DRIVING MESSAGE
Cops plea for care after tragic 2018
POLICE are sick of putting people in body bags as a result of “cavalier” driving attitudes, as the Far North records another deadly year on its roads.
A total of 25 people were killed in 23 Far North traffic crashes last year – and police say that every single death could have been avoided.
“What else do we need to do as emergency services to get people to change that cavalier approach of, ‘she’ll be right, it won’t happen to me’?” Cairns Forensic Crash Unit officer in charge Sergeant Scott Ezard said.
“We don’t seem to be making an inroad into reducing the number of fatalities in the Far North.”
Sgt Ezard attributed it to the “risk-taking behaviours” of some drivers, which “ultimately resulted in their death or the death of someone else”.
“Still, people in our region think that these tragedies won’t happen to them,” Sgt Ezard said.
“And they end up being placed in a body bag and sent off to the mortuary.”
The most common causes behind the 25 deaths last year, he said, were driver inattention combined with fatigue and “in a number of cases … illicit substances”.
Sgt Ezard said the fatal traffic crashes that occurred in the Far North over the last 12 months had “all been completely avoidable”.
“There’s not one fatal that we attended as the Forensic Crash Unit, or even the serious incidents that we have attended throughout the year, that wasn’t avoidable,” he said.
“The amount of fatality and serious traffic crashes that are caused by anything other than driver error are … very rare.”
Sgt Ezard said it was disappointing that, given the amount of education available, motorists were still reckless.
“People still act in a way that they think, ‘it won’t happen to me’,” he said.
“That’s the psyche that we need to be able to shift to reduce the toll.”