THE PRESS MONDAY, JANUARY 4, 1988. Putting the brakes on

Press, 4 January 1988, Page 12

THE PRESS MONDAY, JANUARY 4, 1988. Putting the brakes on

Once again New Zealand has finished the year with a dreadful record of death on the roads. The provisional total of 793 people killed in road accidents during 1987 is the second highest ever. The death toll for the year might yet exceed 800. Every such death is a disaster; the total should be reason for much more concern in the community than it seems to arouse. The annual repetition of the carnage becomes uncomfortably familiar rather than shocking. If the death toll were the result of some horrendous disaster on a Cook Strait ferry, or if half a dozen airliners had crashed at one of New Zealand’s airports, the outcry would be deafening. Somehow, the insistent, unremitting series of fatal road accidents fails to generate the same concern or alarm. The list of fatalities, moreover, is only the tip of the iceberg. For every death from motor accidents dozens of people are maimed and disabled from the same cause, many of them permanently. Scores more suffer needless pain and distress, and hundreds of relatives and friends of accident victims suffer with them. The cost from road accidents, in terms of medical treatment, lost earnings, material damage, and human waste is incalculable, but obviously huge. Even the term “accident” is largely misleading. A few incidents genuinely are accidental and the result of pure mischance; most result from human error or oversight, and are therefore avoidable. The problem seems to be finding the means to encourage road-users to take the care necessary to protect themselves and others.

Two elements feature prominently in this sorry story: speed and drinking drivers. The two also appear to be connected and drinking drivers often reveal themselves by their tendency to speed. Even in accidents when

speed is not the main agent or cause of the accident, speed often makes the injuries worse, and more likely to be fatal.

The present Ministry of Transport drive to reduce accidents over the holiday period recognises both of these facts, concentrating first on speeding and, mostly at night, the automatic breath-testing of speeding drivers. They have been aided by a recent acquisition, a new radar system that greatly increases traffic officers’ ability to check the speeds of motorists in a wider range of circumstances.

The threat to speedsters posed by the new radar has been taken very much to heart by motorists. Reports from various parts of the country show that drivers are aware of the greater chance of their being caught and are driving accordingly. This is all well and good, but the new radar cannot be as widely used as the Ministry would like. The Ministry would like to have one of the new devices in each of its 450 patrol cars.

Although more cars will be so equipped in the coming year, it still seems unlikely that the whole fleet will have the new radar by the year’s end. The cost to fit all cars will be about $1.6 million. Road accidents cost the Accident Compensation Corporation many times that much each year; it represents only $2OOO for each fatal accident. The radar will not stop all accidents; at best it will moderate the results. Still, such an effective weapon against speeding is surely worth the cost. Driving standards and habits are so bad in this country, and the attitude of so many drivers is so competitive and aggressive, that almost any expenditure to prevent accidents or reduce the consequences of accidents would be justified by other savings in pain and money.