110 lives lost in the worst year on South Australian roads since 2010
South Australia is experiencing the worst year on our roads in more than a decade, sending a ripple effect through the community. Here’s what those affected say should be done.
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Christine Sandford was out buying dinner supplies when she was killed minutes from home.
Ari Utomo was with three workmates driving home when his car hit a tree.
Odetta Maxwell told her mum to have a good day before her car left the road.
Poppy Crozier was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Charlie Stevens was 18 with the world at his feet.
This year more families have grieved the loss of a loved one to a road crash than any other since 2010.
On Saturday alone three lives were lost as a result of two separate fatal crashes, the first occurring on Friday and the second on Saturday.
Paul Clark is still coming to terms with losing his entire family late this year in a devastating road crash.
“I’m still trying to comprehend what’s happened,” he told The Advertiser.
“There’s a lot of shock really, just coming to terms with it.”
The 58-year-old was on the fourth day of his four-month South-East Asia holiday when his uncle rung him on October 31 with devastating news.
His mum Cynthia and only sibling Jacqueline lost their lives in a horrific crash in the state’s mid-North and his dad, John, was fighting for life.
“I just went into a daze and shock and just started arranging flights to come back,” Mr Clark said.
Six days later on November 6 John died from his injuries.
Now Mr Clark is calling for stricter tests for people holding international licences.
“How do they get a licence? They can come on holidays with an international licence … you don’t understand signs and what signs mean,” he said.
“Look at doing some sort of three or four day testing for a licence when you come over here on holidays.”
RAA senior manager safety and infrastructure Charles Mountain said 2023 is “shaping up to be one of, if not the worst year on our roads for more than a decade”.
So far this year, 110 lives have tragically been lost on our roads with 735 people sustaining serious injuries, compared with 71 and 652 respectively for the whole of 2022.
“With current safety technology in vehicles and what we know about road safety, this should not be happening,” Mr Mountain said.
Inspector Michael Turnbull and detective senior sergeant David Gordge both work in the Major Crash Investigation Section of SAPOL – a specialised unit made up with highly trained professionals tasked with attending every single major crash in the state.
“They’re there because they want to be there,” Detective Gordge said.
“(The officers) are genuine, they’re sincere, they’re empathetic and they do feel sorry for these families and help them through the process.”
Both officers do not refer to road crashes as accidents. It is something they do to acknowledge the underlying, stark truth – no crash is an accident, they are preventable.
“They’re ‘crashes’ or ‘collisions’ because someone’s at fault, someone’s caused that crash … we use the word collision or crash because they are preventable.”
The officers said people who choose not to follow road safety advice and make “stupid decisions” affect not only themselves and other people on the road but also what they call “secondary victims”.
“In each of these collisions there’s always an unintended victim,” Detective Gordge said. “There are secondary victims that are created not just the ones that are involved directly in the crash but there’s the families, and then there’s the families of the offending party.
“When you’ve got someone who’s all of a sudden getting a knock on their door to be told that their loved one has died, they’ve then got to process that and if they’ve got kids, they then have to tell the kids.
“These crashes have such wide ranging unintended consequences.”
Detective Gordge said the rising number of lives lost is “sometimes out of our control”.
“You can’t stop stupid and while people drive dangerously and take chances there’s always going to be the risk that someone’s going to lose their life and this year in some circumstances, that’s occurred.”
This year has been one of the worst years in the past decade for vulnerable road users, which includes motorcyclists, cyclists and pedestrians – with 39 lives lost.
Cyclist deaths have increased by 82 per cent across the state, pedestrian deaths by 54 per cent and motorcyclist deaths by 48 per cent – when compared with the year-to-date average since 2018.
Detective Gordge said of the 20 motorcycle fatal crashes, 19 were caused by the rider.
He also said about 11 per cent of fatal crashes were caused by people that weren’t supposed to be driving.
Per capita, 40 to 49 year old deaths on roads have increased by 85 per cent while 60 to 79 year olds have increased by 84 per cent.
“Young people under the age of 20 are less represented this year, but almost every other age group has seen an increase,” Mr Mountain said.
According to Naomi Eadon, a counsellor from Room To Breathe Counselling and also the Road Trauma Support Team of SA, road trauma affects people in many different ways.
“I see people who cause road trauma, are the victims of road trauma and those who witness road trauma,” she said.
“For families that lose a loved one they find it difficult to understand why this could happen, they never got to say one more ‘I love you’, they don’t get to see that child grow into an adult and experience life.
“Families will go into shock, they deal with grief, anger and sorrow.
“If a person loses a partner unfortunately it can have financial implications – something no one wants to deal with at such a devastating time.
“Some become fearful of driving themselves or become over protective of other loved ones because of the fear of losing another loved one.
“Road trauma can cause ongoing mental health problems such as PTSD, anxiety, depression, flashbacks, nightmares and trouble sleeping.”
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