How to beat the maniacs and stay alive on the roads

On one of New Zealand's busiest driving weekends, scorn has been poured on who and what the government blames for road deaths.

Standing against government policy and what he calls a co-operative news media, Dog & Lemon motor vehicle guide editor Clive Matthew-Wilson believes there is one underlying reason behind the lowering road toll and it is being ignored by policymakers.

“There’s currently a war going on between the road safety behaviourists, who believe changing behaviour is the key to lowering the road toll, and the technologists, represented by me, who believe the lowering road toll is largely the result of improved technology," Mr Matthew-Wilson told NBR ONLINE.

”Thanks largely to a co-operative news media the public has been hypnotised into thinking the road toll is caused by ordinary people speeding and that a combination of a tough anti-speeding campaign and road safety advertising have lowered the road toll in recent years.

"This is nonsense and most of the government's own research says this is nonsense. 

"Throughout the Western world the road toll has been falling steadily for decades and it continues to drop as cars and roads become safer, beyond the wildest dreams of our ancestors.

"The confused old people, the out of control teenagers, the hoons and habitual drunk drivers continue to do what they've always done. The difference is that their behaviour no longer has to end in tragedy," he says.

These maniacs were responsible for more than a third of fatal crashes between 2006 and 2010, in which 541 people were killed.

Unsurprisingly, they are mostly men (84%) and mostly under 30 years of age (54%).

And, just to complete the picture, about half (51%) are European and just under half (41%) are Maori.

Alarmingly, high-risk drivers aged under 25 comprise 40% Maori and 28% European, but this may be explained in part by the higher ratio of younger Maori in society.

But whatever their ethnicity, these drivers share several things in common: all are repeat offenders who get their kicks from getting very drunk and driving very fast, most often when they are unlicensed or disqualified.

No one knows for certain just how many of them are out there, but on the basis that around 67,000 drivers are disqualified every year and 27% of the 30,000 or so drink drivers are repeat offenders, then it must be assumed their numbers are significant.

Twenty to thirty thousand doesn’t sound far fetched.

Most end up killing themselves or their passengers, but very often there’s collateral damage in the form of innocent, law-abiding motorists who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Reassuringly, high-risk drivers are now, perhaps belatedly, firmly in the sights of those charged with keeping our roads safe.

Associate Transport Minister Simon Bridges says the government has doubled prison penalties for dangerous drivers who cause death and will be introducing alcohol-detecting car ignition locks and a zero alcohol limit for repeat drink drivers and young drivers.

Mr Bridges says the government has also committed $10 million a year to alcohol and drug treatment programmes with $1 million of this dedicated to drink drivers.

An “R” plate for drivers on a restricted licence is also under consideration.

Meanwhile, despite having the lowest road toll in 60 years last year, with just 284 deaths, New Zealand still appears to rank well behind other countries for the amount of death and injury on roads.

Road fatality figures for 34 countries just released by the International Transport Forum show that on a per capita basis New Zealand has one of the highest rates of road death in the world.

New Zealand scraped into 23rd place with 8.6 deaths for every 100,000 residents.

This was more than twice as bad as the best four countries, Iceland, Sweden, Britain and the Netherlands, which recorded less than four deaths per 100,000.

New Zealand also scored badly on another ITF indicator, recording 9.4 deaths per billion vehicle kilometres travelled, almost twice the rate of Iceland, Sweden, Britain, Ireland and Norway, which were under five per billion.

The ITF figures, which are the latest available, are for 2010, so given last year’s low road toll our worldwide rankings may have improved slightly.

But this could also be the case with many other countries.

The ITF says the average annual reduction in the number of deaths between 2001 and 2010 was higher than in the three preceding decades.

Some countries, like Lithuania, Spain, Luxembourg, Sweden, France, and Slovenia, more than halved the number of fatalities, with an average annual reduction of more than 7.5%.

According to the ITF “it can be assumed that effective road safety policies” contributed to these favourable developments.

Which raises an important question.

Have we got the right mix of policies in place in New Zealand to combat the carnage on our roads?

On the face of it, last year’s record low road toll of 284 indicates we’re doing something right - but don’t that forget the last time it was down to this sort of level was in 1952 when 272 people died.

And back then the population was half what it is now and there were less than half a million vehicles on the road compared to today's 3.2 million.

According to the government a number of factors played a part in the low toll of 2011.

They included greater police enforcement, generally higher public awareness of safety issues, fuel prices and economic factors, legislation and road rule changes.

All of which rankles with Mr Matthew-Wilson - whose views hold little sway with New Zealand Transport Agency media manager Andy Knackstedt.

Mr Knackstedt says it is widely accepted in New Zealand and overseas that improved technology and changing driver behaviour play a significant role in reducing crashes, deaths and injuries.

“The government’s strategy for significantly reducing deaths and serious injuries from road crashes in New Zealand is an evidence-based approach which is aiming to create a safe transport system.

“That safe system approach looks at all parts of the transport system and how they interact: the condition of roads and roadsides, the safety of vehicles, vehicle speeds and road use [driver behaviour],”he says.

With an estimated 16,000 vehicles heading north out of Auckland this weekend, there will be many motorists hoping the government has got it right.

This time last year just one person, a pedestrian, was killed over Queen’s Birthday weekend, something that has not happened since 1956.

The question now is: can we match this or do even better this time?