Lost Bet On Trifecta Ticket Formula Kills 200 Yearly

Intersections aren't the real deadly gamble in NZ, and the Police and LTNZ's supposed effort to do something about drugged fatigued and and inattentive driving query cause - via a "broad spectrum" cliff bottom intersection infringement campaign is described as non evidence based, and ultimately quite bizarre, by Candor Trust.

Police have budgeted to roll out "a trial" of an Intersection Police patrol in Canterbury so they can catch offenders for non specific offences like "careless driving", while LTNZ withholds from the public important information about the causes of intersection "misbehaviour" (as Police treat it) and related crashes.

Its' a bit late after a train hits you to say "wish I wasn't stoned - or that I'd grabbed a quick powernap to overcome my fatigue". The road safety programs cliff bottom enforcement based approach to intersection issues seems very cynical and back to front,

it's reminiscent of the long term failure to seriously look at implementing alcohol interlocks. Perhaps because prevention would of course eat into the bread and butter of checkpoint quota work, say Candor. It would appear that Governments major investment in the sordid "Resource Allocation Model" experiment (RAM ='s reaping maximal quota revenue while outlaying minimal amounts for apt risk education) is behind the latest "brainwave".

But ramping up intersection quotas is only likely to aggravate things. Someone who might have safely snuck through a quiet one where visibility was good without an official stop could then end up involved in a Police pursuit if all goes to custard. Is it worth the gamble Candor asks LTNZ and Police.

Candor says not. NZ surely can't afford to keep extending the RAM experiment in road safety and Police funding given the horrendous local statistics it's reaped. Road crash costs have increased from 3 to 4 Billion dollars since RAM's imposition circa 2001 (2.15B is 2010 goal). NZ's child tolls and serious injury upswings now place us in the lowest deciles of 28 OECD countries for progress.

RAM requires all significant road safety initiatives to have an intensive enforcement based campaign attached. With the fixed priorities being based upon dated 1990’s road safety theory about which risks are most useful to target and how. The whole theory is pennywise, pound foolish.

Against local evidence of any big speed mallet efficacy, "speed" with a 30M budget is made the main thrust, and "alcohol" alloted 10M this year is a rich but far off second. In recent years the ballpark is that 18% of serious crashes involve illegal speed (usually a result of inexperience or alcohol), and 12-20% may have alcohol as the primary factor, after full attribution analyses trim off crashes where use was not decisive eg one drink driver who is impaired kills another one not at faulkt.

13-25% are attributable to fatigue which has only received a 2M budget - one unlikely to achieve sufficient audience reach and recall, As yet incomplete analyses indicate that drugs at around 16% of the toll (once attribution discounts are done) are a greater primary cause than alcohol for NZ youth - no budget.

Distractions at 8-13% feature cellphone use as a more prominent subtype at fatality crashes - no budget. Drugged, drowsy and inattentive driving are issues effectively marginalised - by exclusion from any decent budget allotment, and the all "important intermediate outcome" goals.

Intermediate outcomes constitute the Key Performannce Indicators (the only ones to worry about) for the all important RAM. They are reductions in average speeds (not speed related deaths - as Police discussion papers note reductions aren't reducing related trauma rates as expected), and reductions in the %age of deceased drivers drunk. Also a stupid success measure of broad road safety policy as there is no co-relation to a reduced general road toll; given that drugs are now substituted for alcohol by wannabe impaired drivers.

Highway patrol hours dedicated to ever increasing quotas rose from 200,000 in 2003 to over 350,00 this year and increasing.The result has been stasis in fatality trends and a 3% yearly growth in serious injuries + less than a 1% decrease in crash social costs on State Highways.

Yet the latest Police funding document shows plans to increase mobile speed patrol capacity, and to further expand the Police Infringement Bureau to deal with the increased ticket numbers. The 2007/8 budget document reveals the non life saving RAM experiment is being witlessly expanded, to enable a move from a trifecta ticket system based on speed, alcohol and seatbelts to a Superfecta with the ramping up of intersection offences.

It appears giving info about fatigue to privileged occupational driver intersection runners - cliff bottom stuff - is seen as a means to avoid a "best evidence" major National campaign targeted at all who are at risk, and is a pitiful attempt to absorb hot issues into the enforcement based model (not deal with them).

Jane Stutts research showing up to half of drowsy drivers are drugged drivers is ignored, so suspected fatigue drivers who are also drug drivers waving red flags for future fatal behaviour by running intersections will receive handshakes, wee fines and an inappropriate pamphlet. Now there's a big gamble.

Several MoT and Police Department analyses in 2005, mean the RAM ticket formula is beyond doubt known by Ministry of Transport Officials and Ministers to be fundamentally flawed, so incapable of helping to reduce crash trauma. Indeed the analyses showed that the stronger the formula is applied the worse off road safety may be. Promotion of a tickets culture is not the final solution - nor evidence based.

Candor is critical of the ethical foundation beneath the RAM formula's Greatest Enforceable Risk complementary publicity to select enforcement campaigns only policy. It mandates broad based suppression of Government and NGO education around issues other than speed, alcohol, seatbelts and intersections – creating a situation of misfired resource usage. Overkill in some areas and massive neglect of others, resulting in poor public recognition of salient risks.

Intent to "hush down" non selected issues would be why the Minister of Transport Safety was briefed that the word fatigue had been banned from use in a “Claytons” driver fatigue campaign. Intent is why major drug driving and distraction campaigns promised in the 2006 road safety policy haven't manifested, and uniquely in the "civilised world" are not budgeted for in the next 2 years.

Intent to side against rather than with evidence based road safety would be why NZ Polices safe driving contract for teens mentions alcohol only. Wake up NZ Police - drugs are the greater crash cause for teens and the American AA and other groups "equivalent" contracts place drug driving right alongside drink driving (or passengering) as a "no no".

NZ drivers are not winning the race through lack of the most basic safety info such as is provided everywhere that is winning. Join the curent century "poiwers that be" and realise your trifecta education and ticket formula, now being "upgraded" to a Superfecta with added Intersection action is the root of New Zealand’s road safety rot and it must be burnt to a Cinder.

If it is not clear by now following on the heels of numerous analyses and reports concerning the failure of the RAM road safety to 2010 experiment that the high real present danger to New Zealanders posed by participation in a cruel and relentless "policy test run," necessitates an immediate and full Inquiry, then the Government must be lacking in either nous or humanity.

It must quickly seek to establish why application of the RAM formula has been permitted by the National Road Safety Committee and Advisory Group to keep on killing 200 more people yearly, than would a genuinely evidence based road safety program. And lay the foundation for reinstitution of evidence based road safety - as recommended for us by the Breen Report.

The Candor Trust would offer any such Inquiry plenty of evidence concerning conflicts of interests, which could help explain the motivation of involved parties to continue this dangerous road safety scam. A pilot model for second world road safety, known to the researchers of it's sinister progress as the RAM.

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