The Press MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1966 Report To Parliament On Road Safety

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31168, 19 September 1966, Page 16

The Press MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1966 Report To Parliament On Road Safety

The Select Committee of Parliament appointed to consider methods of improving road safety informed itself thoroughly on a very wide range of traffic and safety questions. Its report contains many sound answers to these questions: and future legislation should benefit from the committee’s work. Two themes recur in the report. One is that law and punishment alone are not sufficient to prevent accidents. The committee comments: “ A worth-while reduction in accidents can be expected only with “ the full co-operation of the public and when the “ stigma of social disapproval for careless driving re- “ places the sympathy so often evident today ”, The other theme is that rules of the road must be clear and unambiguous. While the rules must keep pace with changing conditions, changes in them must be amply justified before more than two million pedestrians and more than one million drivers are required to adjust themselves to alterations. This mixture of caution and concern probably led the committee to be less vigorous than it might have been in its attack on the more serious problems of road safety.

On one point the committee has not been guided by its own principle of demanding precision in the law. The New Zealand Traffic Institute gave evidence on the application of the Traffic Regulations to pedestrian crossings. The regulations require a driver so to approach a crossing that he can stop short of it if necessary. The institute complained that pedestrians take unreasonable advantage of this rule. The committee recommends that drivers should be required to yield to any pedestrian “ who is “ crossing the roadway on the driver’s half of the “ crossing ”, and, if necessary, slow down or stop. It also advocates an additional regulation forbidding a pedestrian “ suddenly ” to enter a crossing when a vehicle is so close that “it is impossible for the “ driver to give way ”. The present law is quite clear, even if it is sometimes irksome to drivers when pedestrians are inconsiderate. The driver must know whether it is possible to slow or stop his vehicle. The pedestrian—especially a child—should not be expected to assess the driver’s ability to yield right of way.

Although the committee recommends the certification of all professional driving instructors it does not advocate driving instruction in schools. The estimated annual cost of school instruction—£746,ooo —is modest when compared with the estimated cost of road accidents—£l7 million in 1964. Nearly 400 instructors for schools would be difficult to find; and the school curriculum is already too crowded to admit instruction in school time. Driving instruction, however, probably does more than anything else to condition the state of mind in which motorists handle their vehicles. The committee decided it could find no direct way of increasing the level of attention on the roads. In its excellent summary of evidence on the merits of the “ points ” system to remove from the roads drivers who are frequently convicted of accident-promoting offences, the committee does acknowledge that some drivers are good and some are bad. Its failure to recommend some form of more extensive professional training is disappointing. Driving tests, inevitably cursory, are not sufficient evidence of driving ability. They should ensure a minimum of competence. The probationary system recognises this deficiency. Evidence on the driving records of motorists who have been professionally trained might have prompted the committee to make a useful proposal for the more intensive education of drivers.

If the committee’s proposals on tests for alcohol in the blood are adopted they are more likely to serve defences against charges of driving while under the influence of drink than to discourage drinking before driving. This is not, in itself, bad. It just does not go far enough. Experience with blood tests may lead to their more effective use as a deterrent. The practical difficulties of applying blood tests impressed the committee. The New Zealand Law Society submitted that because a person cannot be aware of having a certain proportion of alcohol in his blood he might break the law unwittingly if an alcohol limit were established. The committee did decide to recommend a maximum alcohol level—and voluntary tests —as evidence of incapacity to drive. Other evidence to the contrary would upset this as proof. The committee has decided, in effect, that inattention to the responsibilities of drinking does not fall within the same category as other forms of inattention on the roads. It is a disappointing conclusion.