Road surfaces: do they contribute to our high accident rate?

Forums › Transport (cars, bikes and boats) › Road surfaces: do they contribute to our high accident rate?

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#2828694 8-Dec-2021 13:57

MikeAqua:

Attempting to manage human factors is the least effective approach to controlling know hazards.

There will always be Grade 7s driving our roads (until we have 100% driverless cars). Cars and roads need to be engineered to minimise the potential for them to cause harm. We have so much room or improvement with roads in NZ.

We could engineer the crap out of our roads and road corridors and dramatically reduce deaths and serious injuries. The only problem is it will send the country broke. Only so much money in the bucket to go around. There is always a trade off when looking at 'best bang for buck'.

Lazy is such an ugly word, I prefer to call it selective participation

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#2828704 8-Dec-2021 14:19

scuwp:

We could engineer the crap out of our roads and road corridors and dramatically reduce deaths and serious injuries. The only problem is it will send the country broke. Only so much money in the bucket to go around. There is always a trade off when looking at 'best bang for buck'.

Very true. So many of our roads are so bad - especially the road adjacent surfaces - ditches, cliffs, bluffs, power poles, rivers, trees etc.

Currently we are simply reducing speed limits to avoid spending money. Again this is a soft control. I'm not sure if it's actually working. I'm still seeing plenty of crashed cars between Blenheim and Nelson despite the 'safer speed zones'.

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#2828801 8-Dec-2021 15:35

The roads are generally not great but the overwhelming problem, of course, is human. The solution is coming(some might say here already), self driving cars, whether that is effectively 5, 10 or 20 years away it seems to me to be logical and inevitable.

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#2828806 8-Dec-2021 15:38

Lastman:
The roads are generally not great but the overwhelming problem, of course, is human. The solution is coming(some might say here already), self driving cars, whether that is effectively 5, 10 or 20 years away it seems to me to be logical and inevitable.

I don't regard that as a solution: I regard that as a threat.

Once cars are outside our control, the government can decide who gets to drive, when and where if they so wish. I wouldn't be so keen if I were you.

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#2828809 8-Dec-2021 15:41

@MikeAqua

What's a Grade 7?

mudguard

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#2828817 8-Dec-2021 15:45

CourtJester:

The perfect example of contrast. I have extensive experience driving SH1 & SH3 in the North Island. For many years I would frequently from Wellington to Auckland, or Wellington to Kawhia (SH 31). one thing I noted was as SH1 was realigned, straightened, repaved it became increasing less user friendly. Visually the road became increasingly an excercise in terminal boredom, and exhaustion. So after between 7 and 12 hours traveling on SH1 ( a journey that once took me just 4.5 hours), I was almost brain dead, that was until I turned onto the far more old school meandering, windy ridgeline, mountain pass road that comprised SH31 to Kawhia. that last 45 minutes engaged my brain, my arms, my legs, and I would arrive in Kawhia far more alert and on the ball than after the first hour trundling along on SH1 out of Wellington.

The only issue with this is surely it's a numbers thing. One could argue that I'm almost a professional driver (roughly half my work week is driving around NZ), not in ability but shear time spent on the roads. We are extremely careful on how many hours we drive, making sure we drive early so it gets light, rather than driving into the night for example. But surely kilometre for kilometre, straight and boring trumps winding and exciting for actual crash numbers.

One trip I do involves driving from Whanganui to Taupo. 99% of the time I'll head east for SH1 and take that the rest of the way up. SH4 is more entertaining from a driving point of view. But when I'm working I want safe, boring and slow. That said The Desert Road breaks it up a bit.

I often think the highest risk for me is at the end of a drive from say Taupo, several hours at the speed limit, then hitting nose to tail Auckland traffic. Now that's where I'd like an autonomous car. So no risk of dozing off and nudging the car in front of me.

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#2828826 8-Dec-2021 15:59

mudguard:

CourtJester:

... that last 45 minutes engaged my brain, my arms, my legs, and I would arrive in Kawhia far more alert and on the ball than after the first hour trundling along on SH1 out of Wellington.

I often think the highest risk for me is at the end of a drive from say Taupo, several hours at the speed limit, then hitting nose to tail Auckland traffic. Now that's where I'd like an autonomous car. So no risk of dozing off and nudging the car in front of me.

It's a matter of perceived risk. The boring, mundane roads are perceived (correctly) as low risk, so focus wanders to other places. And/or riskier behaviour like higher speeds or rapidly switching lanes takes place to take the perceived risk back up to the "acceptable perceived risk" level.

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#2828830 8-Dec-2021 16:09

Lastman:
The roads are generally not great but the overwhelming problem, of course, is human.

I assert that the road toll is a function of people's evaluation of the risk involved, and that's mostly based on their experience, personally and among those they know personally. If some safety measure, like improved roads or reduced speed limits, significantly reduces "crashes", people's behaviour adjusts to bring the road toll back to the level set by perception of risk. This pattern has been repeated often.

Elimination of, or very strict laws on, cats (the furry pets) would help a lot, because the toxo parasite acts to directly change risk-taking behaviour. The linking of toxoplasmosis antibodies with chance of death in a crash (see The potential risk of toxoplasmosis for traffic accidents) is strong evidence for the risk perception hypothesis.

Regards, John Little

elpenguino

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#2828856 8-Dec-2021 16:56

MikeAqua:

Attempting to manage human factors is the least effective approach to controlling know hazards.

Even before we commit to spend billions on road improvements, many people would still be alive if they were using a seatbelt at the time of their crash.

That's a road safety improvement that would cost nothing.

https://www.aa.co.nz/about/aa-research-foundation/programmes/seatbelt-use/#:~:text=In%20New%20Zealand%2C%20seat%2Dbelt,an%20issue%20worthy%20of%20investigation.

Most of the posters in this thread are just like chimpanzees on MDMA, full of feelings of bonhomie, joy, and optimism. Fred99 8/4/21

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#2829640 9-Dec-2021 21:48

scuwp:

MikeAqua:

Attempting to manage human factors is the least effective approach to controlling know hazards.

There will always be Grade 7s driving our roads (until we have 100% driverless cars). Cars and roads need to be engineered to minimise the potential for them to cause harm. We have so much room or improvement with roads in NZ.

We could engineer the crap out of our roads and road corridors and dramatically reduce deaths and serious injuries. The only problem is it will send the country broke. Only so much money in the bucket to go around. There is always a trade off when looking at 'best bang for buck'.

Pish. There is all kinds of free money being thrown around on much less useful things.

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#2829641 9-Dec-2021 21:51

elpenguino:

MikeAqua:

Attempting to manage human factors is the least effective approach to controlling know hazards.

Even before we commit to spend billions on road improvements, many people would still be alive if they were using a seatbelt at the time of their crash.

That's a road safety improvement that would cost nothing.

https://www.aa.co.nz/about/aa-research-foundation/programmes/seatbelt-use/#:~:text=In%20New%20Zealand%2C%20seat%2Dbelt,an%20issue%20worthy%20of%20investigation.

I am astonished that anyone in 2021 does not wear a seatbelt. Waaaaay back in the 1970's in the UK when I were a lad, we had a hugely successful advertising campaign with Jimmy Savile which had the strapline "Clunk, click every trip". The campaign ran everywhere - even in the children's comics I was reading at the time.

Even today I can still hear that line in my head every time I get in a car. The only reason not to wear a seatbelt is because you want a Darwin Award.

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Lastman

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#2829690 10-Dec-2021 04:34

Geektastic:
Lastman:

The roads are generally not great but the overwhelming problem, of course, is human. The solution is coming(some might say here already), self driving cars, whether that is effectively 5, 10 or 20 years away it seems to me to be logical and inevitable.

I don't regard that as a solution: I regard that as a threat.

Once cars are outside our control, the government can decide who gets to drive, when and where if they so wish. I wouldn't be so keen if I were you.

Self-driving seems to be the only realistic way to get to the zero road toll goal governments often tout. They already decide who drives. To me it takes out the youth factor, the elderly factor and would extend the ability to drive or be driven.

Humans use cars too much as an extension of their personality, often in negative ways.

MikeAqua

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#2829867 10-Dec-2021 11:55

Geektastic: @MikeAqua

What's a Grade 7?

A big egg.

Mike

MikeAqua

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#2829886 10-Dec-2021 12:31

elpenguino:

MikeAqua:

Attempting to manage human factors is the least effective approach to controlling know hazards.

Even before we commit to spend billions on road improvements, many people would still be alive if they were using a seatbelt at the time of their crash.

That's a road safety improvement that would cost nothing.

https://www.aa.co.nz/about/aa-research-foundation/programmes/seatbelt-use/#:~:text=In%20New%20Zealand%2C%20seat%2Dbelt,an%20issue%20worthy%20of%20investigation.

Again that's a soft control a bit like the ban use a hand held device while driving. I see people texting and driving everyday. Making rules has limited utility without effective supervision and enforcement, which is expensive.

My car has a semi-engineered solution to seat belt use which is to make it unpleasant to drive without seatbelt (beep, beep, beep...) Maybe vehicle safety should be more engineered. Modern marine propulsion engines use limp mode for engine protection. If a serious fault is detected, the the engine will only operate up to limited RPM. This prevents damage but still allows the boat to be maneuvered (a total power loss would be unsafe).

Perhaps cars could utilise limp mode for safety failures: If critical safety systems aren't used or aren't operational (seatbelts, ABS SRS, airbags) the vehicle goes into limp mode and won't exceed 30kmh.

Mike

SheriffNZ

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#2829974 10-Dec-2021 14:20

Again that's a soft control a bit like the ban use a hand held device while driving. I see people texting and driving everyday. Making rules has limited utility without effective supervision and enforcement, which is expensive.

My car has a semi-engineered solution to seat belt use which is to make it unpleasant to drive without seatbelt (beep, beep, beep...) Maybe vehicle safety should be more engineered. Modern marine propulsion engines use limp mode for engine protection. If a serious fault is detected, the the engine will only operate up to limited RPM. This prevents damage but still allows the boat to be maneuvered (a total power loss would be unsafe).

Perhaps cars could utilise limp mode for safety failures: If critical safety systems aren't used or aren't operational (seatbelts, ABS SRS, airbags) the vehicle goes into limp mode and won't exceed 30kmh.

I was driving my fathers Mazda 3 over the last weekend. It has a feature where the camera's in it recognise the speed limit signs and display the speed limit on the Heads Up Display. It seemed to work most of the time. Why can't our cars be governed to the speed limit of a particular section of road if we have the technology to register the speed limits on a given road. It's not the be all as a solution but it's a start?

I know electric bikes are governed in some countries (maybe here in NZ). I've never understood why cars can't be subject to the same requirements (I appreciate though there is limited (or no) political will for this solution).

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