crash

[Laurence]

Personally, I find it very difficult to read or watch any of the media reports on driving and accidents these days.

Personally, I find it very difficult to read or watch your post, ever heard of paragraphs.

[MLCrisis]

Fining people for going 3kph over the speed limit wont save lives!!!!! Driver education and changing fundamentally how a young person approaches driving will and I dont think that can be argued against.

Totally agree! There have been some very interesting debates on the radio and in the media internationally about this "Speed kills" crap. The people who are leading the field of road safety research say that to focus entirely on one contributory factor, i.e. speed, completely undermines the argument, as it is rejected by the majority of motorists who recognise that this is oversimplistic. One of the other factors at play is that many motorists think that this only applies to those who can't control their car very well - and not to them, as they are, of course, above average drivers!

The advert currently on telly showing the difference in the last 5 metres before impact of two cars, one at 60 km/hr and one at 65 km/hr, is the only effective argument I have seen. It actually gives you a reasonably complete picture. But where even that falls down is that if you teach drivers to anticipate the road situation ahead, to look out for warning signs, to be cautious in some situations, then you will have improved their ability to hit the brake pedal earlier and avoid the impact completely!

The majority of road deaths in WA are caused by cars hitting trees (over 60%). So should we ban all trees? No - just improve driver education about driving tired, because the majority of those who die against a tree have fallen asleep! (These are from Main Roads WA statistics.) You could also improve road design in urban areas by putting the light poles and other road furniture on the inside of the bend - but that's another story.

Cheers.

[steane]

Gojira...So sorry mate. I was actually putting together a quick response while at work because I thought it was an important topic.

Thanks for your response, it displayed an abundance of intelligence and maturity beyond your years!