Sydney Train Driver Strike - Proper Action Required

Transport
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Yes and that’s because:

Indeed. So even though 1000 people die every year on our roads:

Sure the toll is reducing. I didn’t say it wasn’t. But still we kill 1000 every year and no one gets too upset about it because it’d be inconvenient to do anything other than continue enforcing punitive rules based compliance - which is as you’ve pointed out quite ineffective - and is perhaps the dumbest type of reform. Not sure why you doubt that driver training will make a difference, it does seem intuitive that it would, no? Not sure where you drive but the driving standards in Sydney continue to degrade to the point where every trip is…interesting…but rarely do the perpetrators of some complete idiotic acts on the road get caught. Just look on the Dashcam Australia website from time to time to see what I’m referring to. Are the offending nutcases ‘stupid’ as you suggest? I think not, you can be highly intelligent and still tailgate, use a phone while driving, or merge poorly if you don’t have any idea about stopping distance, can’t judge speed, or rely on collision avoidance and other gadgets to do your job for you.

Anyway this thread was about the train strike et al and the observation in my post was simply that the unions had assessed Covid as a non issue in the context of the OP’s first post and they were correct.

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There is nothing special about that number, it is the rate of accident that is significant. You may be right that more training would reduce it further but I would like to see something from a suitable expert that tells us that and what outcome we might expect from it. Even so nobody will tell you that they can reduce that figure to zero.

The most common causes of fatality are; speeding, drinking, fatigue, distraction and no seatbelt. Driving skill doesn’t come into the top five. If you think training will overcome those causes then show me how.

No I don’t think stupidity is the problem in the sense of low intelligence, the problem is with attitude. Taking bad risks is more a matter of personality and maturity not IQ.

Given the risk-taking behaviour of young males you could save dozens of lives a year by setting the minimum age of driving ten years higher for men but that isn’t going to be too popular. That policy would be much cheaper than more extensive training too, a win all round wouldn’t you say? [As you don’t know me well I must say that this is a straw-man - I am not recommending it.]

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I guess I’ll always consider 1000+ dead people every year to be noteworthy particularly when we just rinse and repeat the same prevention measures. There’s a certain amount of convenient confirmation bias associated with just ramping up punitive enforcement.

That graph showing a declining fatality rate is definitely ‘a’ statistic. But since it’s per head of population, as the population increases (and it certainly has from 1970-2020ish) the rate will decrease even if the number of fatalities stays the same or even increases, right?

Also is the reduction shown in the graph verified as being due to road safety measures or could it be something else such as urbanisation or reduced km travelled by car as air travel has become more affordable and accessible (as it did greatly from 1970-2020).

The graph might also represent a shamefully mediocre attempt to remediate an annual national tragedy but until it’s statistically adjusted I’m not sure what purpose it serves.

Driving skill is all about those top 5. Speed? Getting someone to read or recite that increased speed increases stopping distance is just box ticking, getting them to practice emergency stopping at different speeds so they actually experience it is life changing. I’d wager that if people understood the effect of speed on stopping distance better they’d be less inclined to tail gate.

Drinking? Get a sober person to experience simulated driving with impaired skills including fatigue/alcohol/distraction and it’s an awakening. None of this is new, the training methodology is out there.

All three can be perfectly fine by most measures but you can still have no idea how your vehicle behaves when it breaks traction. I can tell you how people often behave under those circumstances though; they panic and/or freeze, have no idea how to correct the situation, and generally make a mess of things with the vehicle ending up somewhere unintended.

Telling someone that traction is compromised in wet conditions is one thing, putting them on a skid pan is a severe eye opener. This is why such training tools exist. I’ve completed several advanced handling courses both on and off road and not once has someone failed to come away ‘enlightened’ in ways that do change attitudes and have a way of maturing students’ approach in the long term.

People don’t actually understand risk and outcome unless there’s relevance, and while book learning is relevant to road laws it’s a poor second to practical skills development for something like the actual driving of a vehicle.

I’m not sure what you’d accept as a suitable expert but Motoring journos who spend their lives neck-deep in all aspects of motoring including road safety have been calling for increased quality of driver training for decades.

You’ll never get the toll to zero but we as a society could do a lot more than we currently are.

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Not quite on the original topic, and from memory raised elsewhere in the community. Still a worthwhile alternate discussion.

Would it also be correct, perhaps more appropriate to say those 5 are about behaviours?
There are those who consider personal driving skill to be an excuse for getting away with inappropriate behaviour.

Which ever way it’s presented the outcome needs to be the same. Is a pre-condition for change an acceptance by all road users they can do better?For those not on board, the only option could be to get on board - a bus or train. :wink:

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I like your thinking.

:grinning:

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26

Perhaps better than driver training, or increasing the driving age for males by 10 years :slight_smile:, would be further automation. Cars already have a range of automatic safety features. That could be extended. In the extreme we have self-driving cars and then no road deaths could be attributed to “speeding, drinking, fatigue, distraction and no seatbelt”.

Effectively, automatic safety features are assuming that no matter how much government messaging, driver training or anything similar … drivers will still sometimes make bad decisions.