Bright Wings

Total alcohol ban for drivers

Just one drink can triple the chances of a driver being involved in a a crash, according to a study commissioned by the British Government, reported in today's Herald.

As a pianist I know from experience that just one glass of wine affects fine motor coordination and never drink before a performance. Ever.  Other musicians share that view.

Making mistakes when playing a piano or a violin is not dangerous to anyone else.  It's a different story when a car is hurtling down a motorway, driven by a driver who is unaware that his coordination and judgment is impaired in subtle, but sometimes deadly ways.

I'd be in favour of a complete ban on drinking by drivers. What do you think?

Wairarapa doesn't need bigger trucks

Wairarapa council managers have come out strongly against moves announced by Transport Minister Steven Joyce to permit certain Wairarapa roads to be used by trucks of up to 53 tonnes once the new Vehicle Dimensions and Mass Amendment 2010 rule comes in on 1 May 2010.

Allowing trucks of up to 53 tonnes (current limit is 44 tonnes) will create greater wear and tear on council-owned roads, and councils won't see any benefit from the higher road user charges these vehicles will pay, as road user charges are collected by the Government.

Wairarapa Councils have to maintain hundreds of kilometres of rural roads (I think Masterton and South Wairarapa have about 1500 kilometres each). This is a real struggle for councils who lack the critical mass of the large metropolitan councils to spread the cost of road maintenance.  And trucks are responsible for a large part of the wear and tear of these roads.

I wrote in June last year that the origins of this movement to heavier trucks comes from the Coalition for Transportation Productivity in the United States. A check of their website today suggests they haven't yet been successful in convincing Congress of the validity of their argument.

Once again, the railway network is being ignored. Big business - in the form of the trucking industry - are clearly more effective at lobbying.

Keep car headlights on over Christmas holidays

The Dog and Lemon Guide is recommending drivers have their headlights on at all times over the Christmas holidays.

Editor Clive Matthew-Wilson says a car with its headlights on is easier to spot than a car with its headlights off.

Many accidents occur because the other vehicle isn't seen. 

In the rain, mist or low light conditions, lights help identify the presence of moving cars. They also tell you if the car ahead is coming towards you or moving away from you – something that is not always obvious, especially if the car is in your lane.

The European Commission has ruled that all new cars operating in the EU must have daylight running lights from 2011.

According to Chris Coxon, former head of the Australian ANCAP crash test programme,

There is clear evidence that a policy requiring daytime headlight use would result in a significant reduction in the road toll. 

Because of the body of reputable research supporting this view, we have reached the conclusion that the New Zealand and Australian governments should institute a daytime headlight use policy without delay. 

A daytime "lights on" policy would cost the Government almost nothing to implement.

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And don't forget to turn the headlights off when you reach your destination.

Safety training programme wake-up call for boy racers

Boy racer attitudes are being challenged in a pilot driver safety programme designed to give boy racers a realistic idea of their own ability.

Insight driver training, funded by the AA Driver Education Foundation, has been run in three centres. It is hoped to roll the programme out nationally.

Peter Sheppard, a long-time road safety campaigner and driver education adviser, is behind the programme.

"This is where they find out in no uncertain terms how good they are not. Other programmes which I have been involved in are good at getting young drivers roadwise but they give them a sense of bravado and can sometimes encourage more risky behaviour."

The Insight interventions have been developed after research by Waikato University on modifying the behaviour of young drivers, particularly those who could be labelled boy racers, he said.

Teenagers are bombarded with a battery of simulations and live on-the-road experiences, pushing their limits at low speed to think about emergency stopping, following distances and overtaking.

"What we have found is these young people, many who say to us, `I don't need to do this stuff, I know how to drive,' very quickly realise that they are not as good as they think they are. In fact most get a real wake-up call that they have totally overestimated their driving ability and underestimated risk."

The pilot programme will be assessed after six months, with participants surveyed to see if attitudes have changed.

The Wairarapa has its own boy racer problem, each of whom seem to think they are immortal and beyond the law.  If this programme is indeed getting boy racers to question their ability the cost of rolling it out across the country would be small compared to the time and expense these people cause to the Police, other emergency services and health services.

Read the full Waikato University Frontal Lobe Project report

Street racers unlikely to change behaviour following accident

Stuff reports teen survivors of the illegal street race which led to a three-car crash are calling for fellow Wairarapa College pupils to learn from their mistakes.

Firefighters, school leaders and 700 senior pupils took part in a special assembly at Wairarapa College yesterday, where various hard-hitting messages were delivered.

I'm not holding my breath that anything is going to change as a result of this assembly. Late on Saturday afternoon - scarcely two days after the massive accident -  a friend saw car after car packed with Masterton teenagers returning from what looked suspiciously like another drag racing exercise in Manaia Road.

Masterton police area commander Inspector John Johnston is seeking help from the public according to the Times-Age

"Residents who see boy racers speeding, doing doughnuts or drifting round corners should ring the police."

"Certain parts of the town and rural area were being used as " circuits." People living in those areas should get on the phone to police and if possible get descriptions of the cars being raced."

He said the police may not always be able to immediately attend and descriptions helped future identification.

Wairarapa farmer Lindy Williamson and her husband, who sustained injuries and whose Land Cruiser was seriously damaged by the on-coming cars, unsurprisingly refused to attend the special assembly.

"We are annoyed, we are tender. Lindy's exposure to the whole issue was enormous and what we want is a greater exhibition of remorse from those involved," Mr Williamson said.

Speed reductions may not reduce speed

I'm right behind Masterton District Council's moves to reduce speed on some rural roads.

Many of these roads are very narrow and were designed with the leisurely speeds of a 1950 Morris Minor in mind, on its weekly visit to town on a Friday.

While the majority of law-abiding motorists will comply with the new speed limits I don't think it's going to have the slightest impact on boy racers.  They know they're immortal so will continue to roar east down West Bush Road and come to grief - as so many already have - at the sharp righthand bend.

And if you've already got $20,000 of traffic fines, don't have a licence, or are already disqualified, another ticket is neither here nor there.

Dog and Lemon Guide Editor, Clive Matthew-Wilson, observes that middle class, law-abiding-citizen solutions don't work with boy racers.

I heard somewhere recently that the cars boy racers are driving today had the same power as earlier Formula One racing cars. These are cars which need maturity and experience to handle, but are in the hands of young people who may have only been driving for a very short time.

And can someone tell me why so many teenagers need to drive to school these days? 

New road rules

Tararua District Library has an excellent post on the new road rules due to come into effect on 1 November.

While this includes the ban on handheld phones there are other changes as well.

Read more here

Fines for using phones in cars won't work

The Government has wisely moved to ban phone use in cars.

It will be illegal for drivers to talk or send text messages on handheld mobile phones while driving from November 1, Transport Minister Steven Joyce announced today.

Drivers using handheld mobiles would be liable for an $80 fine and 20 demerit points.

I agree with Dog and Lemon Guide editor, Clive Matthew-Wilson, that fines and demerit points will have little impact on teenage drivers who have already built up thousands of dollars of fines.

Matthew-Wilson offers a more imaginative solution:

Instead of fining drivers who use handheld cellphones, the police should have the power to temporarily seize cellphones being used by drivers while a vehicle is in motion.

He suggests

every police car would carry a pre-printed receipt book and a few pre-paid padded postal envelopes. Instead of issuing a ticket, the officer would instruct the offending driver to write his or her address onto the envelope. The officer would then place the cellphone into the envelope, seal it and drop the envelope into the nearest mailbox. The offender would get his/her cellphone back by registered mail in a few days.

The officer would also note the offender’s details, and after two offences the cellphone would be permanently seized.

Parting a teenager from their phone would have an instant impact - and immediate social isolation - until they either bought another pre-paid or their phone was returned through the mail.

I think the offender should be made to pay for postage and packaging at the time of confiscation, or pay subsequently at the nearest Police Station. The phone would not be mailed until the postage/packaging charge had been paid.

I hear alarming reports of truck drivers texting while driving. This is so appallingly dangerous I'd like to see their truck confiscated for a few days. This would cause huge cashflow problems and cause contractual issues with suppliers whose goods they were moving.

Parents part of the problem

The Times-Age reports an initiative by The Professionals Real Estate's Keith Archer to provide signs asking motorists to slow down when passing schools.

While anything that encourages motorists to slow down near schools is to be commended, I don't think it addresses a fundamental cause of traffic congestion around schools: parents picking up their kids.

There are so many parents' cars lining the roads - for quite some distance - either side of the road adjoining schools that any warning signs are completely obscured.

It would be good to see "walking buses" introduced in the Wairarapa - children walking to and from school in supervised groups.  It's good exercise for the kids and helps develop independence.

Texting truckies

With the Government advocating heavier trucks (see my earlier post), I hope there's no truth to rumours I keep hearing about truckies texting to pass the time on long trips.

44 to 50 tonnes of truck and trailer hurtling down the highway, with the driver's attention diverted elsewhere, doesn't really bear thinking about.

Bigger trucks not the answer

Transport Minister Steven Joyce appears to have picked up and run with an international campaign by the trucking industry to increase truck size from 44 to 50 tonnes.

The US Coalition for Transportation Productivity is currently lobbying Congress for a similar size increase.

Stuff reports that Steven Joyce as saying that

allowing truckies to carry heavier loads on some roads could boost GDP by up to $500 million a year.

He notes that trials were undertaken during 2008 and that carrying bigger loads

could boost productivity by 10 to 20 percent, reduce trip numbers by 16 percent and see fuel use drop by 20 percent.

Joyce's assertion of economic benefits fails to take account of a couple of key infrastructural issues - an expensive-to-maintain, winding, narrow roading system in New Zealand which is ill-suited to large trucks, together with an under-utilised rail network.

I'm the first to agree that rail isn't the answer to everything but - leaving aside urgent deliveries, livestock and some perishable items - a goods train, with one locomotive and one driver, can move an awful lot of stuff at once.

Wairarapa residents are only too aware of the problem of large trucks. The "inland port" at Waingawa is under-utilised, while logging trucks carry large and precarious loads over the Rimutaka Hill. They deposit logs right alongside the railway siding on the Wellington wharves.

If Waingawa was used as intended - as a transport hub - local truckies could pick up and deliver much currently wearing out the Rimutaka Hill.

I'd have liked to have seen results of the 2008 heavy truck trials - and comparison with the economics of using rail - but the NZ Transport Agency site only contained technical details of the proposed change.

Employees driving unsafe commercial vehicles

 

The Department of Labour should prosecute employers who make workers use unsafe vehicles, says the Dog & Lemon Guide  . 

Editor Clive Matthew-Wilson says: 

“The law is quite clear: employers are required to provide a safe workplace and can be prosecuted if they don’t."  

"Legally, a motor vehicle is a workplace, yet the Department of Labour appears to be taking no action against employers who put their workers at risk by making them drive unsafe vehicles.”

“It’s not merely the current users of these vehicles who would benefit if they were safe. Today’s commercial van may be tomorrow’s cheap transport for a family in South Auckland.”

Matthew-Wilson asserts that the Police, at the forefront of road safety, are still driving Mitsubishi L300 vans, despite compelling evidence that these are deathtraps.

Too many Wairarapa road accidents

The Wairarapa's high road accident rate, the highest in the Wellington Region, is concerning the Police.

The Wairarapa Times-Age reports

Wairarapa has been labelled as having the worst crash rate in the Wellington district, with Carterton's adult drivers turning up high  but still legal  breath alcohol readings in a recent district-wide drink driving blitz.

Operation WIRM (Wairarapa's Impaired Rural Motorists) ran from Wednesday, May 6, through to the early hours of Sunday, May 10, and yielded "surprisingly high" alcohol readings, according to Wellington District Road Policing manager inspector Peter Baird.

"These are local people, leaving rural hotels. Intoxicated motorists are a danger to a community that are reliant on the white centre-line to keep them safe," Mr Baird said.

A cavalier, she'll-be-right attitude to drinking and driving still prevails in the Wairarapa.  The problem is compounded by winding, narrow, dark country roads and a lack of public transport options for those who have had a skinful.  

While pubs are not allowed to sell alcohol to intoxicated persons, they also have a moral responsibility to restrict supply to people they know are going to jump in the ute and head for the hills.  Or offer to put them up for the night or run them home.

Headlights on?

Mindful of the positive public reaction to road safety campaigner, Clive Matthew-Wilson's suggestion that headlights be kept on at all times, I've been keeping my headlights on, even though I get strange looks from motorists on a bright, sunny day.

I decided to conduct an informal survey during a trip to Wellington when it was pouring with rain and visibility was very poor.

  

I was pleasantly surprised at the number of cars that did have their headlights on. It seemed everyone had watched the recent Close Up item where Clive suggested this was something practical everyone could do Right Now, without a single legislative change.

It was only when I drove into a rather dark underground carpark in Wellington that I realised I'd driven the entire 100kms in the gloom and rain with my headlights off.