The road to 30: A former officers speak out on the state's horror year for crash deaths

Just six months into 2022, the state's crash deaths have already reached 30, following a double fatality at Latrobe earlier this week. That figure is on track for a record high - considering the 10-year-average for annual road deaths is just above 33.

The rise in deaths has triggered a restructuring and redeployment of the state's police back on to the roads, following a hiatus under COVID. As part of Tasmania Police's 'Enough is Enough' campaign, 68 police officers will be solely dedicated to road policing across Tasmania, alongside a new highway patrol, which is expected to begin operating from July.

The move comes almost a decade after a statewide restructuring brought Tasmania Police's Traffic, Crash Investigation Services, Road Safety Taskforce personnel, Public Order Response Teams and Licensing divisions into a single department.

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For former Sergeant Terry Reaney, the reshuffle coincided with a downturn in road policing across the state.

"My view is that traffic policing has been on the decline since around 2012-2013 and from there it's continued to erode and lose focus" Mr Reaney said.

According to Mr Reaney - who spent more than four decades in Tasmania Police before retiring last March - the combination of departments meant police were often diverted from road duties to other understaffed areas of policing. That trend accelerated during COVID, when road policing reduced further to allow officers to assume COVID-related duties.

"That's when it went from proactive to reactive," he said.

Mr Reaney said the lack of a visible police presence on the roads over the last two years has led to a complacency among the public. He believes that complacency is causing members of the public to take bigger risks with illegal driving, which has ultimately led to the rise in deaths this year.

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"People need to see police on the roads and we need to be seen preventing deaths, not just reacting to them," he said.

With that in mind, Mr Reaney said news of a dedicated highway patrol was "a good start" but emphasised funding and technology also had to play their part.

"We've gotta get out there to reduce the road toll because 30 people's lives is just too many," he said.

Despite a visible police presence making its way back onto Tasmania's roads, Mr Reaney was concerned the past two years may have a longer-reaching impact.

"Now the complacency is there, it's going to take a while to turn the wheel back," he said.

He also noted crash deaths were a community-wide issue - not just a policing issue - and said officers "just wanted to be out there saving lives". That community-wide approach has also been held up by former Tasmania Police Northern District Commander Brett Smith, who believes more needs to be done if the state wants to meaningfully reduce road deaths.

"We're really not doing anything different but we expect something dramatic to change," he said.

"What is the grand plan here? I haven't seen it. This is a community problem and everyone has a part to play," he said.

Mr Smith, who stepped down as commander in August last year, said the common causes of driving deaths - speeding, drink-or-drug driving, inattention, fatigue, and failure to wear seat belts - were symptoms of a larger public issue which has yet to be adequately addressed.

"This is a complex, wicked problem [...] and I'm not saying there's a silver bullet here we could implement straight away to bring down road deaths, but don't think we understand the full extent of the problem," he said.

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"Three people die a day on Australian roads, imagine if we had those statistics for firearms or family violence. If you really want to look deeply at it, this is an issue of driver ethics," he said.

Given the high road death toll already this year, Mr Smith is calling for a more holistic, evidence-based approach to road policing, in hopes this will finally bring down road deaths.

"Substantial changes in thinking, approach and behaviour is needed if we are serious about saving lives,"

In a submission last year to the Inquiry into Road Safety in Tasmania, Mr Smith called of - among other things - a more substantial effort to try and change drive behaviour, citing the government-led change in the public's personal hygiene practices under COVID as an example of what could be achieved with the right messaging.

"What I'm suggesting in terms of a future road safety strategy is a similar approach used in responding to COVID. The government, support agencies and the community need to take road safety as seriously as they have with COVID if we are serious about reducing injury and improving driver behaviour," he said in his submission.

That inquiry was called after Tasmania failed to reduce the annual number of road crash fatalities and serious road crash injuries by at least 30 per cent over the 10-year period under the National Road Safety Strategy.

In 2021, Tasmania had the worst road safety record of any state, with 6.5 deaths per 100,000 people. Given the substantial deaths already seen this year, it seems unlikely that figure will improve in 2022.

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