18 July 2013

Kanga collisions on the hop

| johnboy
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The ABC reports that it’s not just anecdotal; car-skippy interfacing has risen dramatically:

Claims data from NRMA Insurance shows a 30 per cent increase in the number of kangaroo vehicle collisions in the ACT in the past year.

There were 509 in 2012 compared to 386 in 2011.

Mariana Cidade from NRMA Insurance says the rise in crashes is due to an increase in the ACT’s kangaroo population.

Much more humane to smash them with a car than shoot them?

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I am in northern Sweden at the moment. They have tall fences along the roads to keep out the elk (moose) and reindeers. If they can do that here surely they can do it for the roos in Canberra.

Just my 5 cents : was cycling home after dark on the bike path behind Black Mountain (Bindubi St – William Hovell Drive). It is not a usual route for me so I didnt know I ought to be on the lookout. I am sailing downhill when I suddenly see a mob of roos in the distance. They bound away at speed. Not 3 seconds later, a large piece of grey fur appears from my right in my bikelights and BANG !

I hit and go sailing over the handlebars. I hit the deck on the grass next to the bike path (boy, was I lucky) and I land on my shoulder. Head & legs completely unscathed as is bike apart from handlebars skewed around. I end up in hospital. No breaks but torn shoulder ligaments.

I am still in a fair deal of discomfort 10 days later. I dont expect to be able to cycle for a few weeks. Suddenly, I am roo-aware. Now I see roopoo everywhere. Ironic that it happened 1 week after a trip to the coast when I commented that I had never seen as much wombat roadkill before.

Funny how everyone laughs when I tell them this. I laugh too but have to hold my shoulder while doing so as it still hurts.

IrishPete said :

tuco said :

For goodness sake, won’t someone count the poo and solve this once and for all?

I think they only count the roopoo in the targeted reserves. There’s a whole lot more to the ACT than that. (Including Yamba Drive median strips, apparently.)

IP

And not just from the roos!

wildturkeycanoe said :

Devil’s advocate – you could be right, but not so much about the GDE as I’m pretty sure it was open in 2011…

It probably was, but it was probably still 40km/h for the whole length at that time – a bit easier to avoid Skippy at 40km/h… especially if he trips in the construction site fence.

NathanaelB said :

IrishPete said :

Are roos invading Civic?

I did have to stop for a roo at the Parkes Way / Coranderrk St roundabout two years ago …

Couldn’t you shoot from a moving vehicle? Wimp.

Actually come to think of it, LBG and the PZ probably count as Canberra. A cull there is not proposed (except of APS ELs and SES, never mind their FBT and car parking).

IP

IrishPete said :

Are roos invading Civic?

I did have to stop for a roo at the Parkes Way / Coranderrk St roundabout two years ago …

tuco said :

For goodness sake, won’t someone count the poo and solve this once and for all?

I think they only count the roopoo in the targeted reserves. There’s a whole lot more to the ACT than that. (Including Yamba Drive median strips, apparently.)

IP

IrishPete said :

chewy14 said :

You should have left it at your first sentence. Got any hard evidence for the above?

Oops, advice accepted.

But the point I was trying to make is that the NRMA claim is SOFT evidence itself. I offered other potential explanations they have not investigated, perhaps for the reasons at post 12.

In response to post 6 – I didn’t make any claims, I offered alternative hypotheses, like any good researcher will do.

Here’s an analogy – when crime statistics go down, many RiotACTers immediately claim it’s because the police are not recording or responding.to reports of crime. Be consistent folks or stay away from the keyboard. [No, I am not new here, I just live in hope.]

IP

Yep no arguments from me on that. The news story was clearly a poor effort but beat ups seem to be the Canberra Times staple diet these days.

cranky said :

crappicker said :

Why does not NRMA lobby the ACT government for point-to-point cameras at wildlife hotspots, with revenues earmarked for construction of wildlife over-/under-passes? Or offer the careful driver a cheaper insurance option by excluding benefits for wildlife damage to vehicles?

My vehicle, with another, were both written off (about $20k’s worth) as a result of a kangaroo on Hindmarsh. The following vehicle was too involved with watching their speedometer to notice the vehicle in front had come to a complete stop to avoid hitting a roo which had landed in their lane.

The roo hopped away.

Cranky,
I symphatise with the loss of your cars when you did stop to give passage to a kangaroo. I am not sure whether you want to attribute blame to “the roo [that] hopped away”. More likely the follow-on driver should be blamed.

IrishPete said :

chewy14 said :

You should have left it at your first sentence. Got any hard evidence for the above?

Oops, advice accepted.

But the point I was trying to make is that the NRMA claim is SOFT evidence itself. I offered other potential explanations they have not investigated, perhaps for the reasons at post 12.

In response to post 6 – I didn’t make any claims, I offered alternative hypotheses, like any good researcher will do.

Here’s an analogy – when crime statistics go down, many RiotACTers immediately claim it’s because the police are not recording or responding.to reports of crime. Be consistent folks or stay away from the keyboard. [No, I am not new here, I just live in hope.]

IP

For goodness sake, won’t someone count the poo and solve this once and for all?

chewy14 said :

You should have left it at your first sentence. Got any hard evidence for the above?

Oops, advice accepted.

But the point I was trying to make is that the NRMA claim is SOFT evidence itself. I offered other potential explanations they have not investigated, perhaps for the reasons at post 12.

In response to post 6 – I didn’t make any claims, I offered alternative hypotheses, like any good researcher will do.

Here’s an analogy – when crime statistics go down, many RiotACTers immediately claim it’s because the police are not recording or responding.to reports of crime. Be consistent folks or stay away from the keyboard. [No, I am not new here, I just live in hope.]

IP

wildturkeycanoe7:03 am 19 Jul 13

Devil’s advocate – you could be right, but not so much about the GDE as I’m pretty sure it was open in 2011. Maybe Irishpete is right about the migration patterns.
Still, quite possibly this is just a promotional stunt by NRMA to justify an increase their insurance rates to offset a cheaper CTP with the introduction of rivals in our market? Anyone noticed their comprehensive premiums going up lately? I have.
Where’s my tin foil hat, I think they’ll be sending some of those bugged “sulphur” crested cockatoos to spy on me shortly. They always hang around the street light out front…..

Yeah the film a cocky strike leaves on paintwork is hard to remove.

IrishPete said :

So now everyone’s an expert in roo population, even the NRMA. Here are some alternative explanations:

– NRMA are not the only insurer in the ACT (we are not talking about CTP here, it does not cover roo-strike) – maybe they increased their market share?
– maybe NRMA have changed their claims policy, and more people are claiming (I expect a minority of people claim when they hit a roo; I never have)
– maybe there is increased mobility of a fairly stable roo population – that in itself would be a worry from the perspective of insurance and road safety, but doesn’t necessarily mean the roos have increased.

The most likely explanation, as is usually the case is some combination of the above – let’s say a 5% increase in roo population, a 5% increase in roo mobility (as the feed starts to thin out perhaps?), a 5% increase in NRMA’s market share, and a 5% increase in claims behaviour. There’s a 22.5% increase for you (compounded).

There may be other aspects of driver, insurer or roo behaviour that I haven’t thought of.

And then of course there’s the other oft-forgotten fact – the roo cull has nothing to do with road safety. The numbers being culled are in specific areas (I don’t think there’s any culling happening near Kambah) and the effect on the ACT’s overall roo population is probably pretty small. (I can’t find an overall population figure to subtract the culled number from.)

There’s a little more detail in the CT online – http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/more-claims-over-roos-on-roads-20130718-2q5l2.html – but what suburb can they mean by “Canberra”? Are roos invading Civic?

IP

You should have left it at your first sentence. Got any hard evidence for the above?

crappicker said :

Why does not NRMA lobby the ACT government for point-to-point cameras at wildlife hotspots, with revenues earmarked for construction of wildlife over-/under-passes? Or offer the careful driver a cheaper insurance option by excluding benefits for wildlife damage to vehicles?

My vehicle, with another, were both written off (about $20k’s worth) as a result of a kangaroo on Hindmarsh. The following vehicle was too involved with watching their speedometer to notice the vehicle in front had come to a complete stop to avoid hitting a roo which had landed in their lane.

The roo hopped away.

IrishPete said :

So now everyone’s an expert in roo population, even the NRMA. Here are some alternative explanations:

SNIP desperate non sense.

Pete really is in massive denial, isn’t he?

Here’s a revolutionary idea: more kangaroos means more kangaroos being hit by cars.

Pretty sure I know where Occam would stand on this one.

…unless Pete has any actual facts to back up his convoluted excuses for his irrational beliefs?

poetix said :

bundah said :

….Don’t know if anyone else has noticed but the bloody silver crested cockatoos are in plague proportions and i’ve had two dive-bomb the car in the last week whacking the windscreen in the process!

Do you see these special ‘silver crested cockatoos’ while wearing a tin-foil hat?

So that’s the problem they hate me bloody tin-foil hat 🙁

bundah said :

….Don’t know if anyone else has noticed but the bloody silver crested cockatoos are in plague proportions and i’ve had two dive-bomb the car in the last week whacking the windscreen in the process!

Do you see these special ‘silver crested cockatoos’ while wearing a tin-foil hat?

Well they will get in the way won’t they? Don’t know if anyone else has noticed but the bloody silver crested cockatoos are in plague proportions and i’ve had two dive-bomb the car in the last week whacking the windscreen in the process!

Dunno what the problem is I run over these over sized rats almost daily so I’m doing my bit

For the past week of the kangaroo cull I have been scouting at night along Mugga Lane. Most drivers negotiate that road with due care. It amazes and disgusts me though how some drivers negotiate Mugga Lane at high speed as if there are no kangaroos grazing the grassy edges.

I had expected a more measured opinion from NRMA on driver-kangaroo interaction than merely blaming crashes on kangaroos, as if drivers should not adjust their style to conditions.

Why does not NRMA lobby the ACT government for point-to-point cameras at wildlife hotspots, with revenues earmarked for construction of wildlife over-/under-passes? Or offer the careful driver a cheaper insurance option by excluding benefits for wildlife damage to vehicles?

Why should careful drivers have to cough up for the uncaring minority?

devils_advocate11:50 am 18 Jul 13

Makes intuitive sense but would also need to know what the figures are for many more years than this to find out what is the magnitude of the variance and whether this variation between the previous year and current year is just randomness.

There could be other explanatory factors – such as more roads going through bush areas (i.e. the GDE reaching a point of completion whereby cars can actuallyd drive at speeds that are lethal to roos).

So now everyone’s an expert in roo population, even the NRMA. Here are some alternative explanations:

– NRMA are not the only insurer in the ACT (we are not talking about CTP here, it does not cover roo-strike) – maybe they increased their market share?
– maybe NRMA have changed their claims policy, and more people are claiming (I expect a minority of people claim when they hit a roo; I never have)
– maybe there is increased mobility of a fairly stable roo population – that in itself would be a worry from the perspective of insurance and road safety, but doesn’t necessarily mean the roos have increased.

The most likely explanation, as is usually the case is some combination of the above – let’s say a 5% increase in roo population, a 5% increase in roo mobility (as the feed starts to thin out perhaps?), a 5% increase in NRMA’s market share, and a 5% increase in claims behaviour. There’s a 22.5% increase for you (compounded).

There may be other aspects of driver, insurer or roo behaviour that I haven’t thought of.

And then of course there’s the other oft-forgotten fact – the roo cull has nothing to do with road safety. The numbers being culled are in specific areas (I don’t think there’s any culling happening near Kambah) and the effect on the ACT’s overall roo population is probably pretty small. (I can’t find an overall population figure to subtract the culled number from.)

There’s a little more detail in the CT online – http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/more-claims-over-roos-on-roads-20130718-2q5l2.html – but what suburb can they mean by “Canberra”? Are roos invading Civic?

IP

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