The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Travel by car is getting safer > Comments

Travel by car is getting safer : Comments

By Ross Elliott, published 9/1/2019

Total road fatalities across Australia peaked in the 1970s and have trended down sharply since then.

  1. Pages:
  2. Page 1
  3. 2
  4. All
Car travel is safer? That will a surprise people who watch the nightly news and drive among the morons granted licences these days. More statistics (aka lies) engineered to make things look better than they really are.
Posted by ttbn, Wednesday, 9 January 2019 8:12:58 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Travel by car is getting safer...and the sun rose in the east this morning.

Still it seems that it doesn't hurt to remind people of this since some (no names but their initials are ttbn) think that the data can't be right because of their own jaundiced observations.

BTW statistics are only lies when people don't want them to be true and haven't the wherewithal to explain why the data is wrong.

I'm a little surprised the article doesn't mention the most accurate and revealing number on this topic - the number of deaths per 1 billion kms travelled. This, it seems, is the go-to statistic when comparing across countries and over time. In Australia that number has fallen from 49.3 deaths per 1 billion kms travelled in 1970 to 4.9 deaths ie a ten fold improvement.

Reasons are many - the campaign against drink-driving, making wearing of seat-belts mandatory, improved medical and emergency services, and massive improvements in car safety.

One thing that isn't mentioned here or often is improved roads. About a decade ago the NRMA came out with a statistic based on police accident reports that found that poor road design and maintenance was just as big a factor in road deaths as speeding. Since that wasn't what the government or even the NRMA wanted to hear, the report was quickly suppressed and isn't available any longer. Nonetheless, improved roads both in regards to motorways and the 'black-spot' programmes have had a dramatic effect on vehicle accidents.
Posted by mhaze, Wednesday, 9 January 2019 10:00:26 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Yes, that may well be the case, but road safety needs to be affordable!

Imagine a clutch cable that needs to be replaced costing $360 And that's before the cost of instaling it, a five-minute operation that could swell the repair bill by twice as much again?

The consequence of our abandonment of our once viable local car industry and former car sales agencies now completely dependant on service to generate same or better profit margins.

So, we'll see those tyres that need to be changed made to do another thousand miles, ditto, brake pads etc.

All while billions collected as fuel excise is diverted from the road funding it is collected for and used to swell the war chest of the incumbent government?

Yes, the road toll could and should be reduced by making both cars and roads safer!

That said, the annual road toll is eclipsed by the annual death toll attributable to some very nasty brain cancers, where the average life span is just 14 months, [from diagnosis to death,] with less than 2% surviving beyond five years.

Similarly ovarian cancer, but with a doubled life expectancy?

And the proven miracle cancer cure, bismuth213, withheld by government created regulations that forbid nuclear energy, but particularly, walk away safe MSR thorium nuclear energy.

Given one needs fissile U233 Which is what fertile thorium is converted to in the preparation blanket of a nuclear reactor, to make universally affordable (virtually free) bismuth 213.

The only other and horrendously expensive, massive energy consuming method of manufacture, is to bombard radium with particles in a particle accelerator. Thus keeping it millionaire medicine!

And thousand having their lives truncated as the consequence of this betrayal (calloused indifference) by those pollies with the power to change those regulations with the stroke of a pen!
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Wednesday, 9 January 2019 12:06:43 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
mhaze,

What an arrogant little piece of work you are. Other people's opinions are "jaundiced" because you don't agree with them. Smart arses like you are two a penny around here, along with your overlong pontifications.
Posted by ttbn, Wednesday, 9 January 2019 12:49:57 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
1. So, in pursuit of greater safety, I've been lucky enough to afford a new car with much of the safety gear on offer, eg:

- automonous emergency breaking,

- blind spot/lane change emergency alert

- speed sign reading

- speeding warning

- red light/speed camera alert before you go through them (SHOULD THIS BE ILLEGAL?).

All very useful and easy to overly rely on.

2. The future promise of fully autonomous auto-piloted vehicles involves many dangers, eg:

- a full traffic/driving network computer "crash" meaning 1,000s of simultaneous actual car crashes (talking Sydney and Melbourne congestion of cars usually travelling too fast with mass tail-gating, minimal car separation, etc)

- and mainly the DROP IN DRIVINNG SKILLS of drivers who maybe once a year are meant to takeover from auto-pilot in EMERGENCIES.

- and NEW DRIVERS who were born after cars became fully autonomous?

Oversteering, suddenly breaking, future mayhem!
Posted by plantagenet, Wednesday, 9 January 2019 2:15:00 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
BTW - TO ACTUALLY FIND AND READ ROSS ELLIOTT'S ARTICLE

CLICK ON http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=20111&page=0
Posted by plantagenet, Wednesday, 9 January 2019 2:19:24 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. Page 1
  3. 2
  4. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy