Thread: Lowest road toll in 90 years - why?

I'd say inertia reel seat belts have made an impact, now most people are wearing an optimally adjusted belt.

Originally Posted by bee utey

The ubiquity of mobile phones and the steady increase in mobile coverage also cuts the critical response time to the scene of a crash.

That's ironic, because the biggest cause of road fatalities is inattention, mostly down to mobile phone use while driving, Regards Frank

Originally Posted by Tank

That's ironic, because the biggest cause of road fatalities is inattention, mostly down to mobile phone use while driving, Regards Frank

While I agree with the cause being inattention, putting it down to mobile phones does not make sense - twenty years ago they were rare - today there are more than there are drivers, and despite the law they are very widely used by drivers - and in the last twenty years the road toll has gone steadily down, not up as has to be the case if mobile phones were the the biggest cause. Also, data from the USA where only some states ban mobile use shows no correlation between the accident or fatality rate trends and legal use of phones (of course this could be because the law is widely ignored, but there is still the accident trends going in the opposite direction to the number of phones in use!).

But I agree it is ironic, if only because they are so widely demonised, even if this is not really justified.

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

John

We are going to have to agree to disagree.

I think one of our areas of disagreement is that you are tending to look at the survivability of an accident, where I am looking at the overall result, which includes the probability of the accident happening in the first place. And my point is that some of the changes to modern cars do not reduce, but rather increase the probability of accidents. A large part of this is the insulation of the driver from the road conditions produced by better handling, better noise suppression etc, but part of it is that some of the "safety" features actually increase probability of accidents - one of the things that strikes me immediately stepping from the County or 2a to almost any modern sedan is the comparatively poor forward vision, with a very thick 'A' pillar right where I need to look for traffic at intersections.

Certainly modern cars are much more survivable - I saw the results of a truly spectacular accident fairly recently near here - a Commodore failed to negotiate a slight bend coming up from a bridge at the end of a long straight, left the road, struck a railway telegraph pole about two metres above the ground while travelling sideways, breaking it in two and pulling it out of the ground, struck the ground nose first, and turned end over end, shedding various bits before coming to a stop right way up. The driver walked away. According to an RTA employee I was talking to, who was first on the scene, having been passed about a kilometre earlier, the car was travelling well in excess of 120kph, probably about 160. And he described the driver as 'drunk as a lord'. Worth noting that as far as I could find out the accident was not reported to police for a couple of days, so the driver probably got away with it, although it would be interesting to hear what he told his insurer!

Now if we compare this with the situation in 1978, if a similar accident happened, it would quite clearly have been a fatality. But it would not have happened like that - for a start, the car being driven almost certainly could not have gone as fast. And even if it had been able to, it would not have been doing so on the then winding gravel road, and single lane low level bridge - and if he had tried, the accident would have been a lot closer to the pub than the 40km he managed since closing time. Most likely would have come off the first bend out of town a relatively low speed.

John

Originally Posted by lyonsy

newer safer cars have now mostly replaced all the old death traps on the road esp the 80's cars
you only have to see he video's of crash tests of old big cars like a disco 1 into something like a mid size people mover and the disco coming off worse to show how far things have come,
cars are now stronger then they have ever been imo they have there throw away sections but the cabin its self is like having a rollcage these days.
add airbags everywhere
and if you drive an old car then a new car the brakes are so much more touchey and ready to pull ya up then old cars ever have been, when ya switch not unusual to throw ya self into the screan on first application

Way back in the seventies when I was in primary school the local Police station was our neighbour. There was always a line up of crashed cars on the fence line between the school and police station. As kids we used to look these cars over and decide which was the coolest. Was an interesting exercise as most of them were brands which were not common on the roads. Many were exotic to us European brands not many boring Falcons, Valiants or Holdens. Most of them were small cars at a time when larger family cars were the norm. Was only many years later found out that these were all cars we had been arguing over were where someone had died in the crash!

What ever the reason , sadly did not apply in WA , 5 dead over the same period .
NSW with a pop of around 7mil had 7 deaths according to the news, so 5 deaths in WA with a pop of 2 & a bit mil is a worry .

Originally Posted by JDNSW

A large part of this is the insulation of the driver from the road conditions produced by better handling, better noise suppression etc, but part of it is that some of the "safety" features actually increase probability of accidents

Good point, I remember a debate, many years ago and still on today, about compulsory protective clothing for motorcycle riders. An academic survey (probably USA but not sure) was quoted that indicated protective clothing gave a sense of security leading to more risky riding behaviour where 'street' clothing lent to survival mode ("If I fall off it will really hurt") and a lower accident rate, although greater and more serious injury if a crash does occur, although 'protective clothing' probably included helmets if it was a US paper.

Lower "Fatalities" has to be a good thing for whatever reason, most (all?) of which have been covered here.
But, what about the number of collisions?...Would they have shown a similar decrease?...I don't think so. And what about the number of people injured, some very seriously..now para/quadraplegics etc & others that would have been a "Fatality", but now, because of lots of reasons, are not? Would they have shown a similar decrease, again I don't think so.
Pickles.