Deborah Coddington: Get tough on thick road louts

Here's a challenge for Transport Safety Minister Harry Duynhoven: Re-prioritise the "three Es" of transport policy so engineering and enforcement take precedence over education.

The minister assailed the holiday road toll, saying he wants tougher penalties handed out to dangerous drivers who place everyone else at risk on the roads, singling out running red lights and overtaking on double yellow lines.

Good so far, minister, but you could argue Land Transport New Zealand should totally jettison its focus on education. It's not as if other organisations wouldn't take over the task in their own self interest. Insurance companies and ACC, for instance, would increase their financial bottom lines with fewer payouts by promoting safer driving.

Notwithstanding, it's time someone bit the bullet and admitted some drivers out there are just too thick to educate, and Duynhoven, in his stolid, provincial way, might just be the man to take a tougher approach to law enforcement, other than hand out speeding tickets to mums delivering their kids to school.

Yes, it's good the road toll has come down despite a population increase and a surge in the number of cars on the road. But New Zealand still rates the second-worst in the world after America when it comes to fatalities per 100,000 people (10.30) and this doesn't count the horrific injuries - and mental anguish - of non-fatalities. It reflects a twisted psyche that turns normal people into meatheads when they get behind a steering wheel.

Well, maybe they're not so normal. When national road cycling champion Gordon McCauley was interviewed on the last day of 2005 after being knocked off his bike by a hit-and-run lunatic, he spoke of the dangers he faces every time he goes out on a training run. The day he was hit, he said, there was no one else on the road. In his opinion, the driver deliberately tried to close-shave him and then failed to stop to see if he was okay.

Motorists like this seem to think (if, in fact, they're capable of reason) that because they pay petrol taxes, they own the roads. That cyclists, and for that matter pedestrians and equestrians, have no business taking up valuable asphalt.

But we continue paying for cute advertising that politely tells motorists not to "burst the bubble" of space around a cyclist. Wankers who measure their driving skills by how often they get away with breaking laws won't be reformed by education campaigns.

How thick do you have to be not to realise that if you're speeding through a built-up area like Taupo's Waitahanui (already restricted to 70km/h) you won't be able to stop if a child dashes out in pursuit of an inner-tube?

Enforcement is a kind of education anyway, in that it's meant to teach a lesson. And increased enforcement doesn't mean pass more laws, but use or upgrade existing legislation.

Fines clearly don't work - last week's figures revealed $341 million in unpaid fines. Adding to that sick joke are the judges who let off defaulters with a bit of periodic detention: "Naughty, naughty. Here, go and dig the municipal rose beds".

There are alternatives, for example instant loss of licence (and access to any car) for at least 12 months. Duynhoven willing, we could make this permanent for second-time offenders. Two strikes and you're out.

If this sounds harsh, consider that a car is a lethal weapon in the hands of the wilfully dangerous. If a gun-wielding maniac shoots at someone they're charged with a criminal offence and lose their firearms.

No ifs, no buts, no mitigating circumstances. The same principle should apply to those who cross double yellow lines, overtake on blind corners, run red lights, drive through compulsory stops - any life-or-limb-endangering manoeuvres we know are illegal before we get a licence to drive.

And beyond getting tough, we urgently need to build more roads, bridges, tunnels and motorways.

As a near-daily user of buses and ferries, I do support public transport. But gridlock in Auckland and Wellington will never be solved by public transport alone.

Lives will be saved - instantly - when someone writes out a cheque to fix the deadly Maramarua stretch on State Highway 2, fits concrete barriers on the Wellington coastal highway, and proceeds with Transmission Gully.

And if it satisfies the greenies, keeps non-motorists safe and speeds up the consent process, then by all means tack cycle lanes and walkways alongside the highways.

The Government should stop worrying about whether we can afford it and just build, using public-private partnerships, tolls, buy-back arrangements, borrowing - whatever it takes to invest in the country's infrastructure and keep New Zealanders safe.

But will the Transport Safety Minister, a long-term petrol-head regarded by the Labour bosses as a bit of a crank, be allowed to get tough on road louts? If not, he will unfairly be accused of ineffectiveness, when in truth the blame's deserved by Labour's "queers and tossers" (as Tamihere called them) who think if you're nice to crims, they'll be nice back.