Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Dylan Thomsen: AA Road Safety Spokesperson on the number of road deaths over the King's Birthday Weekend

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Dylan Thomsen: AA Road Safety Spokesperson on the number of road deaths over the King's Birthday Weekend · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: A sobering reminder that there's still plenty of work to
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: do to prevent deaths on our roads. With the holiday
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: road toll finishing at six a m. This morning, the
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: long weekend toll sets at seven. It came after a
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: horror crash on the Desert Road early on Monday morning.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: The road toll for twenty twenty six date is now
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: over one hundred and fifty deaths. The AA's road safety spokesperson,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Dylan Thompson is with me now. Good morning, Dylan, thanks
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: for your time.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Morning Francesca.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: So the worst King's Birthday weekend in a decade. How
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: big of a reminder is that? To us all?
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: A tragically sad one? And in the bigger picture, our
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: road safety stats in New Zealand have actually been getting
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: better over recent years. We've had some of our lowest
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: rates of road deaths pretty much ever. But at the
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: same time, it's still something that kills about three hundred
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: people every year and is much worse than other countries.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: So we're improving. But this weekend just shows how a
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: few little moments can destroy people's lives, Dylan.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Too many people have lost loved ones this weekend and
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: I don't want to focus on the particular of the
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: crashes from this weekend because we don't know the circumstances.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: But is it clear some people still aren't taking the
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: basic safety precautions on our roads.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Well, we actually recently completed some research from our AA
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Research Foundation looking at fatal crashes, and what it showed
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: was about half involve what we call reckless and extreme behavior,
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: So that's your drunk driving, drug driving, unlicensed drivers, and
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: really excessive speed. But another half involved people who are
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: generally following the rules and making a mistake at the
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: wrong time and the wrong place and having tragic outcomes
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: from it. So for me, you know, that research really
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: shows how we can't just focus on fatal crashes as
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: being ab out the people not wearing seat belts, driving
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: drunk driving, you know, ridiculously, Yes, that is a big
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: chunk of the problem. But also we need to focus
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: on every day driving and recognize that there's actually a
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: lot of things we can all do better even when
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: we are generally following the rules, to help improve our
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: roads and mean less people end up hurt.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Right, So I was going to say, we're talking about
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  Speaker 1: two different things here. Are we're talking about educating people
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: to make good decisions when they're driving, and you know
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: of red distractions and not speeding and things, and are
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: we talking about the other things which can contribute, like
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: safer roads, safer cars, lower speed limits.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Yes, all of the above. So there is no one
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: solution here and certainly better quality roads is a big
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: difference between New Zealand and other countries with how basically
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: when things go wrong, whether the consequences are a death
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: or a lesser injury. And I think just changing our
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: driving culture and getting people to take driving more seriously
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: in New Zealand is something we still have a long
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: way to go on. So that is about distraction, about fatigue,
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: about following distances, about driving to the conditions. Lots of
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: times people take too casual an approach in New Zealand
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: and as a friends there to be recently the reason
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: you need to be a great driver is because a
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: bunch of other people are on the road around you
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: won't be.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Why can't we get that message through? We have we
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: looked at research which tells us the best way to
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: get through to people into different in different demographics of people.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: Maybe there has been research done and I guess the
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: short answer is it is hard and it takes time,
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: and it's also about creating the culture. So your rules
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: and enforcement are a big part of it. And the
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: AA we think that looking at our driving fines and
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: penalties and looking at some increase is there in New Zealand,
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: it's actually something we need to do because they are
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: low compared to other places. And then it's about building
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: that culture sort of right from the start when people
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: are learning to drive that we do take this seriously,
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: that following the rules matter and staying up to date
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: with rules and driving behavior is really important. We think
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: that when people renew their licenses, we could actually be
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: looking at some refreshers around road rules and safe behavior
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: on our roads to create that sort of culture where
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: people are careful, they expect to follow the rules, that
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: there's consequences if they break the rules and it can
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: kind of snowball and you just get that to that
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: place where people follow the rules as a matter of
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: course and are very careful, Whereas at the moment, a
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: bunch of people can think that in New Zealand it's
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: fine to break the rules a little bit to be casual,
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: and man, that's just the norm. We've got to change
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: the norms effectively.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live
• 5:07
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• 5:10
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