Suncoast Daily Newspaper highlights how wrong the road safety program is by it's uneducated point of view

For God's sake, look at this photograph and remember...speed kills

02.12.2006
by REBECCA MARSHALL
SPEED has killed again.

Emergency response personnel are angry and bewildered following the early morning death of a married 37-year-old father-of-one yesterday, just a fortnight after three young lives were lost in a high-speed crash at Mountain Creek.

The man's Holden Commodore had been travelling south on Duporth Avenue at speeds estimated to be in excess of 100kmh when it slammed into a power pole.

The accident happened just before 4am and left the car wrapped around the pole in a sickening sight of destruction.

The man's family has made a formal request to police not to release his name.

Focussing on speed as has been done by the police, polititians and media has created this situation and they only have themselves to blame.

This article and the full article highlight just how wrong this focuss on speed is becomming!

You might think what's he talking about? Well in the workplace would give people and understanding of all the risks in the workplace! Well in a progressive forward thinking organisation that probably doesn't exist but we try!

But on the roads this approach is not followed through becuase the focuss is on justifying the revenue being raised with speed camera's and the like.

But when we look at the roads it is very rare that speed alone causes an accident or death in this instance. In fact if we were to break this accident down we would see that there were other factors such as the pole, which transferred the energy to the occupants! (should note that it appears to me the car was going to fast)

So if we teach the young to focuss on the hazards/risks such as poles, trees, objects, head on traffic and pedestrians they migh understand that speed increases the energy and therefore the risks, instead of thinking speed kills and going out on a back road and seeing it rarely does which only discounts the focuss on safety.

And any red blooded young male will go out at some stage and see how fast the car goes so if they know how to understand the risks and reduce as many of them as they can when they do it, they will ultimately save lives but if the focuss is on speed at the detriment of understanding the other risks involved then safety fails everytime.

Knowing human behaviour, especially that of those that are male and young, shouldn't we also understand that we need to provide a place for free where they can go and have a hoon around with risks controlled as far as possible??? I believe every driver should at least once test the limits of their car so they have an understanding of their limits in an emergency but our current road safety legislation doesn't give people that oportunity legally.

Regards
Daniel