RTA blamed over road deaths - great...more 50 kay zones on way I guess

http://www.dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story/0,20281,17557677-5001022,00.html


"
RTA blamed over road deaths

By ANNA PATTY

December 14, 2005

THE Roads and Traffic Authority has been blamed for an increase in deaths on
NSW roads over last year.

The RTA's statistics show there were 500 deaths on state roads this year,
until Monday, compared to 482 deaths for the same time last year.

Paul Gibson, chairman of State Parliament's road safety watchdog, the
Staysafe Committee, said the increase in road deaths was "a frustrating and
continuing tragedy".

"As the nominated lead agency for road safety, the Roads and Traffic
Authority is responsible for achieving a target of less than 300 deaths by
the year 2010 under the Road Safety 2010 strategy," he said.

"We are half way through the Road Safety 2010 strategy and the RTA is no way
near achieving the task that the Iemma Government has set."




The number of drivers killed increased from 217 to 240 this year and the
number of motorcyclists from 53 to 60.

The number of passengers killed decreased from 118 to 92.

"We've been awfully lucky this year that the number of vehicle passengers
killed is bucking the trend, and is down by almost a quarter (22 per cent),"
Mr Gibson said.

"If vehicle passenger deaths had followed the pattern seen for drivers,
motorcyclists and pedestrians, which is an 11 per cent or more rise compared
to 2004, then we would be facing a 2005 road toll of more than 550 deaths.

Mr Gibson said the predicted road toll for 2005 is 528 deaths, up 20 from
the 2004 road toll of 508.


"





I choose Polesoft Lockspam to fight spam, and you?
http://www.polesoft.com/refer.html

 

Don't worry about the number of 50kph zones increasing. If the RTA have
a performance goal which they have to meet they just need to cancel 50%
of the driver's licences. Simple. Surely saving 200+ lives per year is
worth the added hardship of 50% of the population not being allowed to
drive. Is everyone so mean spirited at this time of year?

Nev..

 

Of course. When it's good it because of good policing, when it's bad it's
someone else's fault.

 

Any body heard the saying 'Road safety starts with safe roads' ?

Building and maintaining safe roads costs money and it would be nice
if the road related taxes (registration, uel tax, car taxes, fines etc
etc) went back into roads.

A reasonable ask surely ?

 

In aus.motorcycles on Wed, 14 Dec 2005 21:15:50 +1100

Depends.

If they did, where would funding for the things they are spent on now
come from?

You know, hospitals and schools and such.

I'd rather do things like slash current polly super first, once that's
done and we have a decent surplus...

I suspect that the current amount spent on roads isn't spent well. They
should spend a lot more on design, then they'd need to spend less on
remediation.

MInd you, getting rid of more trucks wouldn't hurt...

Zebee

 

To reduce the number of trucks you need a well funded and maintained
rail fright system.

Notice any commonality here ?

 

In aus.motorcycles on Thu, 15 Dec 2005 07:15:25 +1100

What, that road money should be spent on rail?

THe problem is that it's unfashionable to invest in the long term, if
you aren't making money in 6 months then you have "failed".

I'd rather see decent rail than a tax cut...

Hell, if there should be a source of revenue tied to transport,
especially non-road transport, it should be speeding fines.

Use the money from a tax on silly drivers (in NSW you have to be a few
bricks short of a load or really careless[1] to be caught by a fixed
camera) to improve infrastructure to make the roads safer.

Zebee

[1] and I know by actual test how careless you have to be....

 

Why do people always say that? Whenever consildated revenue is questioned
the response is always 'What about the schools and hospitals?'. It's the
'and such" that I think we all question.
What about the illegal war? how about we give that up?
What about all the grants for various minority groups?
What about all the perks the pollies get?

Yeah that too.

Where's the graph that shows how much money comes in an how it's spent?
I beleive everyone agrees that health and education come first. But there's
a whole lot of other stuff that can come after roads and infrastructure.

 

I reckon if everyone with a licence was to be retested now, a 50% drop in
traffic may not be too optimistic. Especially in Sydney!!

DJ

 

Well, don't look now, but isn't the plan to build a road/rail freight
terminal at Ingleburn starting to be put into action now that Craig
Knowles has left the NSW State Parliament?

When I was in Sydney over the weekend, I did a lap of the M7 since it
was free. As a link between the industrial areas around Campbelltown and
the Hills, it looks like it'll pretty much do the trick of getting
trucks off the Cumberland Highway. That was my commute route for quite a
while and the traffic congestion was pretty much due to trucks
struggling to pull up for and pull away from lights.