The Government's
new plans to improve road safety are certainly controversial. They include a
variety of measures from greater emphasis on public transport, to lowering
speed limits and increasing fuel excise taxes to pay for it all. Leaving aside
the issue of whether raising fuel excise taxes breaks the Government's "no
new taxes" promise (although the Prime Minister's explanation that fuel
excise is not a tax but a duty is unbelievably cute and further evidence of an
earnest naiveté that worryingly she evinces all too readily these days) the
question is whether the new strategy will address our increasing road toll and
promote better road safety.
Over the recent
Easter holiday weekend, I did a lot of driving - from Wellington to Auckland and back, and a few other places in-between - so
had the opportunity to observe closely what is going on on our roads. Here are
my observations.
Most New
Zealanders drive pretty responsibly and carefully, but the ones who do not, are
extremely bad and dangerous. Frankly, they should not be allowed on the roads
at all because of the threat they pose. Over the weekend, I saw overtaking on
blind corners; ridiculous speed just for the sake of it; drivers pulling out
from rural side roads into oncoming traffic and then proceeding as they were on
a leisurely Sunday afternoon drive; other slow drivers unwilling to pull over
to let the mounting queue of motorists behind them, of whom they were obviously
oblivious, pass safely.
We have some very
good stretches of main highway where driving is a pleasure. But there are
significant parts of our main highways that are little more than rickety
tar-sealed goat tracks, with unreasonably tight corners, poor vision and
inadequate or absent warning signage. Straightening these roads from the days when
they were old coach routes and eliminating the most dangerous aspects of them
surely has to be a road safety priority. Indeed, we ought to be aiming to
four-lane as much of State Highway One as possible to improve both traffic
safety and traffic flow.
Some of the most
problematic driving I saw was from long-distance truck and trailer units. I
realise that truck drivers are highly skilled, and generally have much better
vision from their cabs than the average motorist. But I doubt that I saw any of
them complying with the 90 kmh speed limit, nor did I see any Police stopping
them. Incredibly, I did see big rigs passing each other on passing lanes,
holding up much traffic behind them, then speeding up to avoid being passed.
Surprisingly,
despite the egregiously sanctimonious advertisement on television at present, I saw very few Police. There was
a handful of speed cameras, but a physical Police presence seemed noticeably
absent. Where they were visible, Police invariably seemed to be stationed at
the start and end, or, even worse, the middle, of passing lanes, presumably
because that is where the speeding infringement pickings are best. I realise
that the Police do not really like doing road safety, because they do not
regard it as "real" Police work, but their lazy and mistaken belief
that good road policing is all about speeding infringements (no, I was not
caught speeding over the weekend!) rather than promoting good driving
behaviours is simplistic and short-sighted. When, for example, have you ever
seen the Police pull over the unreasonably slow driver, or the one with the
precariously overloaded trailer or ute? No, the speeding motorist is the far
easier prey.
A truly effective
road safety strategy needs to focus on the following issues: better roading
engineering and improved road conditions; getting the serially dangerous
drivers off the roads altogether, whatever their age or circumstances; stricter
policing of long-distance trucking; and, a change in the Police attitude to a
more positive approach to road safety, rather than a continuation of its
current infringement centred fixation.
Addressing these
issues are specific positive steps to improving road safety and lowering the
road toll. Yet none of them seems to feature in this week's Government announcements.
So, as you pay your extra fuel taxes in the years to come, you be the judge of
whether we really care about road safety in this country.
Dunne Speaks is
having a couple of weeks off, and will be back at the end of April.
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