No Easter road deaths for NSW. Why?
NSW distinguished itself over the Easter 2008 break by recording zero road fatalities, the first time this benchmark has been hit since current records were kept in 1995. But was it just a fluke, or are lower road tolls here to stay?
John Hartley, chief of the NSW Police Service highway patrol, puts it down to, among other things, good luck, hard work by the police and drivers finally getting the message.
According to Superintendent Hartley, speeding offences over the Easter period were also way down. This time last year, 10,514 people were charged with speeding offenses. This year it was 6580.
“I think that drivers are finally getting the message,” he says.
Other offences, including drunk driving, seatbelt infringements and so on, were also down, from 9039 in 2007 to 8146 in 2008. Twenty-seven-thousand more RBTs were performed this year – 199,516 of them in total.
“There were also 200 fewer crashes, and 42 fewer people injured this year than last year,” Superintendent Hartley says.
Take all those statistics together and it seems that, at least in NSW, drivers are slowing down, not drinking and buckling up.
But what role do improved vehicle design and better roads play in this game? There’s no question that cars are safer and that you’re more likely to survive a serious accident in, say, a VE Commodore than you would have in an HQ Kingswood. Go to YouTube and search for crash test footage and you’ll see what we mean - especially if you look for pictures of the Chinese-built Landwind SUV hitting an offset barrier in a standard crash test. The airbags deploy, but the cabin crumples like an empty Coke can. It’s not pretty.
No one wants to have an accident, but if you do, you want to be in a car that is designed to absorb crash energy in a safe and meaningful way. Add to that the fact that Australians are buying more and more new cars every year means that our fleet is getting younger – and safer.
Getting back to the road toll, accidents were down and fewer people were injured. Our major roads are slowly being improved. Even that old death trap, the Pacific Highway, is undergoing significant renovation.
But looking at a single long weekend in isolation is not the best way to review the road toll.
It would be a mistake to assume that the positive result over Easter 2008 all comes down simply to advertising and propaganda. Roads and cars themselves also play a role in saving lives.
Joshua Gliddon