Twenty months ago 35 people were shot dead by a gunman at Port Arthur in Tasmania. The nation was shocked. The state and federal governments swung into action. A new tax of 0.2 per cent was levied. And figures in this week reveal that more than 640,000 guns were handed in and destroyed. It cost $315 million, leaving $170 million over from the tax. Australia is a safer place. It is not immune from firearms violence, but the chances of multiple murders using automatic or semi-automatic weapons have been considerably lessened.
Despite the protests of the gun lobby, the buy back has been a great success and has changed the nation’s attitude to guns.
Compare the reaction to the Port Arthur massacre to the reaction to a greater carnage in Australia. This holiday more than 35 people have been killed and more than 10 times that injured on Australia’s roads. Each year more than 2000 Australians die and 20,000 are injured on the roads. Families grieve. The loss is immense, emotionally and economically.
Only at Christmas-New Year do we give the road roll much more than cursory notice. And even then it is usually because there is little other news about to fill the newspapers and the broadcast bulletins.
Australia was shocked into action in the late 1960s and early 1970s with tolls about a third higher than they are now, despite fewer cars on the road. Better cars and roads helped somewhat, as did better education. But the greatest reason for a 20 year pattern of decreasing road tolls has been the application of brute force: compulsory seat belts; radar; speed and red-light cameras; breath-testing and then random breath-testing; on-the-spot fines; demerit points and now double demerit points. However, it seems that the application of brute force has run out of steam. The tolls are creeping up again. They are certainly not coming down in the steady way they did in the 1980s and early 1990s, though 1997 has seen a welcome reduction after several years of increases.
Despite all of the forceful measures, and the attendant risk of an unfortunate spread of the mindset of extra police power to other areas of law-enforcement, it seems some motorists are willing to risk their own and other people’s lives.
If only people would drive sensible and reasonably a road death should be a very unusual event, perhaps attracting the sort of news interest that a shooting, aircraft or shark-attack death would attract. And, in the view of hundreds of thousands of drivers who year after year without accident or infringement, it should not be difficult.
The prize for lowering the road toll to all but a few deaths caused by things out of human control is a very large one. The cost of just NSW and ACT repairs to private cars is about $1 billion a year. The injury cost must be added, and then their is the emotional cost.
We know the main causes: drink; speed; and male youth. Thirty per cent of injured drivers are over the limit and 70 per cent of those are over 0.15. Males under 24 are the worse group for insurance claims and have the highest per-head road-injury rate.
We need now to translate that raw knowledge into changing human behaviour and attitude behind the wheel. The Government should consider re-imposing the 0.2 Medicare levy to this end. It will pay dividends quite quickly.