The long weekend road catch

TAC

milkman said :

chilli said :

Am I the only one who thinks that these results were actually pretty good?

Of 2,439 roadside breath tests, only 0.01% tested positive for a blood alcohol level over 0.05. This doesn’t seem to be a drink driving crime wave to me.

And despite there being 0.01% people on the road with a blood alcohol level over 0.05, there were no alcohol related major traffic incidents. In fact, there were no major traffic incidents at all. Even with 137 people caught speeding (out of the many tens or hundreds of thousands who were on the road in the ACT over the weekend), we managed to not kill or seriously hurt anyone.

Compare this with a report by Runciman et al in 2001 which found that at least 10% of admissions to acute care hospitals in Australia were associated with a potentially preventable adverse event (ie an event caused by human error). “Simply being a patient in an acute care hospital in Australia carries, on average, a 40 fold greater risk of dying from the care process than from being in traffic”, the report states.

This is an even worse statistic considering how little time most of us spend as inpatients compared to being road users. And many more thousands of people are affected. At great cost. So might not the focus on road trauma be a bit disproportionate, especially when, as in the case this weekend, there was not one person seriously hurt?

Human error, negligence and outright law-breaking leading to harm is observable in many social contexts – of which medical misadventure, food poisoning, alcohol fueled violence are a few examples.

Given the great results we’re getting with the road toll compared to other public health issues, isn’t it time to put more resources into other problems?

And please, when less than 0.01% of people are caught drink driving, ACT Policing are undermining their credibility to say that “it’s extremely alarming that despite our best efforts, people continue to choose to drink and drive”, when the real message is that it’s extremely encouraging that 99.99% of people choose not to.

We’ve certainly made good progress on road safety.

Agreed. I remember that when the TAC ads were on TV it really made a difference on road safety. Powderfinger’s “My Happiness” was the theme song in the ads. Good song that, but I digress. Some of the government initiatives in the past few years really helped change attitudes and behaviour of drivers

chilli said :

Am I the only one who thinks that these results were actually pretty good?

Of 2,439 roadside breath tests, only 0.01% tested positive for a blood alcohol level over 0.05. This doesn’t seem to be a drink driving crime wave to me.

And despite there being 0.01% people on the road with a blood alcohol level over 0.05, there were no alcohol related major traffic incidents. In fact, there were no major traffic incidents at all. Even with 137 people caught speeding (out of the many tens or hundreds of thousands who were on the road in the ACT over the weekend), we managed to not kill or seriously hurt anyone.

Compare this with a report by Runciman et al in 2001 which found that at least 10% of admissions to acute care hospitals in Australia were associated with a potentially preventable adverse event (ie an event caused by human error). “Simply being a patient in an acute care hospital in Australia carries, on average, a 40 fold greater risk of dying from the care process than from being in traffic”, the report states.

This is an even worse statistic considering how little time most of us spend as inpatients compared to being road users. And many more thousands of people are affected. At great cost. So might not the focus on road trauma be a bit disproportionate, especially when, as in the case this weekend, there was not one person seriously hurt?

Human error, negligence and outright law-breaking leading to harm is observable in many social contexts – of which medical misadventure, food poisoning, alcohol fueled violence are a few examples.

Given the great results we’re getting with the road toll compared to other public health issues, isn’t it time to put more resources into other problems?

And please, when less than 0.01% of people are caught drink driving, ACT Policing are undermining their credibility to say that “it’s extremely alarming that despite our best efforts, people continue to choose to drink and drive”, when the real message is that it’s extremely encouraging that 99.99% of people choose not to.

The fact that 23-30% of fatal road accidents/collisions are attributed to alcohol/drug consumption would imply that the plods credibility is intact.One can use stats to support any argument however it’s very easy to distort reality.The other accepted fact is that there are many people who,even though they blow under 0.05,are affected by alcohol/drugs to the point that their capacity to react to situations is compromised.The plod don’t report the actual numbers of individuals who blow between 0.02 to 0.05 so 99.99% is I believe unrealistic.

chilli said :

Am I the only one who thinks that these results were actually pretty good?

Of 2,439 roadside breath tests, only 0.01% tested positive for a blood alcohol level over 0.05. This doesn’t seem to be a drink driving crime wave to me.

And despite there being 0.01% people on the road with a blood alcohol level over 0.05, there were no alcohol related major traffic incidents. In fact, there were no major traffic incidents at all. Even with 137 people caught speeding (out of the many tens or hundreds of thousands who were on the road in the ACT over the weekend), we managed to not kill or seriously hurt anyone.

Compare this with a report by Runciman et al in 2001 which found that at least 10% of admissions to acute care hospitals in Australia were associated with a potentially preventable adverse event (ie an event caused by human error). “Simply being a patient in an acute care hospital in Australia carries, on average, a 40 fold greater risk of dying from the care process than from being in traffic”, the report states.

This is an even worse statistic considering how little time most of us spend as inpatients compared to being road users. And many more thousands of people are affected. At great cost. So might not the focus on road trauma be a bit disproportionate, especially when, as in the case this weekend, there was not one person seriously hurt?

Human error, negligence and outright law-breaking leading to harm is observable in many social contexts – of which medical misadventure, food poisoning, alcohol fueled violence are a few examples.

Given the great results we’re getting with the road toll compared to other public health issues, isn’t it time to put more resources into other problems?

And please, when less than 0.01% of people are caught drink driving, ACT Policing are undermining their credibility to say that “it’s extremely alarming that despite our best efforts, people continue to choose to drink and drive”, when the real message is that it’s extremely encouraging that 99.99% of people choose not to.

We’ve certainly made good progress on road safety.

La_Tour_Maubourg said :

“Officer-in-Charge of Traffic Operations Sergeant Rod Anderson said the Queen’s Birthday long weekend results were disappointing and clearly indicated that drivers still haven’t got the message”

Is it just me who realises that sergeant needs to think of another sentence to say about EVERY double demerit period? I don’t think we (the drivers) will never get the “message” (whatever it may be!)

I agree. Why can’t a cop come out with a line like “don’t be a muppet and kill others”?

Am I the only one who thinks that these results were actually pretty good?

Of 2,439 roadside breath tests, only 0.01% tested positive for a blood alcohol level over 0.05. This doesn’t seem to be a drink driving crime wave to me.

And despite there being 0.01% people on the road with a blood alcohol level over 0.05, there were no alcohol related major traffic incidents. In fact, there were no major traffic incidents at all. Even with 137 people caught speeding (out of the many tens or hundreds of thousands who were on the road in the ACT over the weekend), we managed to not kill or seriously hurt anyone.

Compare this with a report by Runciman et al in 2001 which found that at least 10% of admissions to acute care hospitals in Australia were associated with a potentially preventable adverse event (ie an event caused by human error). “Simply being a patient in an acute care hospital in Australia carries, on average, a 40 fold greater risk of dying from the care process than from being in traffic”, the report states.

This is an even worse statistic considering how little time most of us spend as inpatients compared to being road users. And many more thousands of people are affected. At great cost. So might not the focus on road trauma be a bit disproportionate, especially when, as in the case this weekend, there was not one person seriously hurt?

Human error, negligence and outright law-breaking leading to harm is observable in many social contexts – of which medical misadventure, food poisoning, alcohol fueled violence are a few examples.

Given the great results we’re getting with the road toll compared to other public health issues, isn’t it time to put more resources into other problems?

And please, when less than 0.01% of people are caught drink driving, ACT Policing are undermining their credibility to say that “it’s extremely alarming that despite our best efforts, people continue to choose to drink and drive”, when the real message is that it’s extremely encouraging that 99.99% of people choose not to.

La_Tour_Maubourg said :

“Officer-in-Charge of Traffic Operations Sergeant Rod Anderson said the Queen’s Birthday long weekend results were disappointing and clearly indicated that drivers still haven’t got the message”

Is it just me who realises that sergeant needs to think of another sentence to say about EVERY double demerit period? I don’t think we (the drivers) will never get the “message” (whatever it may be!)

To top it off he says “Our message is simple if you decide to drink and then drive,expect ACT Policing to catch you”. What he undoubtedly would love to be able to say immediately afterwards is ‘and then the bloody magistrates will get the feather dusters out and give ’em what for just to really rub it in!

“Officer-in-Charge of Traffic Operations Sergeant Rod Anderson said the Queen’s Birthday long weekend results were disappointing and clearly indicated that drivers still haven’t got the message”

Is it just me who realises that sergeant needs to think of another sentence to say about EVERY double demerit period? I don’t think we (the drivers) will never get the “message” (whatever it may be!)

It was interesting to see the coppers doing a blitz on Parkes Way on Saturday morning. First time throughout the whole roadworks I have seen coppers there.

The bizarre thing though is even on a long weekend Saturday morning there were two stretches where there were workers working with 40km/h zones, yet the blitz was in the 60km/h section on the finished bit of road just round the left turn heading towards the city.

Of course once people were past the blitz they sped up including through the two 40km/h sections. Maybe they should have been policing those instead.

EvanJames said :

Solidarity said :

I wonder how many people they didn’t catch…

No tailgaters were caught this weekend. I’ll put money on that.

Do you really want to put your money where your mouth is? How much you got?

1. well done to white Touareg driver YTH…. who, with kids in the car (or someone in the back seat watching DVDs) managed to overtake across double lines and moving one car up at a time all the way to get at least a whole 12 cars ahead – in a queue of about 150 cars…

2. that said, with all the speed limit changes on the King’s Highway, from Braidwood to BB the zones go 100, 90, 70, 90, 70, 80, 90, 100, 80, 100. Or something like that. Anyway, its damn easy to miss one sign… (no, I didnt get booked. But there were times when I had no idea whether the speed limit had changed or not). A few more signs would be good.

However, in general the driving was fine – cruised along at about 5-10km/h below the posted limit but in a long snake of cars that was entirely reasonable. Amazing how many people were heading down at 4pm on Thursday, however.