Crash inquests 'need reports on environment’

Press, 18 August 1979, Page 5

Crash inquests 'need reports on environment’

Obvious environmental causes of fatal road accidents should be presented as evidence at inquests, said the associate professor in pathology at the University of Otago (Professor J. F. Gwynne) in Wellington this week.

Of 276 road deaths in Otago during the last eight years, at least 40 were caused by environmental factors, Professor Gwynne told this year’s roading symposium. Background factors, such as dangerouslyplaced poles and icy road surfaces, could assume greater importance than the injuries themsleves. A pathologist should try to explain the injuries ty studying the accident. Professor Gwynne said that drownings, obstructed vision, dangerous traffic islands, and an unprotected railway crossing played roles in some accidents.

Drowings drew attention to a lack of barriers beside main highways running alongside waterways. Hitting telegraph poles was a cause of many deaths, he said, but sometimes the placement of a pole made an accident much more likely than it need be.

The significance of obstructed vision in fatal accidents could be assessed by driving a vehicle, of

similar make and model, towards the accident scene. That could reconstruct problems which must have faced the driver. In one case, that method showed clearly that the driver’s vision would have been totally obscured by a solid structure with a “Keep Left” sign. In another inquest, a police officer’s evidence described four vision-ob-scuring factors for a driver approaching a “Give Way” sign. That that evidence was not referred to in the inquest findings.

Fatal accidents had occurred at two places in Dunedin where traffic islands created confusing situations.

Confusing road signs caused one death. In one case, the cause of a fatality had not been established. But the original road’s centre line could still be seen from the new highway, and it disappeared over the side of a cliff.

Professor Gwynne said there should be a closer liaison between those responsible for a driver’s environment and those concerned with road safety. He said a report on the accident environment should be mandatory in all road fatality inquests.