Kawasaki Sportsbike Riders Club - Australia - Online Forum

Action 'needed to reduce road toll'
Friday Jan 01, 2010
After a horror 2009, concerted national action is needed to address a spike in the fatal road toll, Australia's peak motoring body says.

interested to hear your views, how do you see it and what national solution would you implement ?

Ban cars, bikes, trucks and buses. If we get about on horses or pushbikes the road toll will be slashed...

PEOPLE make mistakes and some people die. Sad - yes, very sad, but true. Fixing the roads is not the solution. No road has ever killed anyone...only people making mistakes on these roads.

Statistics are just that. Last year 200 people died, the year before 100 died. These are just numbers (not the people) but the statistics. There will be variations from one year to another.

My 2c worth...

laidback1952 wrote: Fixing the roads is not the solution. No road has ever killed anyone...only people making mistakes on these roads.

True but from a safety perspective, highway upgrades such a a barrier between on coming traffic saves lives, not talking about cheese grater either
The dual carrage way upgrades of the Pacific Highway has no doubt made an impact in their perspective areas & hopefully the gov will continue to put funds into it.

EDUCATION

Sometimes the best solution is also the simplest. Teach drivers and riders better. Better skills, better knowledge of rules and etiquette. Make licence's harder to get and re-test us every 5yrs up to age 65 and then every 2 years.

It's far too easy to get a licence and even easier to keep it. Renewal time=10yrs in Vic, in that time rules have changed, road designs have changed, new rules have been implemented, and yet, when the renewal notice comes all I need to do is get a new photo taken! Not display that I am still competent behind the wheel, or that I still have adequate knowledge of the current laws, just a new picture..............disgraceful!!!!

Remove ALL fixed and Mobile Speed Camera's and make it a ten year sentence if caught using a mobile phone while driving (with proof)
I spend more time (as do others) watching my god damn speedo than I do watching the road!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Apparently your only responsibily whilst on the road now is making sure you DON'T SPEED, even if that would
increase safety (such as getting past that wonky driver in a hurry).
You don't dare because you might be booked for going a wopping 3 or 4 k's over
Oh and Happy New Year BIG BROTHER
Speed is a contibuting factor in accidents.
Excuse me but The Driver is the major contributing factor in any accident!!!!
If Speed was always the demon.....how do they explain the 650,980,600,028,745,367,865,604,931 cases of undetected speeding that only result in FUN!!!!?????

I think the easy answer is to remove RED P plates!!!!.....

Something about them give's people the I'm invincible and the speed limit is only for other people attitude....They are the worst bunch of prick's on the road....

Education would certainly help, better driving lessons, rather than learn how to pass a test, learn how to drive, learn how to control a vehicle that has aquaplaned all of a sudden, ditto for riders, more training wouldn't hurt. The other thing that would help but will never happen is INcrease speed limits on major highways.

I'd like to see the stats on how many accidents happen on major highways due to fatigue, boredom or a combo thereof, bump the 100 max to 150, drivers will concentrate more as they won't spend so much friggin time watching their speedo for starters, they'll know if they have an accident at 150kmh the accident is likely to be more serious and last but not least, they won't spend so much time on a shit boring straight road going from point a to point b.

I do the Melbourne-Geelong-Melbourne run once a month as a rule, it bores me fucking stupid and almost always end up having a micro nap whilst at the wheel (always take the cage as mum won't get on the back of a bike).

Bump the speed limit to 150 cuts my travelling time down significantly so less chance of falling asleep through boredom!

Stop bothering with all this wipe off five shit and actuall teach poeple to drive rather how to pass a simple test. The biggest failure in thsi country is that a licence is so easy to get, and unqualified person can teach another to drive well enough to pass a test. All this does is pass poor driving abilities from one generation to another. Zero driving ability leads to high death toll.

Agreed that Compulsory Driver Training is at the top of the list for must haves.

robracer wrote:Agreed that Compulsory Driver Training is at the top of the list for must haves.

+1

seiko1 wrote:Remove ALL fixed and Mobile Speed Camera's and make it a ten year sentence if caught using a mobile phone while driving (with proof)

I personally think, that this mobile phone thingo is a lost course .
You can not turn the wheels of time back to before mobile phones and there's no way that today's and even more so, tomorrows generation will not talk on their phone while driving. I think a legistlative meassure has to be aplied by which automobile manufacturers have to have handfree systems as a standard feature, made as safe as possible and compolsury similarly to seatbelts or airbags.
Selecting a radio chanel, putting on makeup or slirping on a thickshake, can be just as dangerous when you think about it, so where do you draw the line. The future is all to do with interactive communication. Just have to make it safe.

kaneg wrote:Action 'needed to reduce road toll'
Friday Jan 01, 2010
After a horror 2009, concerted national action is needed to address a spike in the fatal road toll, Australia's peak motoring body says.

interested to hear your views, how do you see it and what national solution would you implement ?

curious as here in Vic..the guvmint is sprouting
LOWEST ROAD TOLL EVER (since records began)

so where is the problem?

Still too many dying Mr Smith is the essence of the problem I believe. Even here in the nanny state.

mick_dundee wrote:Still too many dying Mr Smith is the essence of the problem I believe. Even here in the nanny state.

One problem is deciding on an acceptable number...Sure we all would love it to be nil but that is never going to happen. Not while we have humans driving and vehicles that break.

There was one fatality last night when armed robbers smashed into a car killing a child. How safe do the roads have to be to prevent that.

Maybe anyone that has an accident of any kind should be subject to strict testing to ensure they can drive in an appropriate manner.

kaneg wrote:

robracer wrote:Agreed that Compulsory Driver Training is at the top of the list for must haves.

+1

seiko1 wrote:Remove ALL fixed and Mobile Speed Camera's and make it a ten year sentence if caught using a mobile phone while driving (with proof)

I personally think, that this mobile phone thingo is a lost course .
You can not turn the wheels of time back to before mobile phones and there's no way that today's and even more so, tomorrows generation will not talk on their phone while driving. I think a legistlative meassure has to be aplied by which automobile manufacturers have to have handfree systems as a standard feature, made as safe as possible and compolsury similarly to seatbelts or airbags.
Selecting a radio chanel, putting on makeup or slirping on a thickshake, can be just as dangerous when you think about it, so where do you draw the line. The future is all to do with interactive communication. Just have to make it safe.

Today actually watched a girl round a blind corner on the wrong side of the road due to the fact she was texting, the male passenger seemed oblivious to her lack of road positioning. I was watching safely from a turning and was going nowhere until she had safely passed.

laidback1952 wrote:

mick_dundee wrote:Still too many dying Mr Smith is the essence of the problem I believe. Even here in the nanny state.

One problem is deciding on an acceptable number...Sure we all would love it to be nil but that is never going to happen.

Why do we need to decide on an acceptable number? The "aim" is to get the road toll for 2010 below that of 2009, the aim for 2011 is to get the road toll < 2010 and on it goes, the problem with that ideology is of course that we are putting more and more people on the road every year with no extra training than what is needed to get them on the road legally.

So here;s the equation, we want less road deaths whilst increasing the number of road users but not really upgrading the roads or public transit system in any way so as to cope with said increases, so sooner or later something is going to bust and I reckon the most likely thing to go bust is the road toll. Sure cars are safer than ever before, but the drivers are "probably" even less capable than those of 20-30 years ago as a direct result too.