Australians, particularly Canberrans, still have plenty of room for improvement on the roads. The latest AAMI insurance survey reveals poor attitudes and poor driving. Given an annual road toll of 1700 or so and an injury toll 10 times that, there would be plenty of benefits from improvement, both financially and in terms of pain and suffering.
True, the road toll has comes down in the past decade or so, though not steadily. In the past couple of years it has remained static. We should be aiming for a zero road toll. A death on the road should be a rare, not a common thing. The present road toll is to an acceptable cost of the convenience of road transport. With better attitudes and better driving the toll could come down hugely without significant loss of convenience.
The usual culprits stand out in the latest AAMI survey – males under the age of 25. They had 18.5 claims per 100 policies. Females in the same age group had a rate of 13.7. Young drivers tended to blame older drivers for causing accidents because the older drivers drove too slowly. But the truth was the opposite. Older drivers had fewer claims than younger ones. Drivers aged 51 to 64 have 7.8 claims per 100 policy-holders. Drivers over 65 had just 7.2. Sure, those over 65 might do less driving, but that cannot be said of the 51-64 age group. The message is clear: young , male drivers think they the best and in fact they are the worst.
Sure, the AAMI survey might be attacked as a publicity stunt. AAMI manages to target every major city with some outstanding characteristic (good or bad) to make the result more newsworthy. However, the fundamentals of the results are hard to go past.
Not enough is being done to curb the aggression of young male drivers. It is not just a question of getting them to obey the law. Violent acceleration to the speed limit is lawful but stupid. Racing through intersections and roundabouts at the speed limit is reckless. Assuming that every other driver will give way when they are supposed to defies experience. Young male drivers have to be taught moderation and defensive driving. Insurance premiums and excess payments that reflect the risk would help. As a society we should not tolerate a situation where young male drivers — who presumably have better reflexes, higher fitness, better eyesight and better hearing than those over 50 – have three times the accident rate.
The situation in Canberra is particularly poor. The AAMI survey says that Canberra drivers have the most cavalier attitude to speeding, running red light and drink driving. The survey found a general complacency among Canberra drivers. Ironically, part of the difficulty might be that Canberra’s good road quality and comparatively easy traffic conditions engender that complacency. The better the roads, the more people speed on them. They appear to be using all of the decreased risk from better roads in getting to the destination more quickly, rather than more safely.
Sadly, the reduced road toll since the early 1970s seems to be due to anything but better driver attitudes. It appears to be due to sterner police measures, better roads and safer cars. The AAMI survey shows that better targeting on young male drivers is needed. Perhaps a more varied police approach would help: a more unpredictable presence, rather than the same speed traps in the same place. That would also counter the claim that the cameras are revenue raisers.