COMMENT:

The road toll is going up after years of declines and police are once again the scapegoats – as politicians lay the blame at the feet of highway patrol rather than looking inside the corridors of government and decades of flawed road safety policy.

In addition to the person behind the wheel, the blame for our road toll numbers heading in the wrong direction belongs to politicians who have become addicted to the revenue from one simple road safety slogan – “speed kills” – at the expense of educating motorists to the countless other major causes of road fatalities.

Inattention, distraction, poor decision making (pulling out of an intersection and into the path of a truck, for example), families who don’t properly restrain their kids with seatbelts – and pedestrians and drivers who run the gauntlet at traffic lights and intersections – are all part of the problem.

But according to frontline highway patrol officers and crash investigators we have spoken to, by far the highest number of road fatalities involve drunk, drug affected, or banned drivers. As well as those not wearing seatbelts and/or driving unregistered cars.

Some officers, speaking to EFTM on condition of anonymity because they are not authorised to offer comment to media, say this group of drivers are involved in more than half the fatalities. Some cops estimate the ratio could be as high as 70 per cent.

But the detailed data is kept secret from the public – by governments, not by police – because the truth goes against the “speed kills” narrative which brings in millions of dollars in revenue.

The 10kmh over message is also the truth being distorted. That data is from 30 years ago when cars lacked the safety systems they have today.

The new safety slogan “Towards Zero” (as in, zero fatalities) is instantly dismissed by motorists as clearly being an unachievable target, so they subconsciously ignore it, say some police.

No-one – including EFTM – is condoning speeding or Armageddon on the streets.

But if we want to see a meaningful reduction in the road toll, governments need to get off the sugar hit from speed cameras and tackle the real issues – which are costly, time consuming, and may not deliver results within a political term.

So in addition to the current speed camera, mobile phone camera, and seatbelt camera enforcement, we need the following.

More police to issue more tickets not only for speeding but for other dangerous driving offences.

More serious penalties – including jail time – for repeat driving offenders.

We lock up violent domestic offenders because of the risk they pose to the community or a loved one.

Rogue drivers have a high likelihood of killing strangers with their car, and yet they get a slap on the wrist and are allowed to stay in the community to reoffend.

Some experts believe if you kill someone with your car due to dangerous driving or inattention, you should lose your licence for life. As it stands these drivers can be back on the road in 12 to 24 months, a fraction of the punishment for murder.

Surely more severe consequences (such as jail time) would cause people to think about their actions behind the wheel.

But the judicial system and politicians seem to accept road deaths are a fact of life. Otherwise the non-financial penalties would be harsher.

We also need more car confiscations for repeat offenders, regardless of who owns the vehicle.

In some states confiscation is not allowed if the vehicle is registered to someone other than the offending driver.

Rogue drivers know this, which is how they game the system.

We need to create a permit system for delivery riders and drivers who flout the laws on overseas licences.

For example, perhaps gig drivers and riders should pay a refundable $1000 bond upfront, before being allowed to work in the gig economy so any future fines come out of that.

And if they rack up $1000 in fines, their permit (kept in a digital wallet like your licence so it updates instantly) is void until another $1000 is added.

In some areas police are dealing with gig drivers and riders – who routinely blaze through red lights (even though several rows of traffic have already stopped), speed excessively, overtake or U turn on unbroken lines – who have clocked up enough fines to be off the road for a decade.

But police are powerless to stop them driving if the offender produces a foreign licence.

The other big issue is how to reach a generation of young drivers who don’t watch TV or read newspapers.

The excellent – and pioneering – learner driver education nights in Sydney are a good start. There needs to be more.

Young drivers today aren’t seeing the traditional road safety advisements.

Most police agencies in Australia have excellent and well subscribed social media channels. But this could be ramped up further.

Perhaps police could release more vision after stopping drivers for dangerous offences.

Perhaps the police should have their own traffic video channel on YouTube. At the moment independent channels like Dash Cams Australia show great footage. But this is scratching the surface. There’s so much more out there.

Imagine if we could get a highlights reel every week from each state’s police force around Australia.

Surely teens and early 20 something drivers who aren’t watching the news or listening to talkback radio would stop scrolling for a moment if there was a video of a traffic stop that stopped them in their tracks.

Whatever the case, the current methods aren’t working and the sole focus on speed is not working. We need to wake up motorists – and politicians – to the many other causes of fatal and serious injury crashes.

However, properly dealing with the complexities of road safety requires patience and planning that go beyond a term of government, and a significant investment of funds in better deterrent methods.

Instead, politicians sit back, apparently blind to the real causes of fatal crashes while they count the revenue coming in.

Politicians frown for the TV news cameras and plead with drivers to “slow down” – either blissfully unaware or happy to ignore the fact that most people die or are seriously injured despite driving below the speed limit.

Because by far the biggest dangers on the road are drivers who are drunk, drug-affected, not wearing a seatbelt, or are recidivist offenders – often in unregistered cars – who refuse to stay off the road.

Just ask the police who’ve been assigned to clean up this mess, seemingly with one arm tied behind their back.