Why do we crash?
Winter Issue: July 2009
Every day, on average, one New Zealander dies on the road.
To understand why, we examined over 300 fatal crash reports from 2008 to see what patterns emerged. Exceeding speed limits aren't a major issue. Police surveying has found that even the top 15% of open-road speeders average under the 110km/h ticketing threshold.
Driving conditions
However, unsafe speed for the conditions is a factor - as it was in over half of the fatal accidents we analysed. Many crashes occur on road bends because drivers take them too fast but they may be under the speed limit when they do so. Only one in six fatal crashes were reported over the speed limit - and they were well over.
Handing out speed tickets will not change the fact: the problem is the motivation and judgement of drivers. Too many drivers believe the car industry's performance-orientated advertising and think the measure of their mana is their ability to zoom through corners, putting themselves and others at risk.
From 2008's fatal crashes, it is apparent that one in six were caused by people who don't care about any kind of rules. These are men who speed, drink, don't wear safety belts, have no valid licence or WoF - who are basically renegades. They usually end up wrapped around a tree, but they can also overtake across a yellow line and take out other motorists as well. Policing licences more aggressively would certainly make a difference to the road toll.
Then there are alcohol-related fatal crashes. There were 44 last year. Most were well over the limit and most involved speed or renegades or both.
Getting the message
Road safety messages tend to imply public disobedience is to blame for our road toll. Public safety is not just about disobedience - it also involves providing information about what is and what is not safe, as we do for workplace and public health.
Take motorcycles - like smoking, perfectly legal and highly dangerous. The road toll features too many 40- or 50-year-old men who bought big machines and died on them. Of the 34 motorcyclists who died last year, only nine were not at fault.
Fatigue is a huge issue, not for young families as in the TV commercial, but for commercial drivers, older people and tourists. Commercial drivers with debts and demanding customers bend the law to take on more work than they should. Older people succumb to body rhythms, especially in the afternoon, while tourists fail to account for jetlag.
Last year a fifth of fatal crashes involved an older person being killed. One big killer of older people is intersections. The deaths don't occur at random, as the death wheel ad suggests. Nor is it brash middle-aged men that make fatal 'bad calls'; it's older people who are losing their judgement.
Making assumptions
Sometimes people make assumptions not countered by publicity. Half of the 12 fatalities caused by not wearing seatbelts involved big SUVs. People seem to assume an SUVs protect them - but they don't.
And some road users do go out on to the road intending to die. Up to 12 fatalities last year were suicidal. But most fatalities occur when ordinary people simply over-estimate their ability and don't realise they are betting someone's life on it. It's not always their own.