Tougher traffic laws save lives

By SCOTT MacLEOD transport reporter

Police want tougher drink-driving and speed camera laws to help slash the record-low road toll even further.

Last year's provisional toll of 462 was the smallest since records began in 1965. The previous low, 501, was in 1998.

The toll in 1999 was 509. The worst year was 1973, when 843 people died.

The record low for 2000 comes despite 14 deaths this Christmas-New Year holiday.

Road safety chiefs are drafting plans they hope will slash the annual toll to just 295 by 2010, and police are urging tougher laws.

Proposed changes include cutting the driver alcohol limit per 100ml of blood from 80mg to 50mg.

Although fixing guidelines for safe drinking is an imprecise science, experts say a 50mg limit would make it safe to have only one drink.

Police stopped recommending guidelines two years ago because alcohol's effects can vary with sex, age and body weight, but at the time their rough recommendation was two cans of beer or a little over a glass of wine for the first hour and then half that each subsequent hour.

Introducing speed-camera demerit points could affect hundreds of thousands of people. About 800,000 photographs are taken each year, and that could jump to 1.2 million under the new 10 km/h tolerance level introduced in the past six months.

Drivers lose their licences for at least three months if they get 100 demerit points within two years. The points are issued on a sliding scale, from 10 demerit points for breaking the speed limit by 10 km/h to automatic loss of licence for driving more than 50 km/h too fast.

The police national road safety manager, Superintendent Steve Fitzgerald, said extending demerit points to speed cameras would help stop rich people from speeding. At present, the wealthy could simply pay speed-camera fines and forget about them until the next time they were snapped.

He said the road toll was dropping because of tougher laws, new highway patrols, advertising, community projects and the new 10 km/h speed tolerance. He felt it would be possible to slash the toll to 400 in 2001.

Police Minister George Hawkins said he had recently visited Australia, where they issued demerit points for being caught on speed camera. "I think it's time speed cameras and demerit points have to be seriously looked at."

Automobile Association public affairs manager Geordie Cassin said his members could probably live with camera demerits, but only if they kicked in at "excessive" speeds 20 km/h or more over the limit.

He said the AA was delighted that the road toll had dropped so much.

Accident figures for the year 2000 until December 21 showed that twice as many men as women died on our roads - 295 compared to 145.

One big life-saver was that fewer people died in motorbike smashes, down from 51 in 1998 and 42 in 1999 to just 29 last year.

The number of pedestrians killed has also dropped steadily in the past three years, from 69 to 60 to 36.

Land Transport Safety Authority director Reg Barrett said fewer people were riding motorbikes, possibly because of safety fears and the availability of cheaper cars.

It was harder to say why fewer pedestrians were being killed, but there was a trend for people to drive more slowly in city areas - down from 57 km/h in 1995-99 to 54 km/h last year.

The LTSA is aiming to reduce the toll even further to 420 this year.

Authority spokesman Craig Dowling said booze buses seemed to be having a big impact in cities, especially Auckland and Christchurch.

Another factor was that 30,000 more people were told to wear glasses while driving, after they failed the controversial eye-test for their new driver's licence.

Hidden speed camera surveys showed that the number of people driving at 110 km/h or more on the open road dropped from 24 per cent in the years 1995-99 to 20 per cent last year.

* If you have suggestions for cutting the toll, contact Scott MacLeod at NZ Herald, Box 3290, Auckland, fax (09) 373-6421 or e-mail scott_macleod@herald.co.nz