was far greater than the increase in skill at avoiding accidents.

I believe.

That may be true for advanced training, but its also clearly obvious, many people need a brush up on the basics of driving. Things like merging and indicating at roundabouts spring to mind. I don’t think advanced traing is really necessary, however retesting or at least a brush up training course is needed. Also it wouldn’t hurt putting people through simulations regarding things like using a mobile phone while driving and see if they really can text and pay attention 🙂

I witnessed a collision yesterday on the monaro, the woman in front just did not brake, or braked quite late as she was precoccupied. She was lucky to be moving at 30-40kmh, but the front of her car was crumpled completely.

Most serious road accidents are caused by morons driving like f***ing maniacs. Until we can we work out a way to stop people driving aggressively, to stop driving at twice the speed limit and to stop getting behind the wheel after consuming 12 beers, we aren’t going to change a thing.

harvyk1 said :

The second thing is a younger person is more likely to drive an older car with no so good brakes \ steering \ or suspension. I don’t know how well you finances where at even 20, but mine where not so good and thus affording a good quality car with all the current safety features which my current car has was right out of the question..

That’s another issue, people relying on the car to save them.

Take every car, and replce the airbag with a giant spike.

I bet that’ll make people drive more carefully.

Martlark said :

Well that report (good on google docs) was full of plenty of motherhood waffle and zero specific initiatives.

One suggestion that would be cost free:

Increasing the P plate driving age to 20 would reduce causalities by about 100 per year.

and removing all drivers off the roads would reduce causalities by 100 percent.
There are two reasons why the road toll is higher amoungst young people, the first is their inexperience, that will not change, a person who has only being driving for 6 months is inexperienced no matter if that person is 18 or 45.

The second thing is a younger person is more likely to drive an older car with no so good brakes \ steering \ or suspension. I don’t know how well you finances where at even 20, but mine where not so good and thus affording a good quality car with all the current safety features which my current car has was right out of the question.

There needs to be some common sense employed into the debate. What I would love to see is the current emphasis towards fining drivers who do 84km/h in an 80km/h zone reduced, and the emphasis moved towards finding drivers who do overtakes around blind corners whilst doing 130km/h (when it’s a 90km/h zone).

The other thing I’d like to see is getting rid of the points system and start instant license suspension for a period of time (eg change the wording of points to weeks in the laws, thus a 1 point fine becomes a 1 week suspension). The argument of “that’s not fair, how do I get to \ from work” etc should not come into it as it’s also really hard to get to \ from work directly after you’ve wrapped your car around a tree.

The question could then be asked what if someone is caught driving during their suspension, and the answer would be removal of the car until the suspension ends.

Martlark said :

The #1 factor in road accidents is attitude. Not much skill is required to drive safely.

Ahem.

Not much skill to drive safely?

That my friends is the EXACT problem with attitude on the roads.

Driving isn’t seen as a skill anymore.

Many people have no interest in driving, and when you have no interest in something, you’re usually s*** at it.

I reckon the best thing in regards to skills would be:

1) Everyone before getting thier car L’s must pass thier motorbike L’s
2) No automatic cars for P Platers
3) Retesting every 5 years when your license is renewed

Well that report (good on google docs) was full of plenty of motherhood waffle and zero specific initiatives.

One suggestion that would be cost free:

Increasing the P plate driving age to 20 would reduce causalities by about 100 per year.

I am dumbfounded as to why they don’t implement a ‘power-to-weight’ ratio for learner/P-plate drivers like they do on motorbikes.

Martlark said :

My dear departed father undertook a study to determine if advanced driver training could reduce the accident rates by drivers in his government department. After reviewing most of the research he found that it actually increased accident rates. The reason was the increase in confidence and subsequent increase in risk taking and margin shaving was far greater than the increase in skill at avoiding accidents.

I believe.

and again you missed your very first point, “The #1 factor in road accidents is attitude.” There is a proportion of the community who don’t think that even the smallest underpowered s***box is still nearly a ton of metal hurtling along a road at 110km/h.

It’s true, driver training does increase the bravery factor in some people, but chances are those people where already going to push the limits of their car and their own skills regardless of training, and for those people advance driver training simply = day on the skidpan (and considering their personalities they are all too eager to spend a day on the skidpan)…

Nice to see Mr Idealist Corbell spending our money wisely again. Pity this dream is as futile as chasing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow!!

harvyk1 said :

You don’t really believe that crap do you?…… Which is true, except when something goes wrong, such as a kid runs out onto the road or the wheels lose grip in the wet which can happen just by going over a slight hill.

My dear departed father undertook a study to determine if advanced driver training could reduce the accident rates by drivers in his government department. After reviewing most of the research he found that it actually increased accident rates. The reason was the increase in confidence and subsequent increase in risk taking and margin shaving was far greater than the increase in skill at avoiding accidents.

I believe.

Martlark said :

The #1 factor in road accidents is attitude.

Won’t disagree there…

Martlark said :

Not much skill is required to drive safely. Plenty of studies have shown that extra training don’t do much, and can even increase accident rates.

You don’t really believe that crap do you? Sure some people do advance driver training and then go out and act like idiots on the road, but here is the thing, they where going to act like idiots anyway and goes directly to the first point you made.

One of the big problems on our roads is that real knowledge of car control is non-existant. The level of driver training is limited to “press the right pedal and the car speeds up, press the left pedal and the car slows down, and turn the steering wheel in the direction you want to go”. Which is true, except when something goes wrong, such as a kid runs out onto the road or the wheels lose grip in the wet which can happen just by going over a slight hill.

Only way we’re going to achieve it is to reintroduce the The Locomotive Act 1865: a speed limit of 4 mph and a man with a red flag walking 60 yards ahead of each vehicle.

Driver training isn’t the only thing you’d need as the road toll also includes pedestrians and cyclists. Re-education for everyone on looking left-and-right?

Anyway, as the road toll in Canberra so far this year is 6 so long as there aren’t too many wet days we’ll make the 2020 target this year.

Oh geez… “implement components of the national “safe system” approach, particularly in relation to speed management and infrastructure”.

I really hope that’s not what I think it is.

The #1 factor in road accidents is attitude. Not much skill is required to drive safely. Plenty of studies have shown that extra training don’t do much, and can even increase accident rates. That’s shown by L plate drivers having the lowest accident, and the same P plate drivers, a few months later on, having the worst record.

“Until we all start doing an annual remedial driving lesson (needn’t be an exam, just an hour in the car driving around with an instructor) I can’t see anything seriously getting fixed.”

I tend to agree. Pretty amazing you can go from 16/17-80+ without needing to be retested. How many road rules do you reckon have changed in the last 60-odd years!

Not to mention the benefit that could be gained from professional driver training, especially as new and modern driver aids become the norm (ABS, stability control, etc).

Seriously, get out to Fifth Gear Motorsport at Sutton Driver Training, speak to Dereck and do whatever course he recommends.

Personally, I recommend the skid pan. Fun and educational!