I’d like to see the extension of bicycle lanes on main arterial routes throughout Launceston. I’m middle-aged and have decided to begin commuting to work later this year. Two reasons – to get fitter (I have a sedentary job) and also with the introduction of well marked bike lanes it will be a lot safer. Also, in the UK there is the “Cycle to Work Scheme” in which tax payers can receive up to 1000 pounds for purchase of bike and ancillary equipment. The basic ideas behind this is to increase fitness / health, reduce pollution / carbon footprint and to extend the life of road infrastructure. These will not provide the total answer but a muli-pronged approach I believe can deliver significant benefit. It would be great to see the local or federal government offer a similar scheme here in Tasmania.

The Study was the first major “instrumented vehicle” project (video cameras and data-transmitters in-car, measuring the normal driving activities); it recorded over 2 million vehicle miles (3.2 million km) and 12-13 months of data collection.

The findings were quite extraordinary. They included:

“Nearly 80 percent of all crashes and 65 percent of all near-crashes involved driver inattention just prior to (i.e., within 3 seconds) the onset of the conflict. (NOTE: prior estimates related to driver inattention as a contributing factor have been in the range of 25 percent of all crashes.)”

It also found that mobile (cell) phones were associated with the highest frequency of “secondary task distraction-related events” for both incidents and near-crashes.

What the Virgina Tech Study implies is that inattention most likely is a bigger problem than current accepted understandings, and needs more examination than we are currently affording it.

It also highlighted the value of studying “non-police-reported” near-incidents or incidents. In the Study, these types of incidents occurred 15 times more than police-reported incidents. The Study argues that only relying on police-reported incidents has limitations: “Drivers often do not remember specific details of a rapidly-occurring event. However, naturalistic studies overcome the obstacle of potentially unreliable eyewitness crash accounts. For example, eyewitness accounts could include a driver or passenger who is in shock or injured or someone who is trying to hide the details of what occurred (due either to embarrassment, fear of prosecution/litigation, or other reasons).”

It really is a fascinating read, the Study.

RACT has called on the Government to carry out more research into inattention in Tasmania – to examine in detail what, exactly, is going on inside a vehicle that actually contributes to it havig a crash – in our State Budget Submission 2010-11 see http://www.ract.com.au/news_and_issues/news_archives/news/19412

This research could utilise the Virginia Tech findings (and other research like MUARC’s report on the effects of text messaging on novice drivers in 2006); and should be carried out at arm’s length from government by one of the road safety institutes in Australia like CARRS-Q or MUARC. In fact, a Tasmanian study could be used as a test-bed or pilot for a national understanding, and could recived Australian Government support8.

RACT has also included this call for inattention research in its upcoming “A Roadmap for the next Tasmanian Government: Priorities for infrastructure and road safety in Tasmania” which will be released to all political parties and media outlets shortly.

cheers,
Vince Taskunas
General Manager, Public Policy and Communications
RACT Ltd

All the best Michael
regards
Greg Schmerl

I’m still not sure that last year wasn’t an anomaly in terms of deaths. I can’t see any particular reason that there was such a dramatic increase in the road toll – any comment on this would be welcome. It’s not as though there was a mass death (bus accident etc) to skew the results.

That aside, the biggest issues are still largely cultural attitudes and insufficient driver training, and there probably aren’t simple ways out of them.

That said – a few easy fixes to reduce annoyances on the road:

1. Punitively fine construction / road clearing companies who leave 40kph signs up along the road when there is no work being done. Nothing does more to put workers at risk than being asked to slow down unnecessarily.

2. Increase the speed limit where appropriate. If you want to put double lanes on the midland highway, increase the speed limit to 140. It might then make economic as well as political sense. Similarly elsewhere where the road conditions and traffic load warrant. Put simply – the higher the speed limit, the better the road can afford to be.

3. Make it legal to speed whilst overtaking. The faster an overtaking maneuver is completed, the safer for everyone involved.

4. Look into variable speed signage that takes road conditions and loading into account. It can be done, and there are places where it would be of significant benefit. Obviously it can realistically only be utilised on high value roads, but some of those roads would see both more efficient use and less carnage as a result.

From the article:

Young men felt the most superior.

Middle-aged men rated themselves as better than similarly aged drivers, and far superior to younger and older motorists.

Older drivers – aged 65 plus – felt most superior when they compared themselves to motorists of the same age.