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Death Toll over Christmas Hols

Death Toll over Christmas Hols

Old Dec 28th 2008, 12:35 pm
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Default Death Toll over Christmas Hols

..apparently OH just read that its currently at 36 I am so shocked and depressed by that. My heart goes out to the families and friends.


Is it my imagination or does that seem really high compared to the UK? Especially when you factor in populations and traffic density.

Is it that when an accident happens here it can be sometime before anyone A: finds you and B: gets you to hospital?
Or the cars not all being roadworthy (no annual MOT here in QLD)
Or shocking drivers?
Or lousy roads?

I dread the day my boys will be out on the roads without me being there with them....
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Old Dec 28th 2008, 1:10 pm
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Default Re: Death Toll over Christmas Hols

36 lives and 36 families left grieving, that is horrible.

Is it just from road-deaths, or things like suicide, murder etc?

There's been a few even just locally here near Newcastle over Christmas, probably about 10 reported this week and half of those traffic related.

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Old Dec 28th 2008, 1:21 pm
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Default Re: Death Toll over Christmas Hols

Originally Posted by Safin
..apparently OH just read that its currently at 36 I am so shocked and depressed by that. My heart goes out to the families and friends.


Is it my imagination or does that seem really high compared to the UK? Especially when you factor in populations and traffic density.

Is it that when an accident happens here it can be sometime before anyone A: finds you and B: gets you to hospital?
Or the cars not all being roadworthy (no annual MOT here in QLD)
Or shocking drivers?
Or lousy roads?

I dread the day my boys will be out on the roads without me being there with them....
It's tragic I agree.

Unfortunately bad driving and an associated careless/reckless attitude is a disease which blights Australia and seemingly Queensland in particular.

It's going to take a huge change in mindset - something drastic and revolutionary - before anything changes though, as it seems to be endemic across the whole population i.e both the young and old, and no amount of horrific TV adverts or natty little slogans is going to cause people to change their behaviour or outlook.

Your other 2 considerations are something which also need to be immediately addressed.
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Old Dec 28th 2008, 6:37 pm
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Default Re: Death Toll over Christmas Hols

Originally Posted by Safin
..apparently OH just read that its currently at 36 I am so shocked and depressed by that. My heart goes out to the families and friends.


Is it my imagination or does that seem really high compared to the UK? Especially when you factor in populations and traffic density.

Is it that when an accident happens here it can be sometime before anyone A: finds you and B: gets you to hospital?
Or the cars not all being roadworthy (no annual MOT here in QLD)
Or shocking drivers?
Or lousy roads?

I dread the day my boys will be out on the roads without me being there with them....

Accidents happen, it is just a part of life but I think you have a point in all your comments, they are all contributing factors to the fatalities on our roads.

A few months back, a friend came to visit and he had an accident not 500M from my house. It took the ambulance over 50 minutes to arrive at the scene and the police over 90 minutes. Not bad since we live only 50 kms from Canberra.

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Old Dec 28th 2008, 8:05 pm
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Default Re: Death Toll over Christmas Hols

A lot of the accidents are single car accidents in the country and I believe its the roads, on some roads if you stray off the bitumen into the gravel at one hundred ks curtains.

Also they say they do not know how many single car accidents with only a driver are in fact suicides.

Every week of the year the road toll goes up and if you stood all the people who have been killed together it would be a very large crowd.

Cars are lethal and we all get in them daily, if the same number of soldiers were killed or people murdered there would be a public outcry of dismay, but cars they are sacrosanct.
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Old Dec 28th 2008, 9:41 pm
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Default Re: Death Toll over Christmas Hols

Originally Posted by Petals
Cars are lethal and we all get in them daily, if the same number of soldiers were killed or people murdered there would be a public outcry of dismay, but cars they are sacrosanct.
Yes its odd how so much fuss is made when someone dies of a rare shark attack and many will not swim in the sea but we all still get in our cars.....
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Old Dec 28th 2008, 11:23 pm
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Default Re: Death Toll over Christmas Hols

The toll has sadly increased to 39.

I read that in NSW the year's total is now at 391 and that the record low was 400 deaths in 1943. This is quite astonishing given the huge increases in traffic volumes since the 1940's.

I believe in Australia driver fatigue is a large contributory factor to traffic accidents. I hate the long straight stretches of road in rural Australia and it is not hard to see how loss of concentration for a just a moment can have dire consequences. My heart goes out to anyone involved in the aftermath of any such incident.
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Old Dec 29th 2008, 12:26 am
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Default Re: Death Toll over Christmas Hols

Yes fatigue does play a part and we try to avoid the Hume freeway if possible when visiting my son as its so long and straight that it mesmerises people, a lot of accidents happen up past Seymour where it gets long and boring.

Driving the smaller roads keeps one active driving.
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Old Dec 29th 2008, 12:33 am
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Default Re: Death Toll over Christmas Hols

Drink driving also remains a problem especially over Xmas

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Old Dec 29th 2008, 4:08 am
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Default Re: Death Toll over Christmas Hols

Originally Posted by Safin
Is it my imagination or does that seem really high compared to the UK? Especially when you factor in populations and traffic density.
Some old figures suggest it is slightly higher:

UK Road Deaths stand at 6.14 per 100,000 population in 2004.

Australian comparison figures show 7.94 road crash deaths per 100,000 people in 2004
What the 2008 figures are I am not sure, but will be checking them for my site at some stage.


The Summer Holiday/Christmas Death tolls for each year have been:
2007/08 - not yet looked for
2006/07 - not yet looked for
2005/06 - 78 (December 23 and midnight January 6)
2004/05 - 41
2003/04 - 81
2002/03 - 71
 
Old Dec 29th 2008, 4:36 am
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Default Re: Death Toll over Christmas Hols

Originally Posted by tictac
Unfortunately bad driving and an associated careless/reckless attitude is a disease which blights Australia and seemingly Queensland in particular.
I would look at other States carefully... (The QLD road death toll has one of the lowest rates)

Deaths per 100,000 population in 2004/2005
16.61 - NT
11.84 - TAS
8.86 - SA
8.64 - WA
7.66 - NSW
7.60 - QLD
6.69 - VIC
2.99 - ACT


Christmas State fatalities as at Dec 29, 2008
WA - 11
VIC - 11
NSW - 9
QLD - 8
NT - 3
SA - 1
TAS - 0
ACT - 0
Total: 43
 
Old Dec 29th 2008, 4:40 am
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Default Re: Death Toll over Christmas Hols

Originally Posted by Petals
A lot of the accidents are single car accidents in the country and I believe its the roads, on some roads if you stray off the bitumen into the gravel at one hundred ks curtains.
Not the roads at fault it is the drivers, If the road is not safe to do one hundred ks SLOW DOWN.
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Old Dec 29th 2008, 5:08 am
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Default Re: Death Toll over Christmas Hols

I read that in NSW the year's total is now at 391 and that the record low was 400 deaths in 1943. This is quite astonishing given the huge increases in traffic volumes since the 1940's.





Not really, vehicle safety has come on leaps and bounds since then.

I was on a course once and they showed us some of the old accidents, people killed at under 15kms due to the construction of the vehicles.

One I remember is on the old fashioned cars they had no seat belts and metal glove boxes, in an accident the passenger slid forward the glovebox lid fell open and the result was they had their knee caps taken off.

Unfortunately nearly every accident is the result of some kind of poor driving.
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Old Dec 29th 2008, 5:20 am
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Default Re: Death Toll over Christmas Hols

IIRC the figures last week for speeding offences so far were some four times the number last year.

The road fatalities look like being one of the lowest on record.

Now, if one makes the assumption that those caught represent a percentage of those actually speeding, four times the number of drivers were actually speeding - yet the death toll was lower than previously.

Given that, in an accident, the higher the speed the more the risk of dying, to me the inference is that at worst speeding has very little to do with the accident rate.

Ludicrously poor driving does, however.
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Old Dec 29th 2008, 5:29 am
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Default Re: Death Toll over Christmas Hols

Now, if one makes the assumption that those caught represent a percentage of those actually speeding, four times the number of drivers were actually speeding - yet the death toll was lower than previously.

Given that, in an accident, the higher the speed the more the risk of dying, to me the inference is that at worst speeding has very little to do with the accident rate.

Ludicrously poor driving does, however.[/QUOTE]




Speed does NOT kill, inapproriate speed kills.

You can be safe doing 200kms on a German Autbahn if you are in the right vehicle, if you are doing 60kms outside a school then you should lose your license
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