The message speed kills is forced down our unwilling throats by the government and the police. It doesn’t matter where you live I can assume that that message or a variant of it is constantly thrust at you. I am not going to belabour the state as nanny argument (I’ll leave that to elsewhere) but I would like to talk about the pathetic and misleading measures that the government of Western Australia takes to curb what is known as the “road toll”.

Unless you are part of the statistics that make up the road toll (in which case you are dead and incapable of humour) you probably find the morbid fascination the media has with it a form of black comedy. Whenever there is a fatality on the road the numbers are bandied around like sports scores – “That brings the road toll for this year to 138. Compared to this time last year that is up 3″. If nothing else the focus on figures is dehumanising. Despite the reporting on the numbers rather than the victims a look at historical data is interesting. Below is a graph showing the number of fatal crashes and actual fatalities in Western Australia between 1997 and 2007.

Despite an obvious drop-off between 2001 and 2005 the road toll has remained above 150 and has risen again in 2007 to pre1997 levels. The statistics do not include the number of people who died 30 days subsequent to a car crash.

The next graph shows the number of injurious crashes reported to police. Data is from the Office of Road Safety Western Australia.

According to the analysis of data by the Office of Road Safety found here only 34% of those crashes were due to speeding. Over the same period fatigue (3.2%), alcohol (10.4%) and not wearing a seat belt (23.4%). The remaining 29% are seemingly not able to be attributed to a single cause. So it seems that speed is a major factor in injurious and fatal crashes.

A look at historic data available here shows that was a large decrease in road fatalities following the introduction of random breath testing. Since 1988 there has been a constant trend downwards in road fatalities. The number of fatalities on our roads now seems to have formed a plateau at around 2000 nationally and 200 in Western Australia.

What can we take away from all of this information. To me it seems that it is somewhat inevitable that there will be fatalities on the roads. This is conventional wisdom in government also where a target of 10 deaths per 10000 road users was desirable (a target that is apparently not achievable). It seems odd to actually set a target of a number of deaths. I am sure that they wish it were zero, but as I said when you have heavy metal objects moving at speed people are going to die.

And there we have it really. Moving at speed. Glancing back up at the analysis of the crash statistics 34% of crashes with speed as a factor seems remarkably low. I would have thought that it was impossible to crash while stationary. In fact I often quip that if the speed limit were 0 km/h there would be no crashes. I assume that the speed referred to is excessive speed and it is this that our government seems to want to prevent, no matter how incompetent they are.

This lack of competence is confused by many people as dishonesty. Certainly the State Government of Western Australia has dishonesty in spades. Politics is a dishonest pastime and the reason there are few honest politicians is that they wouldn’t last. To believe anything else is naive. People assume that because there are speed cameras photographing innocent motorists driving past them above the speed limit that they are there to make money for the state. This is childish and simplistic. The truth according to information from the Department of Treasury is that the Traffic Law Enforcement and Management section of the Western Australian Police raised $4.7 million in revenue from fines for 2005/6 and $5.5 million in 2006/7. This is an extremely small amount of money in relative terms and covers only about 5% of the operating costs of the section. It is hardly lining the state’s coffers. No the reason that people talk about revenue raising speed cameras is two fold.

Firstly, they are trying to justify there actions and externalise the blame – “I was only doing…”, “Why have a camera there?”, “Bloody revenue raising…”. Secondly, the sheer incompetence of the people running the show is incomprehensible so that instead of understanding that putting a camera where there is no obvious danger is actually just stupid they assume the police are trying to rip them off.

The data above shows that speed cameras are moderately effective. The decreased level of accidents since 1988 is evidence enough. The effectiveness of the police deployment of cameras is at its limit though. Some people will speed no matter what because they believe they won’t get caught. I believe it is a form of cognitive disonance. They are not capable of believing that (a) they will be caught and fined (b) they won’t have a crash and (c) if anything happens which is injurious to them or anyone else it is not their fault.

These people exist. They guy that over takes you at 110 km/h in the 80 km/h zone. That girl in the souped up Commodore weaving through the lanes on the freeway. That idiot crashed into the railing on the trainline. You’ve seen them.

These are the people that show that the police are not competent to reduce the road toll. Mobile speed cameras are not the answer because people believe they won’t get caught.

Speed cameras need to be in fixed positions. Dangerous places. Painted bright orange. People need to know that they WILL be caught. Don’t put them behind bushes to catch the unwary motorist who wasn’t concentrating surprised to find it there. Don’t sneak about moving their locations. Identify dangerous areas and put them there. Accompany this with regular patrols of the areas between. The sight of a police car is enough to slow people down.

I can’t see that this will happen though. The police will continue to believe that the way to stop the people described above is to increase fines to draconian levels. They are supported by politicians keen to appease the masses who have no understanding of the issues.

But you know. Not all speeding is bad. Excessive speed is bad. Driving at 120 km/h on the freeway when there is no traffic is safe. Driving at 140 km/m on a straight country road is safe. Driving at 60 km/h through a school zone isn’t. Driving at 80 km/h in an 80 km/h zone in torrential rain isn’t. Driving at 110 km/h on a broken surface isn’t safe. You see conditions are another factor that aren’t taken into consideration. Understanding road and traffic conditions and driving accordingly is a skill that only comes with experience or training. Young drivers need to be trained to recognise when speed is appropriate and when it isn’t. Young drivers need to be more rigourously tested and trained. But so do older ones. I believe that there are a good many drivers on our roads whose skills are attrocious. Test every driver every 5 years and make them pass in order to get their license.

Of course if road conditions were better then roads and driving would be safer. Keep surfaces smooth. Make the freeway 3-5 lanes all the way and make people aware of proper lane discipline (the amount of people going BELOW the speed limit in the outside lane drives me nuts) to avoid over taking on the inside. Make major country roads such as the Great Northern Highway, Great Eastern Highway and Old Coast Road all two lane divided roads and clear all road side trees and other things for drivers to impact against.

To the police and government of this state I implore you to stop looking dishonest. I understand you don’t really want my money. Please make the right decisions to improve road safety.