Police Commissioner Grant Stevens directs more officers on to SA roads for safety campaign targeting fatal driver behaviour
As the state grapples with a spiralling road toll, Police Commissioner Grant Stevens is directing more officers on to the roads to watch for the five most dangerous driving habits.
- Two truckies dead in horrendous crash on Sturt Hwy
- Distraction is now largest contributor to SA road deaths
- Deadbeat parents caught committing offences with kids on board
- More than 202,000 motorists were detected speeding in 2018-19
Arrogant and selfish motorists whose dangerous driving risks lives will be targeted during an intensive police safety campaign aimed at curbing South Australia’s spiralling road toll.
Police Commissioner Grant Stevens has directed additional officers on to the state’s roads for a month from Friday – just a day after two truck drivers died in a fiery head-on crash at Truro.
The two B-doubles collided and caught alight on Sturt Hwy about 11.30am.
Emergency services rushed to the scene, but a dust storm whipped up by strong winds prevented access to the crash site for some time.
Both drivers – a 26-year-old man from the Riverland and an Andrews Farm man, 64 – died at the scene.
SA has now recorded 73 road deaths in 2019, compared with 43 at the same time last year.
Meanwhile, Operation High Impact F5 will have a dedicated focus on the “fatal five” offences – drink and drug driving, speeding, distraction, seatbelts and dangerous road users.
Mr Stevens told The Advertiser that, while the majority of motorists behaved responsibly most of the time, he wanted those who made bad decisions to be held accountable.
“All of the fatal five offences can be traced back to poor decision making, bad decisions which have potentially fatal consequences,” he said.
“This operation is to remind people to think about their obligations when they’re using the roads and to use them safely.”
Mr Stevens said police too often came across road trauma victims who had been killed or seriously injured because someone else had taken an unnecessary risk.
“It’s one thing where an offending driver is the victim of their own stupidity but when they start to affect other road users that puts another complexion on it,” he said.
“It’s selfishness and arrogance – arrogant to think you’re capable of exercising effective control when you allow yourself to be distracted and selfish because you’re taking risks with other people’s lives as well as your own.
“It’s also selfish from the perspective that, if you’re involved in a serious injury collision or fatal collision, it’s not just you who’s affected, it’s your entire family, it’s your network of friends, it’s the emergency services workers who have to respond.”
Mr Stevens said he believed complacency was a significant issue on the roads but stressed the safety campaign was not just about holding bad drivers to account.
“I don’t think anybody leaves their home … expecting they are going to be involved in a fatal crash or serious injury collision,” he said.
“We have an obligation to positively affect driver behaviour and we make no apologies for the way that we go about that.
“What I want from this (campaign) is people who are making bad decisions to be held accountable for those decisions.
“I want everyone else who might see us out there doing our job to have a think about the way they drive and I want them to have conversations with the people they care about.
“To make sure other people drive safely, wear their seatbelts, don’t drink and drive, don’t use drugs and drive, don’t drive like an idiot, don’t be influenced by your mates.”
Mr Stevens said people who made the connection between police road safety enforcement and revenue raising “are either cynical or uninformed and choose not to look at the facts”.
“If you breach the road rules there is a consequence and with most offending that consequence is a monetary fine that is the thing that changes behaviour,” he said.
“If you get hit with a $534 fine for using your mobile phone you’re probably going to think twice before doing it again and if you don’t think twice then you’re stupid.”