death on wheels

Don’t get me wrong. What happened on our roads – in the dry and dusty and boring landscape near Donald  -- this week was a ghastly, almost unimaginable disaster.

Two vehicles, the only ones it seems on two converging roads in the area – collided and within seconds seven people were dead. Incinerated in a molten mass.

The fatal ripples are being felt in several communities across Victoria. And already blame is being aimed at road authorities and at the State Government.

The Y-intersection is being described as a death trap. An accident waiting to happen. Newspaper editorials are thundering that locals have recognised the risks for years.

The Herald Sun today says ‘Police in nearby Donald sounded a warning forty years ago In 2000 a local council plea to VicRoads to fix it was rejected on the grounds that it was not dangerous enough’.

Sounds callous. Sounds reckless. But let’s put this into perspective. There had not been a fatal crash at that intersection for forty years. And if this week’s carnage had involved two drivers  -- not seven people and a puppy --  it would not have rated more than a couple of paragraphs in the newspapers. Those two victims would have become just two more numbers on a shocking road toll total.

The Herald Sun  editorial says the Government will now have the junction re-designed as a T-intersection ‘as it should have been years ago’.

But, unwittingly, that same editorial, gives the clue to the real cause of this accident. It says its photo shows  a Y-intersection that is clearly  unforgiving ‘of any momentary lapse in concentration by approaching drivers. A  car… need only miss the Give Way sign and enter the main road  without stopping to be met head-on’  by an other vehicle.

In two words it means Driver Error. Sure, it would be great if every road were so safe that it is foolproof. It would be a motorists’ Shangri la if there were thousands more divided highways and endless barriers, and wide grassy strips separating roads. But all black spots are not going to be eliminated overnight. And  even that wouldn’t guarantee against  lapses of concentration.

At the same time we have the new road safety campaign drive by my erstwhile colleague Neil Mitchell.  A campaign to put stickers in cars of people whose lives have been affected by injury or death on our roads.

The slogan ‘Touched by The Road Toll’. Supporters hearts are in the right place but I can’t see it achieving much. Some of the suggested designs printed in today’s Herald Sun have a distinct ‘love-in’ feel about them. Things like road signs with hearts in them.

Stickers won’t save lives on our roads. A decade of graphic TAC ads  on TV haven’t. What we need are things like:

Compulsory annual vehicle inspections at Government testing stations. Blitzes  on specific problems like bald tyres, faulty lights, rust buckets. The non-use of seat belts. The abuse of mobile phones. More advanced driving courses in schools. And most important: send repeat drink-drivers to jail. Confiscate their cars instead of a fine. Ban them from driving for a decade or for life.

That’ll stick far more than a sticker.

Thursday, September 29, 2006

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2006