Comments on: Holiday road toll climbs to 55

By: brettg

brettg — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 02:13:33 +0000

December was the fourth lowest month of the year for fatalities on the road in Victoria.

As far as I’m concerned, the lowest annual Victorian Road Toll ever is not a horror start to the year at all.

Well done to average motorists who have changed and continue to change their attitudes towards alcohol, drug use, aggression, risk taking, distraction and fatigue.

These are the real root causes of the road toll. Speed in accidents is only a symptom.

By: Frontman

Frontman — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 00:05:31 +0000

The way I see it, in Qld we have all sorts of vehicles from Hummers to XR5 Focii running around as un-marked patrol cars “catching speedsters” and Black camera vans so you cant see them so easily at night. (I have been told each camera & van total approx $50,000)
If, instead of spending that sort of money on unmarked and camera vans, they bought Corolla’s or Focus’ etc painted them Hi Vis and had 3 times the amount of cars on the road then the toll would drop. But unfortunately so would the revenue as whenever a patrol car is clearly visible on the road then 99% of drivers obey ALL the road rules. Also during non holiday periods, these vehicles could be taken off the highways and brought back to the suburbs, again reducing crimes whilst improving response times.
BTW Happy new year everyone, hope you all have a prosperous one :-)

By: Crouchy

Crouchy — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 23:56:26 +0000

Wow this was a really confronting video… until the last 30 odd seconds.

I think the pinky ads should be cut off the end just to show how pathetic they are. Compared to the others they have no impact whatsoever.

For me the most confronting is the ad where the girl is pinned to the wall by her boyfriend. You always associate road crashes with deaths inside the vehicle so this really grabs your attention and makes you stop and think.

Forget what they say about these ads being too scary for tv. We need ads like this.

By: Anthrax

Anthrax — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 21:51:28 +0000

While I really feel for the families of the dead I cannot help pity the fools who died as a result of their own stupidity.

Apparently some of those who died in victoria the other day were not wearing seatbelts, a rider was not wearing a helmet and was riding bare chested, and some were allegedly drunk. And what do we find reported? That Speed was a factor.

The pollies focus on speed will kill more people than it will save. We are going to end up with a generation of kids who believe they can do whatever they like in a car, so long as they do not speed they wont die. The TAC billboards (Slowing down wont kill you) promote a ridiculous message. Yes, the greater the speed the greater the possibility of death if you hit something. However, one can still die in a car accident at 95, 80, or 75 km/h!

By: laurie

laurie — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 12:31:04 +0000

Like the NSW State Government saying “We will crush hoons cars” have we seen one yet done…pricks say one thing do another when it gets to court you are free to go and do it again,again,again……

laurie

By: MB

MB — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 05:06:52 +0000

It seems many of the serious accidents occur in the wee hours, a time when no speed cameras operate and police patrols are fewer.

Why aren’t there cameras operational? More traffic patrols?

These “safety” measures should be reinforced for the main danger times? After all its all about safety not revenue, isn’t it? Well so the Vic Governmment & TAC say.

By: SteveC

SteveC — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 04:40:27 +0000

Casey is dead right. With so many states relying on speed cameras, people arent getting stopped at the time they are speeding, and often can go on to cause a crash. The fine will turn up at their house days later.
Speed isnt the main factor here, its irresponsible behaviour and lack of driver skill. Constant emphasis on speed in road safety campaigns and speed cameras have been around for years and have been shown to make little or no difference to the road toll.
I dont advocate people speed, I just wish that police would stop revenue raising and start policing.

By: SuperCujo

SuperCujo — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 03:23:38 +0000

How old is that photo?

By: Casey

Casey — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 02:36:04 +0000

The police always describe the toll at this time as a ‘horror start to the new year’ yet despite their propaganda and way of thinking (Speed Kills etc) these accidents continue to occur in greater numbers each year.

Perhaps it’s the fact there are more cars on the road at this time of year, or perhaps it’s a lack of sufficient skills based testing during driver licensing exams or perhaps still it’s driver’s with a ‘me first’ attitude. Who can say.

One thing is for sure though, each accident will be put down to speeding and that’ll be the last we here of it. A rather sad reflection on the bigger picture if you ask me.