Fatigue, speed big killers on roads during holiday long weekends
HEAD-ON crashes caused by fatigue and speed are to blame for over half of fatalities on the state’s country roads over holiday weekends, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.
NSW
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HEAD-ON crashes caused by fatigue and speed are to blame for over half of fatalities on the state’s country roads over holiday weekends, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.
The horrifying statistics that also show motorists are 10 per cent more likely to be killed or injured in a crash over long weekends come as police beg drivers to slow down over Easter.
The state government has already begun to roll out the first of its 300kms of lifesaving barriers along the centre of the road at Bendalong on the south coast where the Falkholt family died in a head-on smash on Boxing Day.
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The figures from the NSW Centre for Road Safety show that as families flee the city for the bush, 69 per cent of fatalities and 52 per cent of serious injuries have resulted from crashes on regional roads over the past five Easters.
Fifty-four per cent of fatalities on country roads involve the vehicle crossing the centre line and 23 per cent involve the vehicle running off the road to the left.
In 2017, five people died on the roads over Easter, up three from 2016, and 86 people were seriously injured
Roads minister Melinda Pavey said almost 70 per cent of the fatalities last Easter were on country roads.
She said that the increase in crashes caused by speed and fatigue can be blamed on people putting their foot down in a rush to get to the holiday destination sooner and pushing on tired when they should stop and take a break.
She warned drivers that being awake for about 17 hours has a similar affect as having a blood-alcohol level of 0.005, the legal limit.
“It’s time to take our feet off the pedal and take a long hard look at ourselves,” Ms Pavey said yesterday.
“Driving is a privilege not a right.”
Home and Away star Jessica Falkholt, 29, became the public face of the state’s shocking road toll when she lost her fight for life after the horrific December 26 crash killed her sister Annabelle, 21, and their parents Lars, 69, and Vivian, 60.
The family was driving north home to Sydney.
The driver of the car which crossed to the wrong side of the road, habitual traffic offender Craig Whitall, had been seen veering over the centre strip a number of times by other motorists as he drove home from a methadone clinic.
Last year, 392 died on the state’s roads with 75 blamed on tiredness.