#Australia lockdown truckers how to
#Australia lockdown truckers drivers

This should be 3.94 deaths, if the country is to reach its 2030 target.(Bloomberg) - Australia’s prime minister called for the US and China to work together to maintain peace in the Pacific, saying the region is not simply an “arena for the ambitions of others.”

They are now at 4.61 deaths a year per 100,000 population. Road deaths in Australia peaked in 1970 at 30.4 deaths a year per 100,000 population and dropped to historic lows before the pandemic, before rising again in the past five years. Terrill said that given the huge strides Australia had made in road safety in recent decades, further progress was always going to be tough. Despite a trend in reducing from 60km/h zones to 50km/h, there was no significant decline in the total number of fatalities occurring across the two speed zones. She pointed to Australian data tracking long-term fatalities across roads broken down by their speed limit. Marion Terrill, the director of the Grattan Institute’s transport and cities program, says this phenomenon is known as the “Peltzman effect” – that people are more inclined to behave in a risky way if they feel measures, such as mandatory seatbelt laws or speed limits, are protecting them.

#Australia lockdown truckers drivers

Their size also gives their drivers a sense of security and makes them “much less concerned about others’ safety”, Newstead said, referencing US studies. “Our propensity to buy these vehicles is driving road safety backwards, and tax rules have encouraged this because of the ability to hide personal use of vehicles to gain a business tax concession.” The pandemic changed people’s attitudes to risk, contributing to a rise in road trauma, Prof Stuart Newstead says. There has been an enormous surge in popularity of SUVs and four wheel drive utes, and transport experts have been scathing about the tax perks that encourage their uptake. “So when people make mistakes, if they drift out of their lane, lapse in concentration or fall asleep, the ramifications are horrific.” “The standard of our rural road network is pretty poor, the infrastructure really doesn’t support the speeds people are allowed to drive on them,” Newstead said. People in regional Australia were almost five times more likely to die in road crashes than those living in cities last year, the latest statistics show. More capacity for discretionary travel, and the surge in domestic holidays in recent years, could also be contributing to the increased death toll.

“People have less patience with traffic now after the roads were much quieter for years.” Newstead said early data for Victoria also showed the level of speeding and running red lights went up significantly. In NSW, data shows the number of mobile digital speed camera fines issued when the speed limit was exceeded by 10km/h or less increased from 3,222 in October 2020 to 27,855 by February 2021, however this coincided with the removal of warning signs. “Not only do you have more goods and people moving around, but people have more money to spend, so they feel some financial security and their fear of fines could be lessened because they have the capacity to pay for it.” “Road trauma tends to increase when there is more economic activity and unemployment is low,” Newstead said. Public transport patronage of about 80% of pre-Covid levels appears to be the new normal in Sydney and Melbourne, according to University of Sydney research.Īnother potential cause that is widely observed by academics studying car safety is the strong link between road trauma and the strength of the economy. The pandemic also led many Australians to ditch public transport permanently, whether that be because they can now work from home and have more time to drive for leisure, or because they grew accustomed to the comfort of driving to work during the pandemic.

#Australia lockdown truckers how to

“A lot of people, after being locked up and confined for so long, wanted to get out and travel, and people who have driven less lose their skills about how to interact with traffic.” People have less patience with traffic now after the roads were much quieter for years Prof Stuart Newstead “That’s partly what happens because when you take traffic off the road, you can speed more easily more often, and with police focused on other things, perhaps people thought they wouldn’t get caught.”Īdditionally, he points to something he calls “low-mileage bias”. “What that shows you is that those people have developed a vastly different approach to risk, that the pandemic fundamentally changed people’s attitudes,” he said. During the pandemic travel exposure went down, particularly in cars, by about 70%, while road trauma only dropped by 20%, said Newstead.