Speed and road deaths inextricably linked

Death will occur in less than second in a serious road collision.

The image used by Victoria's
 Transport Accident Commission
 to encourage a reduction
in speeds.

The speed at which a person dies as their car crumples is alarming with the sequence of events that kill being explained at a Shepparton “Cool Heads” program last year.

Death arrives at a speed that exceeds human response and although its finality is catastrophic, further complexities for occupants arise when one or more are injured, severely or otherwise, and often subsequently left with devastating life-long disabilities.

The collisions are the outcome of fatigue, inexperience, inattention, stupidity, vehicle failure and, contrary to the view of a recent correspondent to this newspaper, speed.

Even the slowest of us should be able to deduce that speed – a statistically confirmed fact in the causation of road collisions – is the product of fatigue, inexperience, inattention and, most certainly, stupidity.

A motor vehicle, again it should be clear to even the dullest of us, is a heartless immobile contrivance that awaits human input and reacts to simple instructions many of which may well come from one who is tired, inexperienced, inattentive and beyond and within all that, stupid.

Therein lies a recipe for almost certain disaster, for with stupidity in control, seasoned by inexperience, inattention and fatigue, this heartless metal contrivance is taken to  speeds beyond the abilities of whoever is in charge and, of course, those of the vehicle.

Evidence explaining events leading up to road collisions are the same the world over and so it is common to read such things as: “When the facts are truthfully presented, however, the behavior of the implicated driver is usually the primary cause. Most collisions result from excessive speed or aggressive driver behavior.”

That evidence is easily found as most internet search engines will, almost as quick as you can die in a road collision, find confirmation of collision causes and without doubt will list speed as being among the prime instigators.

Gustave Flaubert

Victoria’s Transport Accident Commission is the reservoir into which the residue from the state’s road collisions collect and being acutely aware of the role speed plays as it stalks our roads, the Commission has worked tirelessly to reduce such stupidity. 

It understands how speed increases the likelihood of collisions, but faces implacable opponents who, should something go wrong because of their arrogance, ignorance or stupidity, find perverse comfort in attributing responsibility to conditions, others, vehicle failure and just about any variable, except themselves, and certainly not the fact that they drove above the applicable speed limit.

French author, Gustave Flaubert, lived and worked before motor cars existed, but seemed prescient when he said: “To be stupid, selfish and have good health are the three requirements of happiness. Though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.”