Speed Kills campaign fails again
February 22, 2008 by Matt Brogan
It never ceases to amaze me that despite the best intentions of our law-makers, their speed kills attitude to road safety and their hell bent commitment to banning high performance cars, that we still have accidents – almost every night – where people, especially young people are killed doing stupid things in cars.
Now I know everyone is going to jump on my back and beat me to the ground, I can’t win either way, but it’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to vent, so just hear me out.
An accident in Sydney last night really highlights my point. Five teenagers in a car considered to be fit for P plate consumption (a Toyota Camry), were seriously injured, one critically, when the car they were travelling in left the road and hit a pole (police have seized the car for a mechanical examination).
OK, so perhaps the five were egging each other on – ban passengers you say, maybe they were speeding – more cameras hoorah, or perhaps by simply trying just a little too hard they very quickly found themselves in a position they did not know how to handle… and that’s the clincher.
Now you do-gooders can nail me to a cross and say it encourages hormonal stupidity but seriously, had the driver attended a Defensive Driving or Car Control course as a mandatory part of his licensing test then maybe, just maybe, he’d have been able to correct the skid and they’d all be home sleeping-in this morning.
I cannot stress strongly enough how much I believe this kind of training would save lives and it appalls me that our governing bodies don’t do more to encourage it. Our licensing tests are a joke, I reckon if I had a spare three weeks I could train a dog to pass it.
If just some of the millions of dollars spent on useless pinky finger waving speed kills gory death ads were spent on driver safety programs I think we’d have a much safer mind-set and more capable demographic of younger drivers on our roads.
Matt Brogan
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Hear hear!
Its about bloody time somebody had the guts to say it like it is.
I for one will back you all the way Matt, the licensing test is a joke. A learner is taught to obey SOME of the road rules, not all of them mind you. They are taught the most basic of vehicle control and never get taught what to do in the case of an emergency.
To the Australian Government, if you are serious about saving lives on our roads, MAKE ADVANCED DRIVER TRAINING A MANDATORY PART OF LICENSING, the next person killed due to lack of experience could be someone you love.
I definitely provide my support to this statement.
The advanced driving course allows a driver to put theory into practice. Braking and steering techniques are an essential to safe road skills.
How this hasn’t been made mandatory by this stage is beyond me.
I totally agree with you but i think that if defensive driving courses were to be made mandatory on all new drivers, what about all the old drivers? Should they have to do it as well? My answers is a definite yes
It’s a valid point Mitch, but SO much harder to implement and manage. Perhaps it could be encouraged by offering cheaper registration and insurance to participaants?
AMEN!! Spead doesn’t kill, drivers who don’t know how to handle their cars DO!
^ agreed
1 thing I would add to advanced driver training would be to demonstrate to the participants the difference the weight of a fully laden vehicle makes as opposed to driver only. The effect on vehicle dynamics, stopping distance and cornering speed etc cannot be overestimated.
i’m sure there is a correlation to vehicle accidents and young drivers lack of experience with a loaded vehicle i.e. a bunch of mates.
Good point Mitch, and yes. If you want to drive a car on our roads, you should have to demonstrate that you are capable of doing so.
Matt: again, you are right but just because its hard does not mean it should not be done. And cheaper insurance or rego should not even come into it. With any other license you need to prove your skills, take heavy, heavy articulated, boat or aviation licenses: You must prove you can handle the vehicle before you go solo, but people think it is their God given right to drive a car. Bad news guys, if you can’t drive your car, you should not have a license.
Rubbish!
It is speed that contributes to “accidents” like this one. Excessive speed for the capabilities of the driver.
NOT speed per se.
Lowndes or Skaife Doing 150k on the Hume Freeway in the rain at 3am could be considered reasonably safe, but a P plater doing 80k at the same time could be dangerous.
This carload in a Camry were a crash looking for a place to happen. In my view, it wasn’t an accident, it was a crash. The word accident is misused regularly.
The thing i was trying to say is, it shouldn’t just be put on younger driver to do these training days. it should be for everyone not matter age or how long you’ve been driving for.
Matt, I do not condone revenue raising methodology via the use of “speed” cameras etc. to combat the road toll and I fully support increased driver training for all drivers but I really have to question a few points in your “vent”.
Do you know the full circumstances of the incident, was there excessive speed involved or did other factors cause it?
Do you know if the driver had or had not done any advanced driver training.
Finally, yes, better driver training is a highly needed addition to the attack on the road toll, but if the current program in place at the moment has saved ONE person from death or serious injury then it HAS NOT failed.
Reckless1: Wouldn’t you say that if that Camry driver had been better trained, that crash would not have happened?
To sum it up, if you can’t handle the car in an emergency situation, you shouldn’t be allowed to drive it! You’re not allowed to work with electricity without a approved certificate, the same should apply to “operating” a motor vehicle!
Reckless1 it could be argued speed is a contributing factor in any accident, crash, what have you. If the vehicle was stationary it’s not going to do much.
The speed at which the vehicle travels should be relative to the conditions – yes. But the point I am trying to make here is that punting a packed car in to a suburban corner at 50 is just as dangerous as doing 150 on a rain soaked freeway IN THE WRONG HANDS.
If you have no understanding of how to control a car you are going to crash the thing at any speed if you find yourself in a situation you cannot handle.
Answer – train a person on how to handle and AVOID being in the situation in the first place.
What many people, yourself perhaps included, fail to recognise is that these courses don’t just teach car control and driving techniques. They also teach VERY strongly how not to be in the position to being with.
We’ve trained with DECA, CAMS, HART and Murcotts and they ALL have the same message – obey the posted speed limit, drive within your limits and adjust your speed to road and weather conditions.
Believe me when I tell you this message gets through and it’s high time it was drummed in to people instead of simply blanketing the whole situation with ‘Speed Kills’ because in short, it is simply NOT working.
AndrewC – it is quite obvious by the road toll and biased percentage of younger drivers involved that it has indeed failed. No, I do not know the ins and outs of the situation and I knew people like yourself would jump down my throat. I was simply using the incident to try and make a valid point.
We need better driver education, it really is that simple. I’ve said it here before, how crazy is it that we let a teenager, no matter how immature, drive a lethal weapon after they show some guy who barely cares, a reverse parallel park and three point turn.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and hoping for a different outcome. The law makers should sit down and have a good hard think about that statement.
Matt, the cheaper insurance is a great idea, and is actually in place with AAMI. I’ve just switched my car from third-party to comprehensive coverage with AAMI, and since I am under 25 (I’m 18) they offer a 1-day driving course, FREE OF CHARGE, that will not only teach me valuable skills should anything go wrong on the road, but they also give me 10% off my policy every year until I turn 25.
This will be the second defensive course I’ve done, the first my parents bought me for my 17th birthday, and it was a fantastic experience. I’d definitely recommend them to new drivers.
Agreed – make it mandatory for newbies, and give the rest of us cheaper rego or a tax deduction if we attend one
I totally agree with the article. I attended one of these courses and as a P Plate driver it really opened my eyes up and slowed me down. Its not just the car control part of the course, its the breaking distance exercises they do to show the distance it takes to stop YOUR car from 70ks. These courses should be compulsory, especially because alot of P plate drivers can’t afford the most modern cars with life saving driving aids, such as ABS and ESP
Being directed at the younger drivers is a great idea as long as it doesn’t breed a sense of over confidence which may mean young drivers push it to the limits even more.
A lot driving lessons per se can only be learnt from general experience on the road over years and not just from a one day intensive course. It is a good idea but by no means will it be the end of accidents/crashes. Younger people are a bit more blase and generally have an attitude that nothing can happen to be and that’s half the problem.
Matt, couldn’t agree more. The govt’s incessant bleating about “Speed kills” is to greatly simplify the problem. Of course it does – if nothing was moving then nothing would hit anything else.
The problem is (and has always been) excessive speed for the conditions If it’s pouring down rain, doing 20 km/h under the speed limit could be too fast, yet if someone was driving at the limit there’s no legal problem with that.
If speed kills the simple question is why there aren’t more dead V8 Supercar drivers or Formula 1 drivers. They drive at close to 300km/h inches away from the guy in front. It’s because they know what they’re doing, and the only way to do that on the roads is to have proper driver training.
I liken the speed kills campaign to saying “metal kills” because bullets are made of metal. Both miss the point entirely.
I came across the following excellent article; if you have about 10 minutes, you should take a look at detailing studies conducted by the UK Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) – hard data backed by real world cases and 1000s of kilometres of road use.
Use this information to educate yourselves and others about the myth of speeding being the key causal or contributing factor in car/motorbike accidents.
“Only 4% of all accidents are caused by loss of control of the vehicle with excessive speed as the primary contributing factor.” I think that negates the need for any further debate.
Angled brackets edited out the URL. copy and paste the following into your browser, removing the spaces.
www . carbibles.com / speeding_facts.html
The vast majority of collisions are caused by “bad driving”; either poor decision making or an inability to respond adequately to circumstances.
Speed will sometimes be a factor in the bad driving, but not all incidences of travelling at over the arbitrary speed limits will be bad driving.
I believe that the insistence by governments around Australia that speeding is the major cause of road trauma has lulled many drivers into the false belief that as long as they are travelling at below the permitted speed they are being “safe”, irrespective of other circumstances. [e.g. road conditions, their level of experience, the car they are in, and so on.]
The issue with driving courses discussed above is a furphy. The fact is it is much too easy to get a driving license in Australia – you don’t learn how to drive, you learn how to pass a test! It is politically unpaletable for governments to require a higher standard of training before allowing people to drive on the roads because it interferes with the god given right of all people to get their license at a certain age, and the driving schools and licence testing beuraucracies form a significant lobby.
It’s much easier for governments to demonise speed and collect the money fom speeding infringements!
One point that annoys me is why should it be refered to as “Advanced” driver training, when car control is in my opinion the basics of driver training. We should teach car control first, road rules second.
Too many years ago when I learnt to drive I did it on gravel roads as well as bitumen. When I then took a “professional” lesson the instructor taught me nothing but how to pass the test – total waste as far as being a better driver.
Young drivers need to learn how a car behaves in a safe controlled environment, before taking it to the public roads. They need better preparation!
I’m inspired by the logical and intelligent thinking our readers often demonstrate in these comment sections on this issue and will only be too happy to submit them to my local member if I have the backing of our readship to do so.
Better driver training and tougher licensing can only benefit the greater community. I for one am very saddened by any road fatality and if this small step helps, then I say let’s do it.
Does speed kill, yes and there are a lot of other things that kill. Someone swerving to miss a dog on the road, or possibly bauld tyres in the wet, or people who have bad night vision. The list goes on and on. I know many have said we need our young drivers to do advanced driving courses, yes. But something I would like to see is driving as a subject taught a secondary schools. Why? because you can implement such thing as momentum as taught in Physics and distance travelled at 60kph and 80 and 100 etc. The other thing I would like to see is someone design a type of seat that would be used to copy what might happen to a person in the event of an accident. You know, you sit in the seat with a harness on and it accelerates to 100kph the stops as if you hit a brick wall. Or possibly set it up to mimmick a car that is involved in a roll over. To many kids play car games on their computers and have no idea what actually happens when they have an accident on their games. You always remember that pain that you feel in a simulated accident, not the roll over on a computer game. When I see these ads and all these people saying speed kills I realise just how many 2 dimensional people there are out there.
Can I tell you, I am sick of stunned mullet coppers standing in front of mangled wrecks saying ’speed is a factor.’ As has already been pointed out, of course it bloody is.
The real problems are multiple, but there are some obvious ones. The licensing and training regime is complete pants, for a start. There are no emergency braking tests, no swerve testing, nothing. At least you get that when you go for your motorbike Ls in Victoria. Why not cars? It’s insane!
Second, motor vehicle incidents happen because the goose behind the wheel is dumb enough to think Dad’s wheezing Magna is capable of a great deal more than it is or Mum’s rear-wheel drive Commodore handles rather differently to the Corolla they did their instructor lessons in.
And I get hopping mad when the TAC passes up a terrific opportunity to tell the real story of accidents and all we get are chopped-up stories of people who have lost their kids to the knucklebrains doing 100 in a 60 zone.
Although we don’t know this – the TAC chose to do a meaningless montage of parents who lost their kids – awfully sad, but there was no context. The Pictures of You campaign is a complete loss, I don’t know enough about these people. The ad is a story about grief rather than dickheads who killed these poor people. And again, the website tells me nothing. All the hoons are going to do, if they even go to the website, is wonder what on earth happened.
Your average hoon is going to play the ‘it won’t happen to me’ game and not care. After those stupid ads which hang the entire incident on ‘the driver was doing 5km/h over the limit’ rather than the silly cow who steps out without looking (poor brakes, bald tyres, inattentive driver and pedestrian, non-roadworthy cars have *nothing* to do with the road toll), I thought the TAC would sort themselves out. But no.
So, with Wipe off 5 being the best governments can do apart from erecting revenue-raising speed cameras, the road toll will not get better.
Proper driver training, real penalties for real offences and stop blaming tiny speed increments. We’re not all magically safe at *any* speed let alone the arbitrary speed limits that roads authorities set.
Right. Lecture over. Sorry, that went on for a bit…
Speed doesn’t kill you, impact does.
The only reason governing bodies won’t institute driver training programs mentioned is that it will cause more highly skilled drivers, possibly more sensible drivers less likely to speed, equalling less speeding fines, equals less money for the guvmint.
readng all these comments makes me wanna go and speeeed haha!! kidding!! yeh ther are too many kiddies out there driving cars ther rich dads buy them!! they dont care who or wat they hit coz its not there hard earned money!! its irresponsible parents and a whole heap of crappy young drivers! cant wait till Australia turns into the roads of india where ther are goats, horses camels and donkey on the same piece of road!! hahaa
I can think of a few reasons why they won’t introduce this:
1. It costs money, instead of making it.
2. Many “little Johnies” would be going home to their outraged parents to say they aren’t considered good enough to get a license. Even though they drive just as good as mum and dad!
3. If you fix the P plate drivers, what excuse have you got as a government, not to do the same for the rest of us? That would mean loosing votes as “Safe Drivers who never have accidents” fail their course.
4. It would make drivers more aware of the faults in our road network and actually get them demanding the roads be fixed, instead of just lowering the speed limits to compensate for poor road condition.
Don’t get me wrong, I agree with the author whole heartedly, I just wonder how you get a polly to agree with pissing off some of his constituents.
Dan
Well said Matt
I agree with you 100%. The TV ads do perhaps show the reality of accidents and the consequences of driver’s actions, but more needs to be done. It is the testers/govt’s responsibility to ensure that drivers are compentent with the road rules and have confidence and common sense behind the wheel. Defensive driving courses will be a far more effective measure in reducing the road toll. However, this should not only be aimed at young drivers. On a different note, perhaps older drivers (grey/blue hair drivers) should redo their driver’s test when they renew their licence?
Actually I would just like some truth in advertising, so that the government slogans would read
“Speed. Raises State revenue”
or perhaps
“Speed. Helping fund further useless overseas in exotic location fact-finding missions about how to raise further revenue from driving a car by useless fat politicians who never have to drive one because we get chauffeured every where we go.”
Isn’t there a law against misleading advertising?
I think crashes happen because of the driver’s inability to control the vehicle at speed. But what is ‘at speed?’ Its relative to the driver’s own abilities. So the speed limit on a major road may be 80kmh, but an inexperienced driver may already reach his/her limits of ability by 60kmh.
Its also a matter of educating drivers about ‘driving responsibly’. Dont drive at 100kmh on the freeway just because the speed limit allows you to do so. Dont take a corner to 60kmh unless you know you can fully control the vehicle. This is where defensive driving courses can play a role. It teaches the driver stuff like braking or avoiding an object at certain speeds may not be as easy as they thought it would.
Current penalties are too light. Increasing the fines will never work. Instead of issuing fines for exceeding the speed limit…maybe just revoke half their demerit points immediately. Get caught twice exceeding the speed limit and loose your licence for a year! For drivers with less than 2 yrs experience should loose their licence for 2 years if they’re even caught doing 5kmh over the limit. I can bet you then ppl will start paying more attention to their speed.
Just my 2 cents.
Allan – your 2 cents is greatly appreciated, as are all comments, for or against.
The full scope of this issue needs discussion from a wider audience and without everyone’s viewpoint, we can’t hope to achieve this.
So to everyone who takes the time to participate – thank you.
Once again a lot of great suggestions. Safe Drive Training actually does a Physics program where they get school groups onto a dragstrip and demonstrate braking distances at speeds, with good vs dodgy tyres and so on. Not sure whether any of the other training companies have similar initiatives, but it’s a damned good thing.
Ultimately, as I’ve mentioned in other posts here, it comes down to the government refusing to do anything proactive. It’s my assumption that this is based a) on the fact they gain a huge revenue; and b) the research data they use is flawed – they seem to be very selective about the research data used, picking only that which affirms use of cameras and cans training as an effective countermeasure.
the goverment actually doing something about road safty by making Defensive Driving or Car Control course as a mandatory this means that they cant get their money back like they do when the put speed cameras on every street and ads for “ROAD SAFTY” of course
Jeesus!!!!
All these people on here are carrying on about teaching people how to drive properly, who can’t spell lose or losing, preferring rather loose and loosing.
If ya can’t bloody well spell such a simple word, you don’t have the right to criticize people who can’t learn to drive.
How can teachers let losers loose like that?????
Reckless, it’s not a spelling bee and as I said, we appreciate hearing both sides of the story. What does the ability to spell have to do with driving anyway?
As a mother of 20yo and 23yo males, I know nothing about driving. THEY know it all. They scare me with their driving but I am continually told they know what they are doing and I am old. 50’s. They go around corners too fast in my opinion and do a reasonable amount of weaving. Also they drive too close to the cars in front and coming up to lights, well God help the car in front. One day the car in front will brake too hard and they wont have time to react. So I think until someone can get inside their heads nothing will really change, and I’m not sure we will ever be able to do that.
The most frustrating thing is that there ‘is’ a simple solution, but no-one who can make the decision is taking it seriously.
Keep speed cameras to raise revenue to fund proactive activities like fund driver training, research into better licensing, subsidise cost of licence renewal training (not just here’s $xxx bucks and I’ll have my license for another 5 years, please).
I drive 45,000km/year (mostly highway) and rarely see close calls resulting from someone clearly going too fast. Its stupid stuff like not checking before changing lanes, merging at 50km/h, trucks in all lanes drag racing up a hill (yep – causes people to lose patience in frustration and inevitably endangers thweir life & others around), cars not roadworthy and bits falling off, not ‘Keeping Left Unless Overtaking’, not driving to the conditions, etc.
Speek Kills campaign is getting old and clearly doesn’t work – time to move on…
Kaytee,
SLAP THEM! first of all, take them to the Crash victims in hospitals, let them sit with the parents and relatives of a dying / paralised for life driver, make them watch them weep and grieve for their loved ones.
One thing tho advanced driver education is a two edged sword in my opinion. It may hone their skills and make aware of situations BUT it can also boost ego and confidence, they see the situation and think they can control the car.
People need to realise that you cant be in complete control, there are too many variables that is upto god to decide.
With P platers, There is the issue of Peer pressure, they want to prove to their mates that their cool, which if powerful enough can throw away that Advanced driving course they are taught about. Most of their driving maturity I can unfortunately say is from experience, remember this is GENY to GENZ we are talking about, they don’t like being told what to do and do what they like…..
Road safety? Hah! Our strictly speed-limited roads render more deaths than the German autobahn!
Folks, I think it’s time that we lobbied the government to do the responsible thing:
Ban Toyota Camrys.
Phillip, I think you might have found the answer lol
Matt, Put brain in first gear, let out the clutch, and consider –
If you can’t learn to spell lose, don’t criticize those who can’t learn to drive. Fix your own problem.
The ability to spell is related to the ability to read. If you can’t read and spell, you can’t learn the road rules that are written.
I mean, read the following sentences, and tell me spelling is hard – duh ! (For those who can’t work it out, the first two sentences are the correct ones.)
Never let a loser loose, he might lose control on a loose surface. If his wheel nuts come loose, he might lose them, and then he will lose the loose wheel, and end up losing control of the vehicle, even if the surface is not loose.
Never let a looser lose, he might loose control on a lose surface. If his wheel nuts come lose, he might loose them, and then he will loose the lose wheel, and end up loosing control of the vehicle, even if the surface is not lose.
@Joober
I agree on the point about defensive driving being a double edge sword. even 10 years ago back in high school my teacher said that the problem with young drivers when they take defensive courses, is that they think they are pros after that.
Maybe so, but youngins (and we have all done it) will hoon around anyway. You might as well educate them correctly and give them something to take with them when they do hang the arse end out of dad’s Commodore, and it might make the difference between hanging it out too far and oversteering into the roundabout or understeering into a pole.
Never mind that they shouldn’t be doing that. The fact is, they will.
They might as well have some knowledge and hopefully practical experience to understand what a car will do when it’s out of control to bring it back into control, or at least lessen the blow.
Kids are smart, and they’re smarter these days. Who know’s, maybe these butt munchers that make the rules are assuming all young drivers are hoons, I know the cop that pulled me over when I was on my Car P’s was suprised that I was nearly 30… So I explained that I only just got my car license, having a bike license for over 12 years. Maybe these young drivers will actually learn, if not to obey the speed limits and laws, to at least respect what can happen when a car loses control.
On another note with regards to driver training. I can’t see why they can’t do it. They make you go and enroll, pay and prove that you can do it on a bike. And the course is fun. It gives you respect to how dangerous riding can be. It gives you the skills to learn how to detect a tyre lock up and release the brakes, only to squeeze them on again. Effectiely becoming a human ABS.
Since they make people pay to do the course, why can’t they make people pay to do the driver courses? What’s the difference? I’ll tell you… you’ll start seeing less retarded drivers on the road and you won’t be so frustrated when a non-english speaking person is hogging the right hand lane of the Pacific Hwy because he can’t read the sign that says “Keep Left…..” I’m not having a go at certain races. i’m having a go at the RTA for allowing non-english speaking people to go through the license tests in their native language. I certainly wouldn’t expect to see the same thing happen in Germany, India or China.
I would love to rant on some more but I’ve hah a big day and I gotta be up at 6am for another one. This is an area I am well passionate about. I feel very strongly about this issue because it’s as if the government is just beating around the bush, flogging a dead horse.
Good Night
SteveC (btw, since there looks like there are more Steves here now, I’ll be SteveC from now on)
Um, Reckless1, while we’re talking about spelling, I think you’ll find that in Australia the word is ‘criticise’.
Good article – I strongly agree. I’m not ashamed to say I used to drive fast quite a lot when I was 17 – 19. But I’ve only ever had one crash, and that was because a tyre blew on a corner. Why? Because I put in the hard yards training and practising, braking and turning, swerving, reeling the car back in when you start to lose control. Controlling understeer, oversteer, lockup. These are the things that you need to get into the heads of teenagers.
I remember a night clearly from when I was 18, I was drunk as all hell and my girlfriend at the time was driving me home in my car. She tried to cross an intersection, in the wet, in a front wheel drive, turning right and saw a car coming straight on. She pushed the accellerator and turned hard, causing horrible understeer and massive wheelspin. She freaked out and floored it, trying to go even faster. More wheelspin, no accelleration, ploughing headlong towards a power pole. Even after .. I don’t know, 15 odd drinks, my snap reaction was to push the gear selector into neutral (auto). Instantly, traction returned and we rolled around the corner safely, albeit revving the guts out of the poor little 2.2L engine.
A persons temperament causes their driving style. Their skill level determines whether or not they survive while doing it.
A lot of good arguments. And I agree
When in terms of vehicle accidents
You can control the parameters:
-Speed
-Car load
-Driver skills
-Driver condition
-Weather
-Traffic density
-Road Hazards
-Vehicle condition
-Vehicle safety features
What about the “things” you cannot control.
Lack of focus and attention to the road comes next to the above parameters. But this is very broad… you really cannot measure it logically.
If a driver is skilled, no matter what, but for a second loses awareness of his vehicle’s position/status on the road… he/she and his/her vehicle will then become a hazard immediately… a hazard to themselves and a hazard tio everyone on the road.
A good driver can then use his/her skills to correct this condition. But to those who isnt, then the chance of accident is almost set to 100%.
So, I agree that driver training needs to be implemented. Cheaper insurance, discounted registration fees etc.
But why rely on skills to avoid accident alone if you can go back one more step and prevent the chance of the driver losing focus/awareness.
That is the question…. and so apart from physical driving “lessons”. I think its paramount that the driver is mentally “skilled” to focus.
How do you implement that?. You can’t.
So yes you can train drivers, “defensive” courses, it should minimize accident impact or severity of accidents, but accidents will always happen.
A car going 5kmph can still be in an accident…. even if the driver is very skilled.
How? Lack of awareness or attention.
The government really spend millions of dollars researching to prevent accidents. They just let you be “aware” that accidents happen.
Based on the awareness factor, I agree. It’s a big part of anything you do during your daily life. But I have found that generally as a teen I am fully aware of the vehicle, what it’s doing and my surroundings.
I, already at 30 have noticed I don’t pay as much attention to the road (I’m not talking on the phone or texting people), but I’ll see a car overtake me and I’ll think, “Geez, didn’t see them coming. How could I have not noticed that”.)
I’m in no way and “old” person, but the point I’m making is illustrating how as a teen, I don’t think focus is the issue. I just think kids don’t appreciate the dangers. And I’m sorry to say, every generation of children seem to have less and less respect for anything. Maybe this rings through to driving and the lack of consideration on the road. I know when I did hoon around as a teen, it was usually when there was no traffic. I only did it when it was safe to do so, and if something did happen, I would only be putting myself in danger. I generally taak it really easy when I had passengers. I’ve even been told I’m “slow”. But when I was on my own, that’s when I would get into it.
SteveC
Hi Matt,
Excellent article, Defensive Driving training should be mandatory for P Platers, i personally have enrolled in and completed a driver training course in Perth and the stuff you learn is needed, it would cut the road toll in half.
My biggest gripe is drink driving and drug driving, if someone is caught it should be a loss of licence forever and prison for 3-6 months, that would get these dickheads off the roads and into where they belong.
Speeding, if your 30-50kph over the limit, loss of licence for 12 months and then jail time for 3 months.
20kph over the limit, loss of licence for 6 months and $2,000 fine.
No fine that we have should be under $700, you dont want to wear a seat belt you should be made to pay the fine, speed you should pay.
Im sure that ought to slice the road toll down to under 100 people nationally per year.
Umm, wondering whats the stats on causes of fatality accidents…
Pplaters
Pplaters with passengers
Pplaters with Alcohol
Pplaters on the receiving end of an accident
Full licence
Full licence with passengers
Full licence with Alcohol
Full licence on the receiving end of an accident.
WOuld love to know the stats on these… would paint much more of a picture on direction.
Sean,
I think in instead of the jail time, I reckon, take the car indefinately no money back, so if you spent 20K on a street machine then eat crapola
Hmm, I think you’ll find, while we’re talking about spelling , the word is ‘criticize’, or a British alternative is ‘criticise’.
Don’t want to believe it, go to dictionary.cambride.org and type in ‘criticise’. It will return ‘criticize’, UK usually ‘criticise’. The term ‘usually’ is quite important here, meaning not necessarily in this context.
So, in Australia, it is correct to use either method of spelling. Have a nice day.