An end to police chase carnage
Unless there is a dramatic change of attitude among young drivers to the role of police and the dangers of speed, their families will lose more of them in completely avoidable crashes. Bringing about that change will take a completely new approach by authorities.
The tragic fact that the number of people killed during police pursuits has increased every year since 2014 is clear evidence that the current system of driver training and penalties for breaches of traffic regulations is having little impact on the willingness of a growing number of young drivers to take risks with their lives and the lives of others on the road.
That has been brought home to too many Waikato families in recent times with the deaths of young people while fleeing from police.
In the latest incident, it was probably a stolen vehicle running out of petrol which prevented the deaths of three South Auckland youngsters.
It seems a 16-year-old driver with two young passengers led police on a highspeed chase from Hamilton to Taupiri in the early hours of last Tuesday.
During the chase, the stolen car was driven on the wrong side of the road and reached speeds of about 130kmh. It was probably only luck that there was not a head-on collision with another vehicle.
In another case of reckless stupidity in February this year, a 22-year-old man who had been earlier suspended from driving was caught driving on the Waikato Expressway at 213kmh in his mother’s Honda Civic.
When he appeared in the Hamilton District Court last week, Judge Philip Connell suggested he should ‘‘go away and grow up’’.
Unless these drivers take a more responsible attitude to driving, many will be lucky to survive long enough to grow up.
Irresponsible behaviour by young people is not new.
It is the nature of all young people to push the boundaries of safety and community tolerance and that is unlikely to change.
Police statistics show 29 people were killed between 2013 and 2017 during police pursuits.
Imposing more restrictions on police when pursuing speeding motorists will have little effect.
In Waikato district, the average pursuit lasts a little more than five minutes and they usually cover about 4 kilometres.
While police are reviewing their fleeing driver policy on a nationwide level, and findings are expected to be released later this year, reckless and dangerous drivers must be stopped as soon as possible for the safety of others on the road.
Following them with a helicopter may help find them eventually, but it should not be a substitute for an attempt to pull them over immediately.
The inescapable reality is that the blame for fatal pursuit crashes rests entirely with the driver who fails to stop for a police patrol car.
That is a very high penalty for such a foolish act.
If we want to prevent these drivers from killing themselves and others on the road, we will have to look beyond court imposed penalties, driver training, restricted licences and providing race tracks.
We have had all of those for many years and still the rate of pursuit tragedies continues to rise.
Perhaps it is time to seriously consider making speed governors essential – part of the warrant of fitness for all vehicles or at least the vehicles driven by drivers under 25, who seem to be the main offenders.
We already have vehicle navigation devices which show the speed limit on all our roads.
That technology can also detect different speed limits so it would be a simple matter to include a temporary ignition or fuel interruption component when the limit is exceeded. Such a governor could be installed in such a way to make it impossible for all but a technician to remove or tamper with.
The only vehicles exempt would be police and emergency response such as ambulance and fire vehicles.
It would not stop all road deaths, but it would stop speed-related tragedies, make our roads a little safer and the job of traffic policing as little easier.
There may be a dozen reasons why this would not work, but there are eight reasons this year alone why something this radical needs to be considered.