Record road toll must be curbed
THE pattern of road deaths in NSW mercifully shows significant recent decade-on-decade declines. But as our 2017 toll climbs ever higher we cannot allow the lifesaving work of decades to be cast aside. Please take care on our roads.
Opinion
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THE pattern of road deaths in NSW mercifully shows significant recent decade-on-decade declines. This was not always the case.
In 1929, for example, when there were only a tiny number of motorised vehicles on NSW roads, an extraordinary 553 people were killed. Many of those crashes occurred at low speeds and would have been survivable in modern vehicles.
In 1955, when post-war economic improvements saw many more Australians owning and driving cars, the NSW road toll increased to 820 people. In 1964, the road toll blew out to four figures for the first time, with 1010 people being killed on our roads — at a time when Sydney’s population was less than half its present size.
Road fatalities reached a terrifying peak of 1384 in 1978. And then a number of urgent safety initiatives — combined with automotive advances — began to take effect. By 1991 fatalities had fallen to 663. Fifteen years later, deaths were down to below 500 for the first time since the end of World War II. In more recent years, annual road fatalities have mostly been below 400.
That, obviously, is still far too many people lost to road accidents. Yet safety advances have clearly saved thousands of lives since the late 1970s.
The hard work involved in this is ongoing. Every day, authorities do their best to continue reducing the road toll.
Yet a moment’s inattention or carelessness is all it takes for the toll to spike. More than 20 people have died on our roads so far during the current holiday season. This has caused our toll to hit levels unknown since 2009. Appallingly, we are reversing history.
Many of the shocking holiday season crashes have been captured on mobile phones, which Assistant Police Commissioner Michael Corboy believes could play a role in alerting motorists to the risks of reckless driving.
“We want people to shock themselves,” said Corboy, the state’s traffic and highway patrol commander. “It’s now time to have people thinking that could be me, that could be my family or that could be an innocent person that I ran into.
“We want them to take responsibility. We have gone from disappointed to being angry and that’s an understatement.”
His words must be heard. We cannot allow the lifesaving work of decades to be cast aside. Please take care on our roads.