Motorists – ‘don’t be so reckless’
‘‘Reckless behaviour’’ caused half of New Zealand’s fatal and serious injury crashes, an AA report has found. But the New Zealand Transport Agency says blame won’t fix our abysmal road toll statistics.
The AA Research Foundationcommissioned study, issued on Tuesday, analysed 300 passenger vehicle crashes, including drinkdriving and speeding, and acknowledged even responsible drivers made mistakes.
About three-quarters of the serious injury crashes studied involved drivers who were generally obeying the road rules but crashed after making a mistake.
NZTA urged drivers and roading agencies to consider the ‘‘bigger picture ... collectively to make our system safer’’.
Agency safety and environment director Harry Wilson said the report confirmed ‘‘the need to create a safe transport system which accommodates for human error so that simple mistakes don’t result in avoidable deaths and injuries on our roads’’.
The ‘‘safe system’’ approach to reducing deaths and serious injuries on New Zealand roads had four pillars – safe roads and roadsides, safe vehicles, safe speeds and safe road use, Wilson said.
‘‘We’re working to make improvements in all of those areas, and we hope this new report will help to broaden the road safety conversation beyond questions of ‘who was at fault’ in a crash.’’
Car review website Dog And Lemon Guide’s editor Clive Matthew-Wilson agreed with the
‘‘We have to get over this idea of creating perfect drivers. What we need is perfect cars and perfect roads.’’
Dog And Lemon Guide editor Clive Matthew-Wilson
agency but said fixing dangerous roads ‘‘should be the Government’s top priority’’.
‘‘We have to get over this idea of creating perfect drivers. What we need is perfect cars and perfect roads,’’ he said.
New Zealand’s road toll could be halved in three years ‘‘simply by modifying roads’’, MatthewWilson said.
New Zealand had always had ‘‘tired drivers, idiot drivers, and drunk drivers’’, he said.
‘‘Idiots are idiots. We’re not going to change their behaviour. What we need to do is change the roads and the cars so that idiot behaviour doesn’t result in unnecessary fatalities.’’
National road policing manager Superintendent Steve Greally said police were ‘‘working hard’’ to contribute to the safe system by urging safer road use through prevention and enforcement.
People should wear seatbelts and not speed, he said.
‘‘We know people can make mistakes when they’re driving, that’s why we ask them to make good decisions to start with, to lessen the impact of mistakes ... less speed means less harm.’’