Deaths Due To Tunnel Vision Over Road Safety
Candor Trust Press release

A 1990's origins Road Safety Policies clear failure to grapple with the prime causes of the road toll, in the wake of yet another highway horror week has prompted Candor Trust to speak out again. The mismanagement most lately saw a toddler die in the far North - where near 40% of deceased drivers have smoked pot.

'New Zealand will never be able to claim First World status until the major toll causes are willingly addressed here, as elsewhere. Unfortunately such a common sense approach is ruled out for us by Government due to the current road safety policy. The Policy needs to get the boot', says Trust Co-ordinator Rachael Ford.

It's best described by Annette King as the 'General Deterrence Policy.' A symptom of it is that after every surge in the blood bath, some Police member will be compelled to publicly mutter the old driver blaming platitudes.

Using stuck record technique they robotically and ineffectively, truth be told, churn out communications along the lines of 'drivers aren't getting the message - speed, seatbelts blah blah blah'. The approach is myopic say Candor.

'It's lethal this approach', and may have contributed to as many as seven out of ten deaths on NZ roads in under a week. As the exclusive focus of action is mandated by Policy to be upon the 'Greatest Enforceable Risks' so far as National campaigns and State funded risk education go.

But the 'Greatest enforceable risks' are a far cry from the greatest risks, and the policy is based on a false premise that education must be backed by enforcement efforts to work.

Applying the policy to other health epidemics than the toll would mean National cancer prevention campaigns could never have been undertaken - as you can not be ticketed for missing a cervical smear.

The existence of our inglorious G.E.R policy was confirmed in correspondence lately received by Fatigue Educator Martin Jenkins of Candor Trusts sister Group Akilla Sleep safety from Dr Jan Wright of Land Transport New Zealand.

It grates many Road Safety Educators that so little is done by Government Agencies to address the greatest actual risks of fatigue and drug abuse presently, when each constitute main factors in around a quarter of fatal crashes.

As against the excess speed factor being present at only 18% (Min of Transport) of fatal crashes. Fatigue and drug intoxication though 'unenforceable' steam well ahead of the speed, alcohol and no-seatbelt components of the toll.

Six of ten deaths in less than a week - a number that yet again affirms our Second World Transport System status - apparently resulted from inexplicable head-on collisions. Including ones occurring on straights.

Another three fatal crashes were run off road or loss of control type single vehicle crashes. The majority of this past weeks fatal crash epidemic involved young male drivers - a risk group for both drug and drowsy driving.

Eight of the nine recent fatal crashes by reason of their event type and generally of the involved drivers age and sex, should arouse strong suspicions from Police and Crash Investigators that inattention (?cause) was a significant factor.

Drug or drowsy driving are the known prime causes of inattention which are needing to be ruled out in a process of thorough investigation and elimination, though Candor are sceptical any kind of serious investigation aimed at getting to the bottom of the latest deaths (or killings) will occur.

'Despite over 20% of Police resources being dedicated to Road Policing we know crash investigators are not well schooled in identifying fatigue crashes here. And that long recognised legal issues with drug testing put us decades behind other Countries in primary data collection.'

'It is simply not good enough to hold up traffic for hours after fatalities or luckier but inexplicable crashes occur, whilst fudging on crucial drug tests'.

'Victims families should have a right to full information about why their loved one was killed or suffered homicide - often at the hands of serial car criminals, we believe'.

It's deeply regrettable NZ's major toll causes are obscured by poor investigation on a regular basis since they don't fit with the current ticketing / fines based policy, and can therefore continue 'invisible' and unaddressed, say Candor.

In a study by the Irish Medical Bureau of Road Safety, 67.9 per cent of dodgy drivers apprehended with essentially zero alcohol use were risk drug positive. And closer to home studies of deceased drivers strongly implicate risk drugs excluding alcohol as causative in up to half of our road toll.

It must be asked if NZ Police may be unaware the typical profile of the driver apprehended and tested for driving under the influence of drugs (DUID).

That person is young, male, with low or zero alcohol level, with a specimen provided between 6am and 9pm, and with the presence of cannabinoids. The Irish Study which greatly helped with profiling of late also showed -

• 33.1 per cent of the drivers under the drink-drive legal limit for alcohol tested positive for risk drugs;

• For drivers who were over the alcohol limit, only 14.2 per cent tested positive

Candor say local drug drivers also report a distaste for alcohol so it is difficult to understand why just deceased drink drivers are now being drug tested here (for research purposes only).

A very low number of drug impaired driving charges, around a dozen a year would indicate that the training Annette King alleges Police have in detecting drug drivers is not bearing ample fruit.

To drive impaired by any drug whether it is illicit or a licit drug illicitly abused for the high is as much of an offense as alcoholic driving per the Land Transport Act, but it appears our Police are going to have to get a lot better at detecting the offence if the law is to be worth the paper it is written on.

'Drug drivers are having a field day' says Candor Trust Spokesperson, Ed Radley. 'We're almost the last to deal with this - South Australian Police struggled in their early days of Policing drug driving in the 1980's so they were given quick reference cards about how to recognise suspects.

Nowadays Australian Police are even looking at improving existing methods by using remote viewing technology so that road Police can have Station based experts help assess suspects on the road.

Currently front-line Police are working by an honesty policy – junky drivers need to admit guilt before they can be charged. As Police have absolutely no powers to compel drug testing and nor does it appear the new drug driving laws proposed will endow sufficient powers to dent a major toll cause.

The technology to detect drug and fatigued drivers and prosecute them is in wide use elsewhere - saliva tests in Australia and Eyecheck computerised tests in the U.S.A.

But sadly these life saving technologies are denied the population with perhaps the greatest need to avert a yearly onroad impaired driving based disaster.

A lack of treatment facilities has seen New Zealands addict population more than hold it's own against prevalence of addiction in other developed Nations.

'The Government really needs to review the appropriateness of it's 'Greatest Enforceable Risk' policy since it's been flatlining since 1990 - the social cost of road crashes at 3.3 billion has remained virtually unchanged.

'We believe the models failure to account for drugs, fatigue and it's failure to use comprehensive engineering solutions, to minimise the consequences of driver error explain the unstemmed carnage - as the last week may well demonstrate'.

Government last year was given the benefit of expert opinion regarding it's policy within the independent Breen report. A re-orientation to bring us into the modern world if we want our statistics to improve was advised.

The Consultant's best however ignored advice was to institute a 'vision' type road safety policy - this policy type can successfully address the main causes of the toll.

The foreign Consultant criticised our current Policy as potentially conflicting with the NZ injury Prevention Strategy. Likely because it unabashedly aims to sustain a high toll (300 a year at 2010) for new 'affordability' reasons, as the report disparagingly commented.

The World Bank has made clear that short term savings result in long term fiscal drains and are to be avoided where possible. 'Affordability' in road safety is unquestionably a false economy.

ENDS

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