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07-01-2007, 10:51am
I read a report on road deaths back in 2003 that tried to analyse the carnage from a number of unusual perspectives.
The first one that caught my eye was called the 'Crossroads effect' which in basic terms stated that because NSW was so large and was sandwiched in the middle of Vic and Qld, every vehicle travelling from Vic -> Qld or Qld -> Vic had to pass through NSW. Add to that the obvious point that every visitor from out of state travelling to NSW also used our roads plus, every NSW traveller going anywhere also did the same. It went on to claim that NSW carried up to 75% of ALL Christmas/New Years road movements NATIONALLY yet accounted for less than 30% of the road toll for that period.
There were a number of really interesting facts and I wish I could find that report. Some of the ones I remember were ....
A high proportion of accidents (not neccessarily resulting in deaths) during that period involved drivers who began their trip either directly after finishing work OR in the early hours of the morning when they would normally be asleep. Most drivers who fall asleep at the wheel and crash (while on a straight road) are classified as 'Fatigue affected', however if they met disaster on a bend and there are no skid marks - for some reason its classified as 'Excess speed for the conditions'.
Another interesting point was that if you subtracted deaths of out-of-state drivers from the total, apparently the number of deaths is line-ball or slightly LESS than average for NSW during the same days of the week for any time of the year. In other words, if the Christmas break was Saturday to Tuesday (as it was this year) if you stripped out the out-of state deaths, then the NSW road toll for any average Saturday to Tuesday period was about the same.
On the comment that we should all be law abiding and send the Govt. broke. This is obviously going to cause more problems for motorists as revenue drops and the Govt. becomes more desperate. This is evidenced by the fact that there were 200,000 less tickets issued in the past 12 months, yet they are talking about introducing stealth detection here. Eventually, we will be driving everywhere at 40km/h and our speedo will be linked to the RTA central computer and will shoot off a signal every time we go 1km/h over the limit and a ticket will be emailed to you before you even get home. Then will we finally jack up and complain ??? The older I get, the better I was. Regards.... Rob
The first one that caught my eye was called the 'Crossroads effect' which in basic terms stated that because NSW was so large and was sandwiched in the middle of Vic and Qld, every vehicle travelling from Vic -> Qld or Qld -> Vic had to pass through NSW. Add to that the obvious point that every visitor from out of state travelling to NSW also used our roads plus, every NSW traveller going anywhere also did the same. It went on to claim that NSW carried up to 75% of ALL Christmas/New Years road movements NATIONALLY yet accounted for less than 30% of the road toll for that period.
There were a number of really interesting facts and I wish I could find that report. Some of the ones I remember were ....
A high proportion of accidents (not neccessarily resulting in deaths) during that period involved drivers who began their trip either directly after finishing work OR in the early hours of the morning when they would normally be asleep. Most drivers who fall asleep at the wheel and crash (while on a straight road) are classified as 'Fatigue affected', however if they met disaster on a bend and there are no skid marks - for some reason its classified as 'Excess speed for the conditions'.
Another interesting point was that if you subtracted deaths of out-of-state drivers from the total, apparently the number of deaths is line-ball or slightly LESS than average for NSW during the same days of the week for any time of the year. In other words, if the Christmas break was Saturday to Tuesday (as it was this year) if you stripped out the out-of state deaths, then the NSW road toll for any average Saturday to Tuesday period was about the same.
On the comment that we should all be law abiding and send the Govt. broke. This is obviously going to cause more problems for motorists as revenue drops and the Govt. becomes more desperate. This is evidenced by the fact that there were 200,000 less tickets issued in the past 12 months, yet they are talking about introducing stealth detection here. Eventually, we will be driving everywhere at 40km/h and our speedo will be linked to the RTA central computer and will shoot off a signal every time we go 1km/h over the limit and a ticket will be emailed to you before you even get home. Then will we finally jack up and complain ??? The older I get, the better I was. Regards.... Rob