State’s road toll shame: Top traffic cop slams ‘self-interest’ of NSW drivers after 23 deaths in just 19 days

A teen P-plater caught doing 188km/h in a 60km/h zone epitomises everything that is wrong with driver behaviour which must change in order to stop the road toll carnage, according to the state’s top traffic cop.

NSW is the leading state in the contest no one wants to win – the road toll.

Senior police have slammed the state’s drivers for having “selfish” attitudes on the state’s roads, with the death toll at 157 this year – a whopping 26 up on the same time in 2023.

NSW’s road toll is not only 42 deaths worse than Queensland over the past 12 months, and the highest in Australia, but is also ahead of all other state’s with a 31.2 per cent rise increase year-on-year, well ahead of Victoria which is up 12.4 per cent and Queensland up 5.7 per cent.

A teenage P-plater caught doing 188km/h in a 60km/h zone epitomises everything that is wrong with driver behaviour which must change in order to stop the carnage, the state’s top traffic cop has warned.

Frustrated NSW Police Highway and Traffic boss Assistant Commissioner Brett McFadden said 23 road deaths in the last 19 days was a devastating statistic.

NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Brett McFadden. Picture: David Swift

In a blunt message to motorists, Assistant Commissioner McFadden said selfish driver behaviour has to change, and people need to start driving ‘like their lives depend on it’.

On Wednesday, a trail-bike rider died after he lost control of his bike and crashed into two cars at Pendle Hill. Less than 24 hours earlier a man died near South Grafton when his car left the roadway and crashed into a billboard and a tree. Then on Monday at Coolah in the Central West, a man in his 40s died when his vehicle slammed into a tree. The crash came just hours after a 42-year-old man was killed in the Sutherland Shire when he lost control of his vehicle on Sunday night and hit a fence.

“These are preventable crashes and preventable losses of lives because people are making really poor decisions with a really strong emphasis on self interest, and the care for others in the community is just not there,” Assistant Commissioner McFadden said.

At Erina on the Central Coast, Assistant Commissioner McFadden said highway patrol officers detected a 17-year-old provisional licence driver travelling 188km/h in a 60km/h zone.

“This was four weeks after getting his licence. It’s just outright insanity,” he said.

Two people have died in a crash at Greenacre on May 28. Picture: TNV

In the past six months, police have issued more speeding, drink driving and licence infringements than the same period last year, yet the road toll stands at 24 more deaths.

“What we’re seeing is the same continuation of selfish driver behaviour...but the consequences are increasingly. In the last recent weeks we’ve had multiple double fatal crashes,” Assistant Commissioner McFadden said.

Last week a horror crash at Milperra where a rideshare driver allegedly pulled out in front of an oncoming vehicle and killed two out of his three passengers, and a double fatal at Greenacre involving a ­motorbike rider and his passenger saw four dead in the space of 48 hours.

The intersection of Murray Jones Drive and Milperra Road at Milperra in Sydneys west where two people were killed and a third critically injured after a collision between a sedan and a ute. Picture: Richard Dobson

“What I say to people is this: “Drive like your life depends on it, because it actually does”. It’s hard enough out there with the cost of living, housing...don’t make it harder,” Comm McFadden, a veteran cop of 36 years, said.

NRMA spokesman Peter Khoury said the road toll was “diabolical”.

He said there was “no single bullet solution” to addressing the carnage, but policing was the “most effective way to address all forms of bad driving behaviours.”

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Originally published as State’s road toll shame: Top traffic cop slams ‘self-interest’ of NSW drivers after 23 deaths in just 19 days