Safer Journeys Fails Youth
Candor Trust

Candor Trust Safer Journeys Action plan 2011 is fundamentally flawed and at this late date the Government has no excuse. The text of the plan continues to claim (against solid evidence)that in 2008, New Zealand’s fatality rate for alcohol or drug impaired driving was 28 deaths per 1,000,000 total population. Polices 5 year long drink and drug driving study which actually tested 1000 toll victims blood showed this roadside checkbox guesstimate of such deaths well undershoots.

Drug involvement is simply not being identified by crash attending Police, whose first impressions form these dodgy "geusstistics". The baseline count of alcohol/drug involvement is not formed by following a guideline set by the European Road Safety Observatory that such statistics be drawn from universal testing of saliva or blood for alcohol and other drugs.

The figure touted by MoT is fictitious, disingeniously derived from the application of psychic abilities by crash attending Police, who must predict what is in dead drivers blood that probably caused their crash, and report that best guess to NZTA within a couple of days (well before blood tests results are in).

As the baseline toll guesstimate is demonstrably wrong and deliberately fraudulent, we can deduce that the aim to reduce the magic fatality figure to 22 deaths per million deaths involving driver alcohol and drugs, in line with Australia (which actually does do blood drug tests on deceased drivers), is an absolute nonsense target.

Why MoT thinks it is a good idea to base policy aspirations on fictitious and fraudulent primary data, that is derived from crash-side application of some psychic ability of Road Police members, and proceeds this way in an era of technological ability to take accurate blood tests for the common impairing drugs, is anyones guess.

A lot of inspired work has gone into the plan in key areas, however the young driver initiatives are fatally flawed and incapable of delivering the much desired reduction in youth deaths.

All because the Government has predicated initiatives on the misconception that alcohol at 8% of teen driver deaths (Police ESR study)is the key issue, and not cannabis, which is quite obviously the primary factor in 2-3 x as many teen driver deaths, per numerous indicators and studies.

How then, can the Government justify a plan that at this date includes further research into the impacts of drug driving, and not action as seen in Australia and Europe, where thousands of roadside body fluid tests occur yearly. And why on earth do the new performance indicators include measuring of the public awareness of alcohol but not of drug driving risk.

They must be canning the drug driving advertisements with intent to negligently keep youth in the dark about their second biggest killer. This is clear cut and evil discrimination against youth, who obviously need age appropriate relevant info, not sole alcohol education that does not address the real crash driver in their demographic.

Candor say suppressing the real risk while frittering on a historic one in the age group may breach the Bill of Rights. It is a situation contributed to by the hysterical anti alcohol brigade who would scream bloody murder over alcohol even as their child was kiled in a sole drug driving crash.

NZ can not catch up with Australia while withholding equivalent youth targeted drug driving campaigns and quality info. For this reason, the plan is fatally flawed and unfit for purpose.

Safer Journeys yardstick of success is psychic estimates by Police at crashes of alcohol and drug content, and it's limited tunnel vision is to publicise youth alcohol risk and ban teens from having a drop, right when it is drugs other than alcohol making Kiwi youth toll champs.

Is Safer Journeys out of the twilight zone, a 1980's throwback, or are Safer Journeys just the Govenments intent for everyone but youth, because no-one in any party is game to confront the green elephant in the room?

ENDS

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