Yes, yes, yes, I’ll get back to the infinitely more interesting world of motorsport next week.
In my column last week, however, I roundly criticised pretty much everything about the way Waka Kotahi (aka the NZ Land Transport Agency) is going about implementing the Government’s wishes (as outlined in the Road to Zero Road Safety Strategy Plan 2020-2030) to 1) reduce the (current?) road toll by 40% by 2030, and 2) eventually get it down to ……zero; without offering any alternatives.
This week, therefore, I feel that it’s only right that I – as a critic – do a bit more digging in and around New Zealand’s current road toll.
So far this year deaths on our roads total just 74, and despite a fairy substantial hike from just 18 in January 2021 to 30 in January this year the trend so far is actually heading back down again – from 28 deaths in Feb 2021 to 24 in Feb 2022, and from 26 in March 2021 to just 20 in March this year.
Also, though the number of deaths on our roads was on the rise again from a low of just 253 in 2013 to 378 in both 2017 and 2018 you only have to look back as far as 1973 (when 843 of our friends and family members were killed in so-called ‘accidents’ on our roads) to see that we are doing some things better.
The number of road deaths had in fact been trending inexorably upwards since first breaking through the 500 barrier (from 428 in 1964 to 559 in 1965) and did not drop back below (the 500-pa figure) until the year 2000.
That – in case you don’t have access to a calculator – is a 35-year period in which the number of deaths on our roads fluctuated from a low of 501 in 1998 to highs of the aforementioned 843 in 1973 to 795 in 1987 and 755 in 1989.
Getting a handle on what sort of number – if any! – is acceptable requires a bit more digging, however.
Back in 1921 for instance, there were just 1.24 million of us, whereas by 1930 that figure had increased to 1.48 million and continued to rise steadily bar a slight hiccup through the early years of WW2. Topping 2 million by 1954, 3 million in 1974 and 4 million by 2003.
The accepted way to compare apples with apples across the world is by quoting a per 100,000 figures. New Zealand’s had been dropping steadily since 2000 (12.1 deaths/100,000 pop) to a low of 5.7 d/100K in 2013 but had started to go back up again from 2014 (6.5 d/100K) to peak at 7.9 d/100K in 2017.
These figures might look good in isolation but we still lag behind Australia. with a best recent yearly figure (2019) of just 4.7 d/100K) and the European Union with a 2019 figure of 5.1 d/100K.
So that’s that then. Our road death stats are definitely higher than they should be. Yet within these number lies a very real opportunity to reduce them even further; arguably never to the hypothetical absolute zero of the policy document which kicked this whole discussion off but definitely down between the 30 & 50% that would be considered a win by 2030.
For this to happen, however, it is going to take a hell of a lot more commitment to the cause from Waka Kotahi chief executive Nicole Rosie and her fellow Public Service mandarins than they have exhibited so far,
For instance, in the first of 10 such Road to Zero reviews published last here was some damning reading. To whit, ‘Implementations delays (In regard to increased investment in infrastructure and speed management) have meant that (This) programme is lagging behind its targets (and) we will need to significantly ramp up and improve delivery in this area of safety infrastructure (median and side barriers, rumble strips and the like) if safety infrastructure improvements are to make up their full contribution towards the 40 percent target.
According to a Radio New Zealand report in the wake of the report being published, only 37 km of median barriers had been installed against Waka Kotahi’s own targets of 300km by 2024 and 10,000 by 2030. In much the same way only 169km of side barriers against 2024 & 2030 targets of 1700 km and 4,000kms had been erected.
The Police were also called to account for cutting rather than increasing the number of breath tests it was conducting, not to mention, supposedly being soft on speeding.
Which is all very well but as I researched and wrote up this week’s column what really struck me was just how sophisticated and all pervasive what I will call a ‘blame’ culture has become in this country.
It doesn’t seem to matter who you are, or what you’ve done, if you can find somebody else to blame, you are literally home and hosed.
If, however, like me, you were brought up with a strong sense of personal responsibility ..and you’re involved in even the most rudimentary of road accidents I can pretty much guarantee you a fitful night’s sleep as you and your subconscious drive or ride up and down the fateful stretch of road again and again, desperately trying to work out why you crashed (or fell off) and how not to make the same mistake again.
As old mate Murph was quoted as saying in an article about driver training which first appeared on the NZ Herald’s website (way) back in 2019.
“If there is one message that needs to be heard it is stop blaming the roads and the speed limits and start taking driver responsibility, training and testing seriously.”
“The best investment we can make in saving lives and reducing the road toll is by putting more resources into training people how to be safer drivers.”
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