Prevention rather than cure

I drafted this a while ago, but then life got in the way and I didn't get round to publishing it. I came back to it and thought the comments are still as relevant today as when they were first written. 

This crash provoked a lot of angst around the country. It was certainly a tragedy and the families concerned are going to relive that horrid event every Christmas for years to come. But the response of the Police and others such as the AA are totally wrong headed. 

The instant there is a road crash, the first question the Police answer is "was speed involved?" and the second is "was alcohol involved?". It seems the NZ Police have identified only two factors that cause crashes - speed and alcohol. They have also identified a number of "holiday blackspots" where crashes frequently occur at holiday weekends. 

Well, I think they are looking in totally the wrong place and at the wrong time to prevent accidents such as reported above. The genesis of that crash on a straight stretch of road in Uretiti was at another place and at another time. It seems so obvious that people who are more accustomed to driving within city precincts and on roads with median barriers for 90% of the year are the ones who get in strife on the rare occasions they venture out into the country and onto dual carriage way roads. Quite frankly, when it comes to driving, they are at best, lacking in driving experience and quite likely, just plain incompetent.

In keeping with my "personal responsibility" philosophy, it behooves urban motorists to realise there are two roading systems in New Zealand - the unreal conditions they encounter while driving to work and the real conditions they find outside city limits. Learning to cope with the latter should not be tackled on a long weekend when everyone else is trying to escape the city. It is something that should be a part of a learner driver's curriculum, before they get their restricted license. And it is something that should be practised throughout one's driving career. 

People who drive in rural settings are often experienced in a wider array of road conditions than their city dwelling counterparts. They are often more used to undulating road surfaces, diverse traffic types, being able to drive for extended distances at open road speed limits and encounter numerous hazards. 

The blackspots the Police should be policing are the driveways in every urban environment in New Zealand. And the time for this policing is not at long weekends, it is every other week of the year. We should be ridding our roads of the patently incompetent - the driver hunched over the wheel with their face 150mm from the windscreen who is travelling at 80 km/hr when conditions are perfectly okay for 100 km/hr. And at the long weekends, Police should concentrate on the first 10 km of dual carriageway immediately outside our main cities. If a driver is demonstrating incompetence, being inconsiderate or indecisiveness that close to the city, it is going to get worse from there on. Pull them over, clamp their car, put the occupants on a bus back to the city and have their car delivered a day or so later. When other travellers see this happening, it will be a salient warning. Some may even voluntarily return home out of consideration for other motorists.

Road Safety

I am tired of hearing people blame the state of New Zealand roads for the rate of accidents in this country. I have driven extensively in the 30+ years I have held a Driver's Licence. My view is that New Zealand roads are adequate for use by a competent driver. New Zealand has too few tax payers to be able to afford to have roads built to the kind of standard some people seem to be expecting if we want to sustain all the other services people want.

My advice to anyone who finds New Zealand roads inadequate is to stay off them and make them even safer for those of us who don't have a problem with them.

In any road accident investigation three factors are considered: the driver, the environment, and the vehicle.

Every vehicle on the road is supposed to be checked regularly. It is quite rare for a properly maintained vehicle that has a current Warrant of Fitness to be at fault in an accident.

The environment is continually being monitored and 'improved'. (sometimes I think some of the road maintenance is of dubious merit). While environment can be a factor in an accident, the prudent and capable driver is able to compensate for this.

What we don't have is a regular reassessment of driver competence. Apart from testing for additional classes of vehicles, I have not had my driving ability reassessed since getting my Passenger Car license at age 15.

I would be quite happy to have less vehicle testing in exchange for increased driver re-testing. Every driver should have to undergo reassessment at regular intervals to prove their competence and courtesy on the road. I don't think just having the ability to shove a vehicle in "D" and point it around a few suburban streets really cuts it. Driver testing should be undertaken in a manual transmission vehicle to ensure the driver is actively involved in the process. I get the impression that there are a lot of people who sit in the driver's seat but they are little more than the passenger with the steering wheel in front of them.

I think this testing would probably weed out about one third of the incompetent, inconsiderate drivers who shouldn't be there in the first place. Once they are gone the road would be a safer place. We could raise the speed limit and let those who possess the skill enjoy the experience.