Operation Zero Deaths: As toll hits 101, new campaign launched to stop tragedies

THE Motor Accident Commission will mark the end of another year of tragedy on SA roads by launching a campaign aiming for zero fatalities.

• Horrific milestone and the year’s not up yet
• Miles Kemp: Good start, but it won’t bring back my brother

THE Motor Accident Commission will mark the end of another year of tragedy on SA roads by launching a campaign aiming for zero fatalities.

The commission wants to “change the conversation” about road deaths and will present its vision for 2018 of a “zero fatality road toll” through its advertising and communications strategy during the next 12 months.

The strategy comes after South Australia’s road toll reached 101, and police yesterday announced they had charged a mother with killing her twin son in a crash on the Fleurieu Peninsula while allegedly high on drugs.

The state’s official target is 80 deaths a year by 2020, but commission engagement manager Matt Hanton says we need to aim much lower.

He said that in 2018 the organisation would view any death on the road as unacceptable, and urged all South Australians to do the same.

The purpose of the 2018 campaign is to change the community’s attitude towards any death on the road and lead to more bold decisions about how to stop the problem.

“There must be an acceptance that any death is one death too many as opposed to ‘well, we are on par with where we were last year’,” Mr Hanton said.

“Next year, if we compare to this year and there are less deaths, people will say ‘what a fantastic performance’. Well, no it isn’t, because it is just the constant juggle when it is only compared to last year.

The death of a young man following a crash at Clovelly Park on Thursday night, marked the 100th fatality on roads this year. A woman died of her injuries on Saturday from a crash last week, bringing the toll to 101. Picture: Mitch Mott

“It should be ‘no, a person has died and we don’t want anyone to die’.

“The community should not accept that the potential for deaths on the road is an inevitable outcome of driving.

“My argument is that the community will start to think ‘zero’, as opposed to thinking ‘100’ or even just thinking ‘let’s do better than last year’.”

The “zero” strategy is used in other parts of the world, including Sweden where a 1997 law mandated zero deaths and is credited with producing one of the lowest road tolls in the world.

The MAC is in charge of the state’s road safety strategy and Compulsory Third Party scheme, but is independent and sits at arm’s length from the State Government.

Mr Hanton said he was disappointed to hear people were describing as “successful” the figure of 573 serious injuries on our roads this year because this figure was down from 703 in 2016.

People had become trapped in a cycle of thinking a good outcome was having fewer deaths than the previous year, Mr Hanton said.

“If we had a toll of 82 this year instead of last year’s 84, everyone would think we had a good year,” he said.

“There has always been the idea that we could incrementally improve year on year on year. Then it got to the low hundred and the idea was to get below 100.

“The target is now 80, but once we get to 80 we can’t pat ourselves on the back because, yes, things have been done and, yes, there have been some positive steps, but these are lives that in a lot of cases don’t need to be lost.

“They (the deaths) don’t need to happen and these crashes are always a senseless waste.”

An RAA spokeswoman said: “Just as it has every other year, the road toll will start again at zero, and it’s up to all road users to play their part to keep that figure from changing.”

Mr Hanton said that road-safety authorities had strug­gled to convince those who do he wrong thing to accept responsibility for their actions.

“Some of the changes that are going to be required have the potential to be unpopular. We are talking about reducing speeds, improving road conditions,” he said.

“People feel sad for a minute when they see it on the news, but people need to really change.

“Everyone buys into the concept of zero and across government there is an acceptance that it is necessary, but we need to get that message out into the community.

“You have people (in the community) making excuses and blaming everyone except themselves.

“We have to change community perception, even things like reporting it as the ‘road toll’ rather than ‘lives lost’.

“This is about not just being better than the year before, but having a target that is probably going to be unachievable in my lifetime but something that will be a beacon, a vision to work towards.”