“Since 1990 the number of vehicles on the road has increased by 51% while Police reported injuries have dropped by 8%, road deaths have dropped by 52% and the number of days spent in hospital as a result of road crashes has dropped by 48%.”

That looks pretty good to me.  But the officials still say it’s not enough.  People need to SLOW DOWN.

I’ll qualify what I am about to say a little, and say I have to agree that it’s not good enough.  But I will never agree that speed is the problem.

Let’s look at some specific aspects of the statistics.

3% of the deaths in 2008 were cyclists. If you include motorcyclists and pedestrians, it is 27%. That’s more than a quarter were “unprotected” victims.  So unfortunately other than road user attitude, there is not much you can do about this.

Now, moving along, a quarter of all fatalities were the result of the driver losing control with a further nearly 20% being attributed to not driving to conditions.

So close to half of all the fatalities were in incidents related to driver skill, vehicle quality or road quality.

If you have ever driven on a New Zealand road at night in the rain, I think you will probably agree visibility of road markings is non-existent.  In addition to this, our open roads have potholes, usually on corners and overall we could consider our roads to be both narrow and substandard.

Even our “modern motorways” are diabolical. An hour after rain, the amount of surface water is amazing.

Then we have my pet hate, Warrant of Fitness.

But before I touch on WoF again, let’s revisit the statistics. Why are there no documented statistics on Number of Fatal Incidents?  Not deaths, but actual incidents.  If we have dropped from 250 fatal incidents  killing 800 people to 50 fatal incidents kill 366 that is better than still having 100 fatal incidents killing 366 people.

Without this critical statistic, New Zealanders’ are being lied to. If a van crashes killing 8 people, that is very, very bad. But it is one incident. Far worse is four incidents killing 8 people. The authorities need to capture and publish clearly the number of fatal incidents, not just the death toll.

Why?

Because perhaps we can then take the focus off speed and put it back into three other areas that are far more important.

1.  quality of the fleet

Our vehicle fleet quality is shocking.  And in fact, one part of it in particular. Shock Absorbers.  Tyres and Shock Absorbers are what keep you on the road.  Yet Shock Absorbers have to be almost destroyed before they fail a warrant.  One bad Shock Absorber can send a car out of control in even slow speed manoeuvres, let alone high speed ones.  All Shock Absorbers should be replaced every 80,000km at most, and as part of the  warrant of fitness, all Shock Absorbers should be electronically tested.  Anything more than a 5% discrepancy between each  of the four wheels will require all four to be replaced.

2. driver skill

Raise the driving age to 18. Require a practical defensive driving course as part of the license process. Teach drivers how to react to unexpected situations, don’t just assume they will know like the current system. If they can’t handle a skid, they don’t go on the road in a one ton killing machine. All drivers should sit a practical test every five years and a defensive driving refresher every ten years.

3. road quality

The roading infrastructure needs to be upgraded, and quality improved.  It is simply unacceptable not to have adequate drainage on roading in New Zealand, and the maintenance cycle needs to be improved.  The paint used, and the use of Cat’s Eyes on ALL roads needs to be mandatory.

What’s the primary objection to these three things?

MONEY

Yet this is a bit of an oxymoron.

Improve (1), (2) and (3) above, and the reduction in monetary and emotional loses will more than cover the cost of implementation.