Honesty about teen road safety lacking
Candor Media Release
Harry Duynhoven should be a comedian say Candor Trust, in response to his latest ramblings about drink driving."To the
media he claims teen drink driving is skyrocketing, but to groups like ours behind closed doors he says it's well down
as; a percent of all drivers tested,." says Field Educator Ed Radley.
A Sunday Star-Times' investigation has found drink-drive convictions in teens aged 17-19 are up almost 70 per cent in
the past decade, but this fact is meaningless to real levels of road safety, say Candor. As Mr Duynhoven, has explained
it only reflects a doubling of Police breath checks over that period.
In that light the rate of drink drive convictions attained for Police effort is obviously well down among teens. Fishing
trips at cheque-book points, by the misguided Traffic Alcohol Group are conducted under conditions of skyrocketing
quotas, so of course convictions are up.
If you put more speed cams out there you will catch more speeders, it does not mean there are more.
The matter to celebrate today is that teen drink driving deaths have approximately halved over a decade, to equal only
12% of their total driver toll in recent years. Teens are the shining lights for not drink driving - and Mr Duynhoven
and the Star Times are wrong to blame an ailment of primarily 30-50 year olds on them
However so called experts are reportedly saying the drinking age should be raised, and higher taxes on RTDs
(ready-to-drink) imposed.The new faces of the Christian Temperance Movement, such as ALAC it would seem, really do need
to find better material than teen drink driving to justify their activism.
There is no big issue there aside from drug driving. Over a third of tenagers killed behind the wheel in New Zealand
were drug impaired - mainly by cannabis. At least 4x as many tens drive drugged than drunk and half reported flying
through cheque book points during a Candor survey.
This is the greatest road risk for teens in NZ, but we don't hear the experts like ALAC crying out with gay abandon to
make pot unavailable (which does not work to reduce use with any drug), or even to reduce teenagers demand for it.They
can't see the joints for the alcopops.
The code of silence around the real prime factor of concern, as enforced by Police and as is obviously endorsed by Harry
Duynhoven is reprehensible. It really shows their hearts are not with the best interests of teen road safety.In no other
Country is the major risk factor still kept under wraps in 2008.
But here, the dangers and scope of drug driving harm is actively suppressed. Police have even gone so far as to remove
damning drug driving statistics from their website. Presumably because a problem exposed could raise expectations of
decisive action, as seen everywhere else in the world.
Apparently decisive action is not a prospect - given the Greens have Harry Duynhoven in a headlock over the drug driving
issue, as they look out to maintain popularity among potsmokers. But the Government has to blame our exorbitant teen
toll on something though, don't they?
So alcohol is of course made the fall guy - despite it's record low involvement. And red herrings are all too often
given prominence, in the teen road safety debate. The cellphone death parents are invited to lecture in schools for
instance. A factor and an important one distractions certainly are - but they aiont got a ticket on drug driving for
killing our teens.
ends