Only 6.4% of fatal crashes caused by excessive speed

[Brazen]

According to the South Australian Governments own report into crashes across SA in 2011, the following table shows the main causes of fatal accidents:

http://www.dpti.sa.gov.au/__data/***...nkbook2011.pdf

Page 65

Table 18 Fatal Crashes and Fatalities by Apparent Error of Road
User Responsible, South Australia,

D.U.I. 19
Inattention 25
Fail to Stand 4 (collisions when turning right across an intersection)
Fail to Keep Left 13
Change Lanes to Endanger 1
Fail to Give Way 6
Reverse Without Due Care 3
Follow Too Closely 1
Overtake Without Due Care 2
Disobey – Stop Sign 1
Disobey – Give Way Sign 4
Died Sick or Asleep At Wheel 2
Vehicle Fault 1
Excessive Speed 6
Drunken Pedestrian 6
Total 94

What is interesting is that failing to keep left caused almost double the fatal crashes compared to excessive speed. And to put a further perspective just as many fatal crashes were caused by drunk pedestrians. Yep hundreds of thousands of vehicles driving millions of kilometres a year in South Australia caused just as many fatal accidents due to excessive speed than 6 drunk pedestrians.

keep in mind that excessive speed does not necessarily mean breaking the speed limit, some people can be using excessive speed driving at 40 in a 50 zone if there is significant trafffic. It goes to show how few fatal crashes are actually caused by exceeding a speed limit. Further data suggests that only 1 or 2 out of the 6 excessive speed crashes actually involved cars exceeding the speed limit (I need to do further research, the government data appears to be hazy on this....)

After this data was released, amazingly the South Australian government released a record amount of fixed speed cameras, mobile speed cameras, point to point speed cameras and millions in advertising resulting in the highest speed camera revenue on record.

Any death is sad and tragic whether caused by speed or otherwise, to put a sad comparison on the 6 fatal crashes caused by excessive speed, in the last full year of data, 197 people committed suicide in South Australia.

[Neale]

Interesting stats.

I can understand how excessive speed can cause accidents, but I also think that they do milk speeding fines a bit.
IMO Inattention is something that is overlooked, sadly its alot harder to police. With all of the technology in cars that can distract a driver, Im surprised theres not more accidents caused by Inattention.
Ive lost count of the amout of people out there driving around in their own little world oblivious to whats going on around them (fail to keep left is a good example as well as eating breakfast & doing makeup whilst driving)

Like you pointed out though its a drop in the ocean when you compare it all to the numbers of suicide. Thats a very sad stat.

[StealthAu]

Just goes to show the speed cameras and heavy fines are doing the trick, or so it would be sold.

[csv8]

I have always said that there is an over emphasis on speed. Its a conveinient excuse/revenue raise...

[mik]

Pretty much what most expected, exceeding the speed limit is only a small part of the road toll, driving under the influence, is still a biggy.

[karj]

Just wondering if anyone knows how those stats were compiled?

If an accident involved DUI and excessive speed, would that be counted under both columns or just DUI?

I think that is an important thing to know because if it turned out that a quarter of the DUI fatalities were also speeding excessively, it would bump up the fatalities due to excess speed quite significantly.

[BHDOGS]

it just proves the lack of common sense on the roads

[Kevxr8Leexr6]

Another catagory not noted or defined is the stock and wildlife (kangaroos,wombats etc) that escapes most , perhaps put down to inattention but swerving to miss any of these, causing head on collisions,braking with a car travelling same direction to run off the road Etc. Im sure in country areas would be one of the main causes of near or fatalitys.

[new2ford]

I read a report a few years ago that said the majority of road fatalities nationally occurred at or under the posted speed limit, but I can't recall the source now.

I think the failure to keep left statistic is a telling one, I've always believed it is a road safety hazard.

[mike_nofx]

How exactly does the fail to keep left cause a fatality?

While its the one thing that annoys me more than anything on the road, just curious as to how it causes a fatality.

[new2ford]

Originally Posted by mike_nofx

How exactly does the fail to keep left cause a fatality?

While its the one thing that annoys me more than anything on the road, just curious as to how it causes a fatality.

By increasing risk and uncertainty. This is my stab at it - a professional might put it better. Safe driving involves a certain amount of predictability. On a multilane road the "predictable" factor is that traffic moves along on the left and only moves to the right when passing.

When you have a driver sitting in the right lane, those behind are placed in a dilemma and have to do a bit of reassessment and have their attention diverted to deal with this. The smooth flow of traffic is slowed down, what to do? Wait behind the car till they wake up and move to the left, or do all the necessary checking in a moving environment and pass the car on the left? The scope for accidents is much greater.

At its worst it produces weaving, as I've seen on the Gold Coast motorway where cars are scattered at all speeds over all lanes like Browns Cows and those wanting to pass weave in and out of them (through all lanes) to pass. In doing so they risk being collected by a vehicle coming up a lane to which they are changing, at speed in their blind spot.

Failing to keep left simply creates a dangerous road environment in which the likelihood of accident is greater. And that seems to be reflected in the SA stats.

[mike_nofx]

That's all I can imagine it would be also.

But then, is it still the "cause" of the accident, particularly if the driver failing to keep left is not involved in the accident. Such as frustrated drivers behind the fail to keep left driver who may change lanes into another driver, wouldn't that make following drivers at fault from either: changing lanes to endanger, overtake without due care, follow too closely or excessive speed?

Then, if the slow driver IS involved in the accident, most likely rear ended (well they're going slow aren't they? So they wouldnt do the rear ending) doesn't that make the following driver at fault, either by: inattention, following too closely or excessive speed??

I'm not defending those who fail to keep left, I actually hate that. Just more wondering how they come up with those figures.

[XBROO]

I would imagine it would be failing to keep left of the centre line.

[mike_nofx]

Originally Posted by XBROO

I would imagine it would be failing to keep left of the centre line.

That might make more sense. So failing to keep left of the centre line and you cause a head on collision with opposite direction traffic?

[Linkachu]

Speed is factor in any accident, the gov and police play on those words.

[P6LTD351]

Originally Posted by mike_nofx

That might make more sense. So failing to keep left of the centre line and you cause a head on collision with opposite direction traffic?

Yes. It has nothing to do with keeping left on a multilane highway. It's about crossing on to oncoming traffic.

[XBROO]

Notice inattention is the biggest killer, so get of your phones and gadgets yuppies.

[Ben73]

Sounds about right. I doubt that anything will ever change though.

[new2ford]

Originally Posted by eb2monty

Yes. It has nothing to do with keeping left on a multilane highway. It's about crossing on to oncoming traffic.

OK that was very ambiguous. I would call them crossover accidents.

[In Focus]

Of course, it could be argued that if speed limits were higher (or non-existent), then the percentage of speed-related accidents would increase.

[Jim Goose]

One needs to define how the data is collected and in what context the accident occurs as well.

"speed" as opposed to "speeding" are two different things.

As an example... a right hand bend has an advisory sign which says 60, driver doing 80 loses it around the corner and crashes, dies. Was "speed" a factor? yes... was "speeding" a factor? yes.

A car doing 100kmh in a 100zone for whatever reasons leaves the road and hits a tree and driver is killed... was "speeding" a factor? no... was speed a factor? yes... because of the high impact forces involved.

The other issue is that the stats only focus on deaths... and "injuries".
But there is no definition of just how injured people were in these accidents as well. Where they left crippled? disfigured? amputee? had 12months rehab in a special clinic to learn how to walk again? left brain damaged?

We are probably dieing less in higher speed accidents due to the safety features of most cars, but do we know the other stats?

Personally the campain adds should focus on "reducing" accidents, not just focusing on "speed kills" mantra.

[T4ME]

So we raise all speed limits by 6.4% then?

To use the word only in this context is rather rude imo.

[irish2]

Seems to be a lot of those categories are due to poor driver training and assessment. 5 yearly tests should be Australia wide, with more emphasis on post license training.

[zilo]

There are no doubt thousands of injuries that are not a part of those numbers.

A lot of the injuries would easily have been deaths a decade ago.

[noflac52]

Originally Posted by mike_nofx

That's all I can imagine it would be also.

But then, is it still the "cause" of the accident, particularly if the driver failing to keep left is not involved in the accident. Such as frustrated drivers behind the fail to keep left driver who may change lanes into another driver, wouldn't that make following drivers at fault from either: changing lanes to endanger, overtake without due care, follow too closely or excessive speed?

Then, if the slow driver IS involved in the accident, most likely rear ended (well they're going slow aren't they? So they wouldnt do the rear ending) doesn't that make the following driver at fault, either by: inattention, following too closely or excessive speed??

I'm not defending those who fail to keep left, I actually hate that. Just more wondering how they come up with those figures.

This reminds me of the old driver who said " I've been driving for over fifty years and never had an accident but gosh I've seen hundreds" !!! lol!

It may not in this case have been the slow driver's fault because they were not actually involved but they were the catalyst that started the chain of events that led up to the crash and the fatalities. That is the sad reality of a lot of these type of accidents.

For many years, and its probably still happening, speed was disproportionately resresented in statics because if the police attending an accident could not find an obvious cause they would put speed as a factor on the report because if they put cause undetermined it meant that they would be bogged down with paperwork for weeks and unable to do what they were really there for so speed became the scapegoat.

[Keepleft]

Originally Posted by T4ME

So we raise all speed limits by 6.4% then?

To use the word only in this context is rather rude imo.

Speed limits are by in large not responsible. (A whole multi page discussion in that:-)

[EDManual]

there was a little advertised Queensland stat that speeding drivers actually over the speed limit only cause 3 % or fatals!!

[Brazen]

Originally Posted by T4ME

So we raise all speed limits by 6.4% then?

To use the word only in this context is rather rude imo.

Agree completely, any loss of life is a tragedy, the thread is to highlight according to the government itself, only a fraction of fatal crashes are caused by an excessive speed. I attempted to edit the title only moments after I created it but I couldn't on my ipad, apologies if the title is insensitive.

[mik]

To me the speed that kills that govco rambles on about is usually the accidents that involve reckless type speeding from the career speeder which as shown is only a smaller percentage than other common well known reasons for major accidents.
We know that the dude who may be a career speedster and more often than not knows where the speed camera`s are will only be caught with roving patrols, and we also know that does`nt put penny`s in the bank .
All of those other reasons people crash are valid, there are probably more reasons people crash not related to speed, fatigue gets a very small mention, i would have thought it to be higher on the list,
also little mention of people driving with poor health, blood pressure , diabetes, sleep apnea, poor eye sight, dementia, mental illness, etc,etc if they where really serious at bringing the road toll down, the very least they would do is making drivers take medicals and competency tests mandatory every x amount of years,
hmm m hard decision, put up more camera`s and add to govco`s kitty................. or .................. spend the money from camera`s on more road patrols and add competancy and health checks.

but not much incentive for the bean counters with the last scenario ..

[svo supporter]

Originally Posted by Jim Goose

One needs to define how the data is collected and in what context the accident occurs as well.

"speed" as opposed to "speeding" are two different things.

As an example... a right hand bend has an advisory sign which says 60, driver doing 80 loses it around the corner and crashes, dies. Was "speed" a factor? yes... was "speeding" a factor? yes.

A car doing 100kmh in a 100zone for whatever reasons leaves the road and hits a tree and driver is killed... was "speeding" a factor? no... was speed a factor? yes... because of the high impact forces involved.

The other issue is that the stats only focus on deaths... and "injuries".
But there is no definition of just how injured people were in these accidents as well. Where they left crippled? disfigured? amputee? had 12months rehab in a special clinic to learn how to walk again? left brain damaged?

We are probably dieing less in higher speed accidents due to the safety features of most cars, but do we know the other stats?

Personally the campain adds should focus on "reducing" accidents, not just focusing on "speed kills" mantra.

The thread is focusing on the factors that caused deaths, not injuries......In saying that, the speeding portion you'd imagine within the gov't dept, they'd have all the relevant information relating to the speed a car was doing when the death occurred.....Whether it'd be they were over the speed limit, or suggested speed limit for the corner....Whether they'd release it to curious people like yourself or not is another story....Might be worth your while checking it out, if you're interested.

The stats relating to injuries.....Again, I am sure there would be all this relevant information in some gov't department office....All hospitals keep records of injuries to people, causes, wait times etc etc.....And again, if you're interested in finding this out, you could check it out for yourself and see if they would release it.