Garth George: Young and reckless raise the road toll

The road toll and the weekly parade of drink-drivers before the courts are both here to stay.

As long as there are motor vehicles there will be death and injury on the roads; and as long as there are motor vehicles and alcohol there will be drink-drivers. What is astonishing about both the road toll and the drink-driver toll is that they are so small.

There are 3.5 million licensed drivers in New Zealand and about the same number of motor vehicles - cars, vans, trucks, buses, motor homes, motorcycles and mopeds - registered to operate on public roads.

Deaths on the roads up to Tuesday this week stood at 411, which works out at 0.012 per cent of both the number of licensed drivers and the number of registered vehicles. Last year's toll, at 366, was an even tinier percentage.

Road accident injuries reported to the authorities so far this year number 15,174, which is a mere 0.43 per cent of the vehicles and drivers on the roads.

In the past week or so, the police have breath-tested some 40,000 drivers in and around Auckland and found only 129 over the limit. This represents 0.32 per cent of those tested.

While we continue to beat our breasts about the road toll and drink driving, it seems to me that both have been contained within reasonable, if not acceptable, limits.

The figures for the past five years would indicate that we have arrived at a point where the road toll has reached its absolute minimum level: 435 in 2004, 405 in 2005, 393 in 2006, 421 in 2007, 366 last year, and will end up somewhere in the low to mid-400s this year.

This has been achieved by constant effort on the part of police and other Government agencies with educational programmes, more road signs and millions of dollars in advertising.

But all that effort has been in rearguard actions, maintaining an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff rather than taking the initiative and building a fence at the top.

If the road toll is to be kept to a minimum - and that is the very best we can hope for - then some difficult and unpopular decisions will have to be made.

The first of these is the urgent necessity of increasing the legal driving age, preferably to 18. Then must come a revision of driver training and licensing. Training, which should begin no earlier than at 16, must be made much more rigorous and last much longer.

Just like pilots, drivers should have to have logbook-recorded, supervised driving experience for a specified number of hours, and have passed all the theory exams, before they get anywhere near a licence test.

Compulsory third-party insurance is long overdue and should be introduced forthwith. Its premium rates should be set to take account of the cc rating of a vehicle, turbochargers, and any other go-fast modifications.

Thus, for instance, a 1300cc car might cost $130 a year, a 1500cc car $150 ($300 with turbo or other modification), 2000cc vehicles $200 ($400) and so on up the scale to 4000cc V6s at $400 ($800) and 5.7-litre V8s at $570.

In this way, hormone-charged youngsters with little driving experience might be discouraged from buying cars or utes with engines far too powerful, and therefore far too fast, for them to handle competently.

When it comes to drink-driving, the constant police campaigns over the years seem to have altered entirely the Kiwi attitude to pub, club and party drinking, with even the most macho among us drinking light ales - and only a couple at that.

But, once again, the breath-test blitzes are attacking the symptom rather than the cause and here, too, there is a need to take the initiative.

For a start, the legal drinking age needs to be put back to 20, which has happened in many parts of the world where the lowering to 18 was a tragic failure, as it has been here.

Bottles of alcohol should be required, like cigarette packets, to carry dire health warnings, along with graphic warnings about the dangers of drinking and driving.

As with tobacco, alcohol advertising should be restricted to point-of-sale and the number of liquor outlets strictly controlled. Supermarkets, convenience stores and dairies should all have their licences revoked.

Unpopular actions such as these - which are about as likely as the sun rising in the west - would, if nothing else, ensure that the road toll stays about where it is.

For there will always be those who are just too stupid and/or arrogant to comprehend the danger to themselves and others of drinking and driving, speeding and inattention, and no amount of education, sanctions or policing will ever get through to them. Every society has its share of those - and always will have.