Ludwig,
I applaud any strategy that draws attention to injuries and carnage cost the country dearly . Unfortunately I have little confidence in it achieving significant long standing improvement.

Understand that Any improvement is better than none.

I wonder if foxy isn't partly right.

Many people see cars as an extension of their egos and driving a 'right'. I reject both.

First the young get licenses simply by being able to drive in a controlled environment and answer a test successfully all in under an hour. Usually lacking ability of what to do in an unexpected circumstances. Skids, emergency stops etc. are ignored. Any sense of maturity (suitability to drive) is also neglected.
Many rely on their superior eye hand coordination, a sense of invincibility and a need for excitement. the end result is the disproportionate numbers of under 25 involved in serious accidents.

In no way does this mean older drivers are much better. in fact a survey I saw indicated anger, impatience, preoccupation, scheduling constraints and complacency tend to account for the 28-48 yo accidents.

Beyond that age come complacency and “I deserve respect” attitude. Here it was clearly indicated that respondents were more indifferent/ignorant of road rules etc. “I know the area”, “I've been driving for 30 years etc.” and even “I drive a good (cutting edge technology) car it's the average divers in their average cars that are at fault" prevailed.

In latter ages the fear of being 'dependent' or not independent made these drivers often drive beyond their ability to be truly safe. However the degree of actual ability was subject to great variation.

With this and other information I think licences should be more strenuously tested and skill levels mandated. The youth should be limited in power like was the case with bikes. 4WD, trailers, boats, caravans, trucks should require a separate endorsement as they all require different skills to drive and in emergencies, turning, breaking etc.

I accept that the implications of my suggestions would be profound and depend on how serious we really are or is tokenism enough to salve our consciences.

Hey Fractelle I thought of a culture aspect; here in Oz I noticed a slowdown in traffic on wet days and on all corners every day.

Might be where I am that the Aussies aren’t as used to the conditions after years of drought and are more comfortable with the abundance of straight roads?

But in NZ they are crazy drivers at the best of times and we have some amazing hills to hoon over or off and my gawd when there is a huge truck blasting its way down a steep winding road it makes you cringe – especially if it is behind you and coming up fast. You usually overtake the person in front on a blind corner just to avoid it.

You wont see anything much past a brick wall slowing the Kiwi’s down.

In Christchurch (and only there) Nuts with Manners… they will stop on a main road with cars behind them because they spot some poor bugger on a side road waiting to enter the main road in busy traffic. Must have something to do with the culture?

Here I also notice you guys aren’t too good at getting out of the way of emergency vehicles. At least in NZ and OZ no one toots all the time like in the states and in Suadi they did it too. Oh my god – you should see the driving practices in Ryhad.

The Americans built the roads… no gutters for water, they probably forgot it does rain sometimes even in the desert.

So it’s Friday, are we fatality free or was it going to be a different Friday? Or were they going to wait for one that worked and then announce that FFF? Fully F'cken Fluked.

The sad thing about a "Fatality Free" concept is its inevitable failure, and a consequential double-dose of pain for the surviving relatives.

"You wouldn't believe it, but he was run over on a supposedly fatality-free day. The government should do something about it..."

But I would like to point out that Sydney drivers are politeness and good manners personified when it comes to merging traffic. Where there are two lanes going into one, it is extraordinarily rare to see anything except one from this lane, one from the other, right the way down the line.

You don't see that in many other countries. I'll offer France, England, Italy, Spain and Greece as examples of devil-take-the-hindmost, with Germany and Switzerland (naturally) as fishtail conformists.

As for mad drivers... try the coast road from Positano to Sorrento.

Wear dark clothing, the stains don't show so much.

Oh dear OUG, such negativity. Of course there are numerous other areas of concern about health and safety across our society. So does this mean that we should just cop the road toll and not make any significant attempts to improve road safety? Of course not.

Foxy, thanks for the American comparison. It seems that they don’t do anything special over there. They just have a more sensible level of education and policing and a somewhat better requirement for drivers to show that they are competent in order to get and keep a licence.

Mjpb, we need to get right away from the notion that the regulation of speed is all about revenue-raising. It is an easy excuse for those who are inclined to speed or practice various other risky antics on the road.

Austin, agreed. There are just so many basic bad habits practiced by many drivers. It there was a better level of education in order to get a licence and a requirement to re-sit a rigorous test every five years in order to retain a licence, then this sort of stuff would probably be reduced to a small traction of its current level.

The other thing that we really need is to be taken seriously by the police when making a complaint instead of effectively being strongly discouraged from making complaints unless an accident has actually occurred.

yes im sorry about the negativity ludwig..but the facts are the facts
we NEVER hear all the deaths/suicides/work accidents in a single day..yet ALLWAYS hear the road deaths in every news broadcast

we dont hear our masters in govt decry a war on deaths at work[or a war on suicide]nor see blatent revenue raising and cameras in workplaces monitoring saftey of the worker's[ok we see cameras in the work place but they are there to protect the boss not the wage slave

the revenue raising is appartent, most fatalities occur in the dark[yet breathalising occurs most frequently in the police down time[en mass in the morning to get the numbers up..[not when the drinking clubs are closing]

govt needs destractions and there is no beter way for a politition to face the media than say we being tough on drug users[or extra points, or crack down on road fatalities by revenyue raising..[while they in the back room are selling off our water or power to their buddies]

its hard not to be scepticle when the numbers speak for themself

Well FFF has come and gone. Didn’t hear anything about it on the news. Didn’t see a mention in the weekend papers.

Presumably Friday wasn’t fatality free across the country.

Apathy towards road safety is alive and well.

And so it goes.