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Road Safety? The hypocrisy! Posted: Fri Dec 22, 2006 10:53 am
One week after Annette King and the Ministry of Transport announced the Government's new measures to make our roads safer by targetting illegal drug-using drivers with Roadside Drug Testing, there was the following court report in this morning's ODT.
I just cannot believe the Judge's comments. Here are a few excerpts from the report.
Quote:
Otago Daily Times - 22nd Dec 2006
Prison term for causing crash death
- Grabbing wheel from driver 'foolish' - Court Reporter
A young man who admitted responsibility for a crash on Dunedin's Northern motorway last December, in which a close friend was killed and four other people were injured, has been sent to jail.
He was sentenced to 6 months jail but can apply for home detention and was disqualified from driving for 18 months.
Quote:
"I can tell you now that sentencing you today is a most difficult matter...A sentence of imprisonment will not bring back those who died," Judge Stephen O'Driscoll said.
Nor would it remove the injuries others in the crash sustained.
"However, under the Sentencing Act, I'm required to consider the interests of the victims"
Imprisonment was necessary to denounce Robson's conduct and hold him accountable.
"What's important is the fact of imprisonment, not the length of it," Judge O'Driscoll said.
"The fact of imprisonment sends the message out to others they need to be very careful when they're in a van, particularly if they've been drinking, and they must not do anything to interfere with the driver or make the driver's task any more difficult."
The Defence argued that prison wasn't necessary because the consequences and guilt had been accepted. It was a first offence and wasn't deliberate.
Quote:
Alcohol was not a factor because Robson was not driving and everyone but the driver was drinking, Mr Savage said.
Judge O'Driscoll said Robson's drinking would have been an aggravating factor if he had been intending to drive or was the driver.
The aggravating factor was Mr Curtis' death and the serious injuries sustained by four passengers.
Robson's culpability, rather than the consequences of his actions, had to be the central focus when determining the sentence, Judge O'Driscoll said.
Grabbing the steering wheel while the van was travelling at speed was dangerous, foolish and careless and clearly caused the death and injuries, he said.
What a joke! If it wasn't such a serious matter I'd LOL. Alcohol was not an aggravating factor in the crash, it was a "dangerous, foolish and careless" act that "clearly" caused the crash. How does consuming too much alcohol affect peoples' behaviour? It makes them act in a "dangerous, foolish and careless" manner. Join the dots, Judge O'Driscoll. 1+1=alcohol guilty.
Anyone else appalled by this Judge's lack of judgement. I'm not saying that the guilty party should get a harsher punishment but it's obvious that travelling in a vehicle with drunk passengers is a major road safety issue that the Government and Police have overlooked. The Judge should have raised awareness of the issue instead of downplaying it.
I'm sure that would have been the case if the occupants of the van had smoked a big spliff before the crash. You could have imagined the response of the Judge and the media in that case.
I disagree - lots of drunk people are passengers each year, and most of us/them don't even think about doing stupid shit like grabbing the steering wheel.
I guess what you should say is - Idiots shouldn't drink. _________________ "There are no good and bad drugs, only good and bad relationships with drugs"
Road safety should be about road safety Posted: Fri Dec 22, 2006 1:09 pm
That's true Sheepish. My comment "it's obvious that travelling in a vehicle with drunk passengers is a major road safety issue that the Government and Police have overlooked" was kind of tongue in cheek. I was trying to borrow the language that the articles in 2000 used when they discovered their proof of the supposed link between cannabis use and recidivist drink-driving but that probably wasn't clear.
Don't know about your "Idiots shouldn't drink" point though. I've been drunk many times and behaved myself, just like you/them. Then there have been other times (fewer fortunately) where I've drunk alcohol and the conditions have been such that I've acted like a total idiot (on two occasions obliviously). That includes being in a vehicle. My feeling is that maybe transporting drunk people is OK most of the time. But I do wonder whether passengers drinking heavily during a long trip [seven people in a van going Chch to Dunedin in this case] is a potential road safety hazard even if the driver isn't drinking. In this case the guy that caused the crash had got upset after an argument with the others. I believe that alcohol use was a mitigating factor in the accident. Alcohol, drunk in excess, has the potential to make someone act without any awareness of what they are actually doing.
Compare that with what has happened with the new anti-illegal drug driving law. The basis of that law is the supposed link between recidivist drink-driving and cannabis use. Since 2000 I've seen heaps of coroners reports that have played down other mitigating factors in car crashes like earlier drinking, lack of sleep, unfit cars, bald tyres, wet conditions, steep road, low sun, excessive speed etc etc in order to pin the cause of the crash on the cannabis found in the driver's blood on the assumption that the driver had smoked within hours of their death. Similar things have happened in coroners reports on a fishing boat sinking, a mountain accident, a plane crash and more. On the rare occasions when they did announce the levels of THC found in the blood it was usually at low "background" concentrations and didn't indicate intoxication or impairment (ie it's not evidence the person was "high" - one family successfully challenged a coroner who'd made that assumption).
Now we'll soon have a law that will make it illegal to have illegal drugs in your blood if you're driving a vehicle. Sure most people will probably pass the Roadside Drug Test OK but if they've got some THC in their blood then they are guilty even if they do get away with it. Road safety should be about road safety. I think heavily intoxicated passengers do pose a potential road safety risk. Imagine someone throwing up in your car as you speed along the motorway/highway at 100kph. That's gotta be a major driver distraction if ever there was one.
Fatigue, the silent killer Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2006 1:52 pm
Over the past few days I've been wondering what factors might account for the 200 plus fatalities on the road each year that are not caused by drunken (100 plus) or drugged drivers (maybe 1 or 2). Cell-phone use, texting, changing the CD, reading the map, talking to passengers etc account for some. Excessive speed probably causes a lot of crashes but not around 200.
Well the answer according to an article in today's Otago Daily Times (23.12.06) is fatigue. Some research claims that up to half of all road accidents in the world were due to tiredness. A road policing manager claims fatigue is a significant problem and a major concern among police.
Which begs the question, why was fatigue not included in Annette King's road safety proposals? Why no Roadside Fatigue Test? Maybe police could first check for blood shot eyes. Then they could measure the droopiness of the driver's eyelids and compare it to a reading on the driver's licence. Thirdly, the police officer could simulate yawning and measure the yawn response of the driver. The longer the yawn, the more fatigued. Finally, the driver could be instructed to lie down and close their eyes while the officer reads out a statement of "evidence" in the same way they do in court . If the driver can stay awake for 5 minutes of that then they will be free to proceed. Otherwise they'll have a "ZZZ" sticker attached to their car and be instructed to have a nap before being allowed to proceed. Recidivist fatigue-drivers could be required to attend sleep lab sessions. At risk groups like shift-workers and people with sleep problems could be required to hold special licences. Young drivers could have a driving curfew between 2 and 6am. Older drivers could be curfewed between 3 and 4pm, with the over-70s also being off the road between 10 and 11am. The Government could run a major awareness campaign about the importance of napping and road safety, and they could encourage people to nap whenever possible.
Of course, I'm taking the piss but is the Roadside Fatigue Test any less stupid than the new Roadside Drug Test, a new law to allow the Police to do something that they can already do under the existing law. Anyway, I could go on but I won't.
I've split the article into two parts.
Quote:
Fatigue the silent killer, drivers warned - by John Lewis
Driver fatigue will be a contributing factor to nearly half of the fatalities on New Zealand's roads this Christmas, according to one of the country's leading road safety campaigners.
Quote:
Loss of concentration and falling asleep at the wheel has been called "the silent killer" by the editor of car buyers' manual The Dog and Lemon Guide. Clive Matthew-Wilson said research by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents in the United Kingdom had shown up to half of all road accidents around the globe were caused by the driver simply being too tired. Often, tiredness could be mixed with other factors such as age, alcohol and speed to produce a lethal combination, he said.
Mr Matthew-Wilson said the research suggested staying awake for 18 hours resulted in the same level of impairment as drinking 50mg of alcohol, and produced much slower response speeds.
Surprisingly, younger people were at greater risk than older people. The three main risk groups were male drivers aged 16-29 years, shift workers and people with sleep problems.
"Sleep-related accidents peak in the early hours of the morning, between 2am and 6am, and in the mid-afternoon, between 3pm and 4pm, due mainly to the body's natural rhythms. Young drivers are more prone to fatigue in the early hours of the morning, whereas older drivers are more likely to fall asleep at the wheel during the afternoon sleep period. For drivers aged 70 years or more, the most dangerous time is between 10 and 11 in the morning," he said.
Mr Matthew-Wilson warned about rushing to travel after Christmas lunch, especially if alcohol had been consumed.
"Drinking alcohol in the early afternoon is about twice as likely to make a driver sleepy than the same amount drunk in the early evening. Combine alcohol with a large meal and you have a lethal combination. You have to rest, or preferably nap, before you drive."
Quote:
Southern District acting road manager Senior Sergeant Andrew Burns said driver fatigue was a major concern among police on Otago roads, particularly at Christmas.
He said Land Transport New Zealand statistics showed 28 people had been injured in crashes where fatigue was a factor in the past five Decembers.
"We worry each year coming up to Christmas. Some people jump into cars after a stressful week and drive into Central Otago for Christmas. It's a difficult road to drive at the best of times," he said.
Snr Sgt Burns said LTNZ statistics showed fatigue had been a contributing factor in three fatalities, 228 injury crashes and 125 non-injury crashes on Otago roads between 2001 and 2006.
"We believe there are a lot of fatigue crashes occurring on Otago roads and we perceive it to be a significant problem."
Snr Sgt Burns encouraged drivers to make sure they were fully rested before they drove and to pull over and have a rest if they were not feeling 100%.
"A 15-minute nap - no more than 20 minutes - can refresh you," he said.
This govt is so backwards.
3 cases of cannabis causing crashes in comparison to 383 cases related to alcohol.
Half of road crashes associated with fatigue.
No ban on cellphone use in vehicles.
And its cannabis which is the least cause of accidents that they target????
Potshot,
your comments re fatigue are actually soundly based and infact should not be taken as tounge in cheak but considered far more seriuosly by the powers that be .
If the real intent was to take suspect drivers for whatever reason .( Drunk , drugged or fatigued ) off the road it would actually be extremely simple .
Very easy and non invasive neuropsych tests are available to establish the levels of required skills that would dictate if one was impaired in any way .
Simply sitting in front of a computer with three simple tests that takes two minutes could establish any impairment .
I spent six years working with Dr Dorothy Gronwall who assessed people with head injury and on strong medications as to ability to regain drivers licences .. She was the world expert .. I helped her assess Fox the US race car driver .. he failed..
But these same test would work..
I still regularly re get a retest myself when i use new medications to make sure I am OK to drive.
Just as an aside ... and its well documented by a very reputable neuropsch . My performance levels increase and I score higher with a bit of medipot on board .. A safer driver ... And without it I can still drive a mean race car on the track..
as a teenager in hamilton, in a van of about 6-7 people, i was nearly in a crash once when a sniffball got stuck up a passenger's nose. he was nowhere near the driver but the uproar caused enough distraction.
WRACKED by his addiction to drugs, his career as Scotland's best known modern painter seemed to be on the verge of collapse. But now - cured and renewed - Peter Howson is throwing his weight behind a revolutionary trial of a new 'miracle' electric therapy cure for addicts which could bring about the biggest breakthrough in the war on drugs for a generation. . . . The therapy, known as Neuro-Electric Therapy, or NET, was pioneered by award-winning Scottish surgeon Dr Margaret Patterson, who, in the early Seventies, discovered that low pulses of electricity prevented the acute pains suffered by addicts during cold turkey. It is claimed that the pulses trigger the brain to release endorphins, the body's natural painkillers, which are often dulled through addiction.
The treatment was used on celebrities such as Eric Clapton and Keith Richards in the early Seventies but has never been taken up by the NHS. Dr Patterson died in 2002 without seeing her discovery applied more widely to treat addicts. However, Howson has now come forward to fund next month's trial, which, if successful, could force ministers and health chiefs to finally offer their backing. Until now, Dr Patterson's supporters say the treatment has been deliberately blocked by Scotland's "conservative" medical establishment, who have preferred to use chemical treatments such as methadone. . .
-snip-
Welcome to 1984. Check your freedom at the door when you enter this world. _________________ "There are no good and bad drugs, only good and bad relationships with drugs"
When I was going cold turkey trying to deal to a rather heavy Morphine addiction 4 yrs ago , I actually tried to get NET , Fortunately for me cannabis actually did the trick as well as replace the morphine for the pain aspect..
If it had not been for the cannabis i would not have managed to reduce the morphine levels.. I was even able to avoid the morphine pump after my last spinal Operation much to the suprise of the Docs by replacing it with cannabis ..
The problem with NET is the drug companies cannot clip the ticket so it gets discounted .. I would love to see a NET treatment centre established in NZ as it seems it may be benificial in Endocrine Complications without expensive drugs.. But then some schools of thought are now starting to consider cannabis may also ..
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