Cars better killers than bullets, bombs

From the first fatal accident in 1908, our roads have taken 33,400 lives - nearly 6000 more than the war toll, reports MAX LAMBERT.

Several thousand more people have died on the nation's roads in the past century than all of New Zealand's war deaths.

The Land Transport Safety Authority says more than 33,400 people have been killed on the roads since the first recorded fatality in 1908.

That is close to 6000 more than the number of New Zealanders killed in combat - a total of 27,700 for the Boer War, First and Second World Wars and regional conflicts in Korea, Malaya and Vietnam.

In an updated report on the road toll last century, the authority notes: "Cars, trucks and motorcycles have given us freedom of movement, quick and reliable transport and the ability to move goods easily from one place to another."

The contribution of automobiles to the global economy had been immeasurable.

"Unfortunately, the age of the car has also been the age of the car crash."

Road deaths were not counted officially in New Zealand until 1921 but by checking old newspapers, the authority worked out that between 1908 and the end of 1920, 300 people were killed in crashes on the nation's primitive roading network.

The first known fatal accident was recorded in Christchurch on February 25, 1908, when a car swerved to avoid a horse and slammed into a tram.

A passenger was catapulted from the car and died in hospital a week later.

Speed was reckoned to be a factor in the crash - the car was travelling about 50 km/h.

The first cars, two of them, appeared on New Zealand roads in 1898 but vehicles did not have to be registered until 1905 and licences did not become compulsory for all drivers until 1925.

The first Government count of road deaths, in 1921, showed 69.

Sixty-one were logged the following year and 59 in 1923.

Then the toll began climbing sharply as more vehicles took to the roads.

By 1929, with more than 200,000 cars registered, the annual toll had reached 178.

That was the year the Transport Department was formed, an outcome of the need to regulate vehicles and combat the accident and death toll.

The authority notes that ever since the first fatal crash in New Zealand, society has looked for ways to improve safety and cut the number of road accident victims.

But for the first half of the century safety efforts focused on creating and modifying rules for roads and vehicles.

The first measures aimed at changing behaviour such as drink-driving were not introduced until the 1960s.

Road deaths declined during the Depression and war years but as the country headed into the prosperous 1950s and 1960s, the toll ballooned.

By the end of the 1970s, the carnage was truly terrible, with yearly figures of 600 and 700.

An all-time peak was reached in 1973 - 843 people killed and 24,000 injured.

Alarmed authorities responded by shifting the road safety accent to drink driving, speeding and seatbelts.

This focus and other measures gradually throttled the rising toll, which began falling after 1987.

Last year's figure of 462 deaths was the lowest since 1964, when it was 428.

The current figures look even better when population and vehicles numbers are considered.

In 1964, New Zealand's population was 2.6 million and 964,000 vehicles were on the roads.

Last year, the population had grown to 3.8 million and the number of vehicles to a record 2.6 million.

The vast improvement in preventing road fatalities is best shown in the number of deaths per population/vehicles.

In 1973, 27.9 people per 100,000 died on the roads, and the figure per 10,000 vehicles was 5.9.

By the end of last year, those figures had shrunk to 12.1 and 1.8 respectively.

Had last year's fatality rate been the same as in 1964 (16.4 deaths per 100,000 population), the road toll would have been 630.

And based on the fatality rate of 1973 (27.9 deaths per 100,000 population), a staggering 1070 people would have died on the roads last year.

On an international scale, New Zealand's road death figures in relation to population and car ownership are fair but not brilliant.

Based on population, New Zealand ranks 18th of 28 reporting countries - mainly Western European nations, the United States and Canada, Australia and a few Asian nations.

On a scale of deaths per 10,000 vehicles, we stand 17th.

The safest country is Sweden, with figures of 6 deaths per 100,000 population and 1.2 per 10,000 vehicles.

Then comes Britain (6.1 and 1.3).

United States figures are worse than New Zealand's at 15.3 and 2, and Australia's are better at 9.4 and 1.5.

Japan's roads are much safer than ours on the basis of figures of 8.5 and 1.4, while South Korea's are killers at 22.7 and 8.

In Western Europe, Portugal (22.4 and 3.1) seems the place to avoid if you want to stay alive. Also keep away from Greece (20 and 5.1) and Poland (18.3 and 5.6). France is not much better at 15.1 and 3.

Italy, often slated for madcap drivers - especially Romans - actually ranks about the same as New Zealand at 11 and 1.7.

A spokesman for the Land Transport Safety Authority, Andy Knackstedt, says the Government's proposed Road Safety Strategy, replacing the safety plan that expires at the end of this year, aims to reach a level of road safety by 2010 equalling that of Sweden's figures for last year.

"Achieving these results would be equivalent to halving the road toll in New Zealand by 2010 given the level of traffic growth."

- NZPA

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