THE third Sunday of November each year has been designated as World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
THE third Sunday of November each year has been designated as World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims.
On this day, we are asked to remember the 1.3 million people who die on the world's roads each year and the 20 to 30 million who will have been injured.
While terrorism and Ebola are causing considerable alarm among both citizens and their leaders worldwide, one can only imagine the international response if, in one year, 1.3 million people were killed by either of these two events.
However, road trauma is not perceived in these terms. There is a false assumption that such deaths are accidents and that this is the price we pay for the benefits of motorised transport.
The reality is, of course, that many of these tragedies could have been avoided. The more accurate term "road crash" highlights that these events are anything but "accidental".
Many crashes happen because of human behaviours that are not inevitable: impatience, distraction, fatigue, drugs and alcohol, inattention, speed, inexperience, ignoring road regulations and just plain stupidity. These are all very poor reasons to terminate lives and permanently traumatise others.
Having worked at a fatal crash scene where family and friends of the deceased have arrived and been confronted by the reality of what has happened, I have zero tolerance for people who complain about road safety initiatives.
The vigorous policing of road regulations, and the fines that result from it, are a small price to pay for poor driving behaviour.
Interestingly, despite these still appalling figures, the onboard safety systems in cars over the last decade have actually reduced road trauma, like "crumple zones".
The rigid vehicles of yesteryear, where all the energy of the impact was directed straight into the occupants, may have seemed solid, but they killed more people than they saved. The simple seatbelt has evolved into the far more sophisticated Supplementary Restraint System, and today, airbags are designed to cocoon the occupants against those "impact zones" which, a few years ago, almost guaranteed fatal results.
Roadside pre-hospital trauma care too has contributed hugely to reducing the number of fatalities.
Fortunately, there are even more innovative technologies being developed for vehicles: anti-collision sensors, transponders that talk to other cars to increase situational awareness, even driverless cars are seen as potentially safer.
As we enter the Christmas and New Year holiday season we will hear a lot about the holiday road toll. This becomes a grim scoreboard where the fatalities from each state are displayed on the nightly news. But the sad reality is that this toll is being tabulated throughout the year - there is nothing seasonal about it.
Specific groups in society are over-represented in the road crash statistics, particularly young drivers. Any of us who are in a position to influence the perceptions of young people should enlighten them about the benefits of conservative and defensive driving.
The reality is that even young, overconfident, drivers are bound by the same rules of physics as their elders.
So, despite improved onboard technology, safer roads, sophisticated law enforcement technologies, advertising campaigns, and greater awareness of road trauma, people still die and are injured unnecessarily because the responsibility for road safety rests solely upon the person behind the wheel.
Something to think about, the next time you share the road.