The Northern Territory has four times the nation’s rate of road deaths – 20.2 per population of 100,000 compared to 5.1.
This has been disclosed by a police spokesperson who said: “Add to this carnage the number of people seriously injured in crashes, averaging 539 every year.
“These are lives that are changed in an instant and lives that are changed forever.”
Police are in their third day of Operation Lomani, a 12 day Territory-wide campaign of road safety: “Each day of unannounced activity will be an addition to the daily road policing activities and campaigns that the public have grown to expect on Territory roads,” says the spokesperson.
“In addition to testing for drink driving police are utilising their new powers to randomly test for drug driving. Out of the 85 tests that were conducted [on one day last week], two drivers in Alice Springs returned positive results for methamphetamine.”
PHOTO from police archive.
Contributed.
It would be nice to see police enforcing stop signs, failing to keep right or left when turning right or left i.e., driving into the incorrect lane after the turn at intersections like the Stuart Highway and Larapinta Drive.
The idiots who signal to turn right on the approach of a roundabout and then drive straight ahead could also stand some attention.
All of these offences indicate that either drivers don’t care about road rules, don’t know them, or are just plain sloppy. Sloppiness in one part of their driving leads to other aspects of sloppiness and eventually traffic incidents.
To quote the “Northern Territory 2015 Road Injury Statistical Summary”:
“Road fatalities in the Northern Territory are highly variable and unpredictable. Trend data provides a truer representation of road fatalities and serious injuries in the Northern Territory than annual comparisons.”
The 10 year statistics are very telling, as are those relating to the nature of the accident and the location and the use of seat belts.
Other interesting comments in the report are “underestimated” in relation to alcohol, and “known to be speed related (Note: vehicle speed influences all crashes)” – well of course it does, if all vehicles were stopped there would probably a lot fewer crashes(??). So easily we swallow up media reports of “speed was a factor”.
Add to this the emotive language.
Sorry, but the lies and deceit perpetrated by the authorities under the guise of studies or statistics are so clear to a discerning reader. Obviously there are good things happening, drug and alcohol testing, speed detection in built up areas, but there is also the revenue raising, a key part of policing, unfortunately.
Can someone tell me if members of the general public can access these road death figures in terms of where they happened, the number, details of the deceased (in terms of being foreign visitors or Australians) etc.
The figures seem a bit rubbery, and the official figures put out by the Government and its departments are known for not being transparent.
[ED – Hi Michael, the police have detailed stats here.]