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Source: ONE News -
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In the world of road safety there are people who want to change the way people behave on the roads and those who want to change the roads themselves. Sometimes it seems a bit like the Sharks going up against the Jets.
The behaviourist Sharks want to advertise and educate our way to fewer road casualties. Whether it's shock ads of people dying in ditches or information teaching us to sleep before we drive, their aim is to change our minds and therefore the way we drive. What you might call the infrastructuralist Jets think that changing behaviour is a hard road to hoe, and you're better to just make the road, well, less hard to drive on. They argue for median barriers and the confiscation of unwarranted cars, for example.
Steven Joyce, who has become Minister of Transport in just his first term in parliament, seems to be on the side of the Sharks. While he's obviously still getting his head around his portfolio, his focus thus far has been on outlawing driving while talking on a mobile phones and floating ideas about changing the age you're allowed to start driving and lowering the legal blood alcohol limit.
I've got no problem with lifting the driving age; most countries don't let 15 year-olds drive . But I can imagine the government will meet some resistance on that. In the past National governments have always fallen in line with their farming base who insist rural youngsters need to be able to drive to cover the necessary distances to school, town, the rugby club and the like.
Today, big city-types are likely to make much the same argument. Teens in our major cities seldom bike these days and parents don't want to be driving them half an hour this way or 45 minutes that way. For better or worse, the convenience of the many is likely to trump the safety of the few.
Joyce is also considering cutting the legal blood alcohol limit from 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood, to 50 mgs. While that sounds like strong action against drunk-driving, it would actually make very little impact on our terrible death toll. A look at the statistics for last year shows that of the nearly 35,000 car crashes on our roads, only 19 crashes involved drivers over 20 with a blood alcohol level between 50 and 80mgs. (Drivers under 20 aren't allowed over 30mgs). It's window-dressing.
I'm not against trying to improve the way people behave behind the wheel. But we need to be realistic. When even a ticket doesn't make us change our ways for long, how much impact does an ad really have? We may be chastised for a while, but our speed will start creeping up, we'll start paying less attention at intersections, we may not bother moving out of the right hand lane even when traffic is backing up behind us& The Minister has to look beyond campaigns.
If he and the government are serious about saving lives, there's one thing they could do in a heartbeat. And it wouldn't cost them a cent.
The government could simply require people to drive with their headlights on all the time, day and night. In countries where this is law, such as Canada, Norway and Hungary, research suggests the road toll has fallen by at least ten percent due to the fact that about half of drivers who cause crashes say they didn't see the other vehicle in time.
There may be factors at play in those places that wouldn't exist - for example countries in the far north have many hours of darkness and twilight for long periods of the year - but isn't it worth a try? All it requires is a flick of a switch. There's no cost to drivers, no legislative hassle for politicians. It would show some initiative on the government's part.
Instead, Joyce said on Q+A that it would be a full year before the government acted on road safety. He's working on a new "strategy" until the end of the year or early next year - as if there isn't already mountains of research available. Then he wants to work out some "action points" next year before passing new laws next October.
That sounds to me like political safety rather than road safety. Float some possible ideas, gauge the public's reaction, and be ready to back away if there are any cries of "nanny state".
Where's the urgency? Close to 400 people are likely to die in the time the Minister expects to take to change a few laws. Why not get some easy things done in the meantime, such as getting people to turn their lights on? The government showed it could act quickly on legislation it cared about in its first 100 days. Will it show the same urgency when it comes to saving lives?
