Culture of risk coming back to haunt

We’re a culture of risky thrill seeking, which we sell to tourists. Unfortunately we’ve been soaking in the ‘‘who dares, wins’’ attitude for years and become blind to risk. To lower the road toll, our complacent attitude needs changing. Third party insurance should become compulsory, and drivers insured rather than cars, because people cause accidents, not cars or roads.

Risky people would pay loaded premiums until their record is clean. Tourists who come from right-hand-drive countries should be considered as exceptionally high risk, and pay through the nose as payment for increasing the risk for all Kiwis.

Better training needed

The present attention being paid to road safety misses several points. Firstly, the annual death toll is a very poor indicator of trends in road safety. Road deaths are extremely rare events, and fluctuations in annual deaths are largely meaningless. It would be much more informative to publish monthly trends in serious injury accidents to know if road traffic harm is being properly addressed.

Secondly, cranking up existing measures against speeding is most unlikely to affect this contribution to road traffic accidents. Instead, I suggest that people convicted of road traffic offences be obliged to take part in substantial periods of aversion therapy and driver training. For many drivers, offence notices are a cost of doing business. If they are obliged to give up significant amounts of time (when the court decides) it will act as a different deterrent for many.

Graeme Coles Whitecliffs