This Christmas-New Year period on Australian roads has been better thus far then previous years, with the road toll down to 2 from 7 last year in New South Wales.
That’s great news in the face of the busiest period on the roads, but perhaps the rush will be on the way back home?
Or has Kevin Rudd’s “Don’t end up like my dad” message had some effect?
Is Kevin Rudd more of a Celebrity Prime Minister and having an appeal on people?
As at 10pm, news.com.au reported the national road toll standing at 17, with the recent crash, one at Noraville where a 43 year old met a 19 year old driver.
His ute was found on the wrong side of the road, and police quoted alcohol as being suspected as contributing to the accident.
“If you drink and drive, your a bloody idiot”.
“Wouldn’t you rather arrive alive?” – comes to mind as a bumper sticker. Might stop some of those who like to ride your arse despite doing the speed limit.
The accident report at 10pm brings the road toll to 3 for New South Wales, still better than the 7 last year.
Though I must admit, traffic has been thin on the roads, so perhaps that’s the reason there is little in the way of accidents. We still have a stack of tourists climbing our way, but the traffic isn’t TOO bad (it’s manageable, you see an idiot, call them a tourist (or terrorist, as the nickname goes), and try and anticipate the stupid move they’ll make next.
Such as slowing down to a crawls pace, or driving down the wrong side of the road, as we have seen in the last day.
It is always in the anticipation however, even in regular driving, anticipate what the next idiot is likely to do.
Maybe people have caught on and started doing this more, and as a result less fatalities have occurred?
It’ll be interesting to see the national results for the entire period, last year 61 was the magic number, and if everyone takes the same care going back in to home, as they did travelling out from it, hopefully the count will be in the low 40s as a maximum. That’d be a great relief for the nation as a demonstration that safe driving can be done.
As a side note however, in the face of a low road toll, there have been thousands of charges and fines applied to motorists for speeding, and drink driving related offences, which is where the alarms are focused no doubt.
And perhaps next year the market will be more on lowering the number of arrests police make, as opposed to reducing the number of deaths?
Seems like sense to me. Make it lower than 3000 and you’ll get a $2/week tax cut because we don’t think we’ll need to pay as much overtime next year.
That’d work well actually. The users reward themselves by removing the need for police on the roads and letting them take some holidays.
It’d probably work too good then. And the government would then need to find ways to make the replacement revenue.
That’s another issue, but safety on our roads should become a priority, and rather then focusing on the death count, focus on the arrests / fines issued.
In doing so, and placing a reward for reducing them, we can see that many will take it more seriously, and drive safely (and not stack up thousands of fines). Remove the extra policing, and will the death toll rise ?
We can be sure that a combination of safe driving, safe roads, and safe cars, will result in general, a safe trip. And maybe that’s another factor to consider here as well.
Enjoy!