It is almost exactly 40 years since my name appeared on Page 3 of Albury-Wodonga’s Border Morning Mail.
I was mentioned as one of those who suffered minor injuries in a road crash on the Wodonga-Beechworth road. It was a collision between a young, arrogant driver and an old, obstinate one. The old, obstinate driver died later of his injuries. I can still see the broken bone of the young, arrogant driver poking through the flesh of his forearm. He has since died of an unrelated illness. My brother and mother were in hospital for weeks with ghastly injuries.
I was reminded of the anniversary this week for several reasons.
It coincided with a dental appointment.
This week – in early May — ACT reached the same number dead on the road as for the whole of last year.
Research was published that effectively debunks the idea that the ACT has the best drivers in Australia because the ACT has the lowest toll per head by far.
And an enormous amount of publicity was given to a fatal air crash in Queensland.
The dental appointment was related. Yes, even 40 years later, the effect goes on. Sure, it is very minor stuff. The dentist was replacing a crown on a tooth that was shattered in the crash.
But for many it is not minor. Road crashes cause a lifetime of anguish, bereavement and suffering. And it is all so unnecessary.
Ten people have been killed on ACT roads this year. Just when we thought the message was getting through. The past three full years had low tolls: 10, 11 and 10 respectively – about half to two-thirds the usual toll. It now seems those three years might have been an aberration.
Worse, they might have helped disguise the true position.
In 2003, the ACT road toll stood at 3.1 per 100,000 population – better than NSW at 8.7 or Australia as a whole at 9.2. It is either the lowest or among the lowest two or three of any developed country on earth.
So congratulate ourselves on our good driving and investment in good roads? Certainly not. On two counts.
First, we should aim for a zero toll. It is not a silly idea. The Australian mining industry used to accept death and injury because mining was inherently hazardous. Then about 15 to 20 years ago it made safety a primary concern. It aimed for zero deaths and zero serious injuries. Deaths and injuries began to fall significantly.
The aviation industry aims for zero deaths. It regulates stringently and investigates crashes meticulously, so much so that the public expects zero aviation deaths. And when an aircraft crashes – as one did a week ago – it is major news. That crash was horrible – killing 19 people. But is was no more horrible than the road crashes which kill 19 people every four days or so.
However, we seem to accept the road deaths.
The second reason we should not pat ourselves on the back, is that per-head-of-population toll gives a misleadingly rosy picture of the ACT toll.
Earlier this month, the NRMA-ACT Road Safety Trust published some damning research.
This is a small territory. A lot of the driving done by ACT drivers is done outside the ACT. Almost as many Canberrans or drivers of ACT-registered cars kill and maim themselves and fellow Canberrans in NSW as in the ACT, according to the research.
When you add this toll to the toll of people killed inside the ACT, you find that the ACT toll per head of population is worse than the NSW toll. It is around the Australian average. True, we should now subtract the number of people killed in the ACT by non-ACT drivers (about one in seven) and we should add the number ACT deaths in states other than NSW.
They almost balance out, leaving us with the fairly sobering conclusion that Canberra drivers kill and maim as many people in road crashes as other Australians.
Yet half of the ACT road deaths occur on our excellent road system. We do not seem to take the safety advantage of that. It seems all the advantage is burned up in getting there faster.
And maybe that makes us even poorer drivers when we leave the good ACT roads.
Given that, the conclusion stares us in the face. Far from being the best drivers in Australia, we are probably the worse.
When we are faced with the roads the average Australian has to put up with, we make a real mess of it – particularly young males on holidays or at the weekend, according to the research.
Really, seriously, why should anyone ever be killed on the ACT’s high standard roads?
It was always my gut feeling that Canberra drivers were among the worst I have every come across — and I have driven and cycled in cities all over Australia and the world – including some Third World hell-holes. But I have never riled against Canberra drivers in print because there has been little other than anecdotal evidence. Now we have it.
Canberra drivers are more impatient, ill-mannered, incompetent and lethal than other Australians and have been hiding that behind statistics for too long.