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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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.