The provisional road toll for NSW in 2008 is down to a 64-year low, Minister for Roads Michael Daley says.
The provisional road toll for NSW in 2008 is down to a 64-year low, Minister for Roads Michael Daley says.
He says the2008 road toll for NSW was down to 395 fatalities, the lowest loss of life since 1944.
“We can never become complacent about the road toll but we’ve had some encouraging results in NSW in recent years,” Daley says.
The Federal Government’s latest Survey of Community Attitudes to Road Safety was released in December with results of the driving attitudes of 1,600 people from across the country on their road safety beliefs, attitudes and practices.
Statistics drawn from a national survey of Australian drivers also shows 90 percent of drivers support a ban on using hand-held mobile phones while driving, 98 percent approve of random breath testing and 88 percent think that the level of speed enforcement activity should stay the same or increase.
Another 38 percent believe the 60 km/h speed limit should be strictly enforced and 42 percent believe that motorists should be penalised for travelling more than 5 km/h above the limit.
Results released from the survey show that while Australians are well informed on road safety matters, many still choose to take unnecessary risks on the road.
Minister for Infrastructure Anthony Albanese says “fatigue is also an ongoing concern”.
“Almost one in six drivers (17 per cent) said they had dozed off at the wheel at least once, with drivers more likely to have fallen asleep on trips longer than two hours, when driving on country roads or when driving late at night,” he says.
Traffic Services Commander Chief Superintendent John Hartley says NSW had record numbers of police patrolling our roads this year which had in part led to a decline in fatalities.
“Motorists need to get the message that if they don’t slow down … they will not only be caught, but they could kill themselves or some innocent person on the road,” Hartley says.