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When I became obsessed with the subject, I was treated as an eccentric. I don't regret a minute of it, and in my twilight years I'm determined to do what I can to revive the road safety campaign. I'd like to live long enough to see the headline: 'No one killed on the roads this year'
If there's one sound parents dread, it's the knock on the door in the middle of the night, to be confronted by two grim-faced police officers. It's almost always tragic news. Thankfully I've never had that experience, but 60 years ago my wife lost her brother in a motorbike accident on his 21st birthday. Never a day passes when she doesn't think of him.
My obsession with road safety was not prompted by a personal loss. It occurred just after I was elected to parliament in 1969. Three horrific accidents within a few kilometres of each other left the NSW central coast with 12 fewer citizens.
I was stunned and sickened by the callousness of the local media and authorities. I asked the Parliamentary Library to dig out anything it could about Australia's road toll. There were endless ideas about how the carnage could be stopped, ignoring the fact most had been tried.
Fortunately the material provided by the library contained Ralph Nader's 1965 book, Unsafe at Any Speed. Nader's campaign about dangerously designed vehicles had a profound impact. US congressmen and senators took up the issue with the media.
General Motors attempted to besmirch Nader's name by attempting to set him up with a call girl. All that did was make him an international celebrity, a household name and the father of the consumer movement. With Nader regularly in the headlines, the public began to take serious interest in the automobile industry.
Nader forced the industry to redesign the motor vehicle by introducing collapsible steering columns, fuel tanks that didn't explode on contact and recessed instrument panels that prevented drivers and occupants from being injured by internal protrusions, and by removing mascots on bonnets that impaled pedestrians.
Fins also disappeared from car exteriors and airbags were introduced. By the mid-1970s the industry was listening at last to engineers and scientists rather than just the marketing gurus whose main interest was in keeping costs low and profits high, and promoting the car as a lifestyle choice rather than a safe means of transport. Nader had studied the appalling road toll in the US and concluded that the problem was not caused by drivers -- the "nut behind the wheel" -- but faulty vehicle design, poor roads, roadside furniture and authorities that allowed marketing experts to encourage the sale of fast cars.
He summed it up succinctly: "It is faster, cheaper and more enduring to build operationally safe and crash-worthy automobiles that will prevent death and injury than to build a policy around the impossible goal of having drivers behave perfectly at all times under all conditions in the operation of a basically unsafe vehicle and often treacherous highway conditions."
What had been ignored by governments throughout the 20th century hit the headlines. The car soon looked dramatically different -- and so did the road toll. It plateaued, then nosedived. It wasn't just American cars that became safer. Volvo led the way, with Subaru, Mercedes-Benz, Saab and others close behind. Australia, while not a big manufacturer, played a leading role in reducing the world's road toll. When Nader came on the scene, Australia had one of the worst fatality records.
Whether measured per 100,000 head of population, kilometres driven or number of registered vehicles, Australia was always in the top three or four countries for fatalities. The year after I entered federal parliament, Australia's road toll peaked with 3798 killed. Friends told me, "It's the price we must pay for progress." They obviously had not lost family members or friends. Since 1925, when the authorities started to keep records, 160,700 Australians had died, far more than in the two world wars, Vietnam and Korea combined.
Australia's contribution to stemming the road toll can be attributed to initiatives taken by state governments, particularly Victoria. We didn't invent the seatbelt, but thanks to the Victorian Legislative Council we were the first country where wearing one was made compulsory. The impact was dramatic. By 1973, all states and territories had compulsory seatbelt legislation. So too with the breathalyser. Australia didn't invent it but we ensured its use was enforced.
Cars are not the only area where significant changes occurred. I managed to convince then prime minister Gough Whitlam to follow former US president Dwight D. Eisenhower's example and devote his resources to building national highways. Billions were spent on upgrading our "goat track" highways; black spots were targeted and roadside furniture was dramatically improved. After 1970, fatalities began to fall while the population and the number of registered vehicles continued to grow.
So, what happens next? Have we achieved the ultimate safe vehicle, with little likelihood of any significant further reduction in fatalities? Is a death toll of zero merely a fantasy? Of the 190-odd countries where records are kept, Australia ranked 14th in 2011, with 5.7 deaths per 100,000 people, compared with 3.1 in Britain, the lowest, and 3.3 in The Netherlands. However, Australia is vastly bigger, with a smaller population, and in many areas very poor roads.
Whichever graph you study, it shows there are about 90,000 people alive today who would have been dead without the work of scientists, engineers, road safety lobbyists and politicians who refused to accept the industry's propaganda that the fault lay with the drivers. No company has set higher safety standards than Volvo. In 2008, it forecast that by 2020 anyone driving a Volvo and obeying the road rules would not be killed. There should have been screaming headlines: Volvo predicts zero road toll.
Instead the news was tucked away on inside pages. Ninety thousand Australians are alive today who would have died; yet there appears to be little interest in achieving Volvo's goal. Most people are unaware they could have been one of the statistics. They were in the right car at the right time. Huge breakthroughs have been achieved since 1970 but even more exciting design changes are strengthening the possibility of realising Volvo's aim.
It is worth looking back to the 19th century to see how attitudes have changed. Let me quote from my 1971 paper, The Australian Way of Death: "In the USA some 5693 persons were killed in 1888 on the railroad and almost all were brakemen. This was a quarter of century after the development of two devices, the coupler and the airbrake, which could and finally did eliminate all such deaths... for over half a century traffic safety was seen as a problem of the individual. We have faced precisely the same problem with road transport."
New technology holds much promise. Autonomous emergency braking uses sensor technology to monitor the paths ahead of the vehicle; it is one of the most exciting developments in preventing accidents. If an obstacle is detected, the system warns the driver; if no action is taken or if the driver doesn't react fast enough, the system applies the brakes. This technology will help avoid accidents as well as reduce the severity of crashes and injuries. Why haven't governments passed laws to make AEB compulsory? This borders on criminal negligence.
All cars have seatbelts and a system that warns the driver if they are not locked. With 27 per cent of fatalities attributable to people not wearing seatbelts, why hasn't the available technology been used to ensure no car will start unless the safety belt is connected? Why aren't there interlocks in every car?
So too with alcohol interlocks, known as Alcolocks. Alcohol is a factor in 25 per cent of fatalities in Sweden and alcoholic interlocks have been installed in 55,000 vehicles since 2011. However, so far, in Australia, New Zealand and the US they have been restricted to drivers who have been convicted of driving under the influence.
Why so few? Every car should have seatbelt and alcohol interlocks, as well as AEB. Can it be done? Of course it can. All the innovations that have been introduced were bitterly opposed by vested interests. That includes speed cameras, speed measuring devices, red light cameras and many other improvements. Since the Swedish parliament adopted its Vision Zero safety policy in 1997, mortality has been reduced by 35 per cent. Why has there been so little effort to push governments to take action? I shouldn't be surprised.
Billions have been poured into the car industry to save jobs: a noble objective, but it's more important to save lives. In the past 12 years, governments have given $2.17 billion to Holden, $1.1bn to Ford and $1.2bn to Toyota. Perhaps it would have been better to direct that money to companies that are improving road safety. The annual cost of our road toll is estimated at $27bn. The mind boggles at the reduction in our health and welfare bill. Despite Australia's huge success in reducing its road toll from 3798 (1970) to 1309 (last year), there are some worrying signs.
Young people aged 17-25 are the most vulnerable group, representing one-quarter of Australian road deaths. However, the group that is increasing are the over-60s. It's likely a large part of this growth is due to the significant increase in longevity in recent decades. During the past century life span has increased from 55 for men and 59 for women to 79 and 84 respectively. In the past 20 years it has increased by almost five years, and the trend will continue. That will guarantee the road toll for the above-60s will continue to increase. It is a good reason to place greater emphasis on AEB and interlock systems.
Successive governments built the national highway and have continued to improve it. By next year, $20.5bn will have been spent since 2008-09 on building and upgrading 7500km, while continuing the Black Spot programs where serious accidents have regularly occurred. There is no silver bullet to eliminate road deaths. If governments concentrate on making carssafer by improving the roads on which we travel, we can look forward to fulfilling Volvo's dream. We must put pressure on our politicians, police and media to look closely at the success Australia has had in cutting the road toll by more than 70 per cent. They appear to believe any further success is unlikely.
The endless headlines about tragic deaths have inured our governments to the road toll and made them complacent. They have become convinced that any further reduction will depend on reining in the nut behind the wheel. Instead they should trust our engineers and scientists to continue their work of the past four decades and achieve a zero toll. I long for the day when families no longer fear the knock on the door in the middle of the night.
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