Speech: “Road Safety the Reality”

{ August 31, 2006 @ 3:47 am } · { Uncategorized }

Last term our class viewed a presentation by RAC on road safety called “Road safety the Reality”. The speech was given to us by a young girl whom herself had been involved into a road accident. The fact that the speaker was a younger lady who had recently completed her course at Uni, made it easier for us to relate to her. She gave us information and statistics on road accidents and gave us helpful hints on road safety and buying a car.

The main four killers on the road are related to Speeding, Alcohol, Fatigue and lack of seatbelts.

• Over 4 people a year dies in Air transport.
• Over 29 people die in related homicides/suicide pre year
• Over 162 deaths a year on WA roads
• Over 855 deaths in the last 5 years have been on the road
• 179 deaths on the road in 2004
• 162 deaths on the road in 2005

Sadly the people at most risk is between 17-24 yrs old and males are at even greater risk. 1 out of 5 people are involved in car accidents as passengers or killed. They say that the reasons young teens are involved/causes crashes is because they are over-confident, inexperience, dare-devils and peer pressured to go faster or do dangerous manoeuvres at high speed and in dangerous conditions. People who don’t wear a seatbelt are 10 xs more likely to die in an accident.

Sadly every death or accident does huge damaged to the community, not just emotional but also economically. It cost 1.7 million dollars each time someone dies on the road; this cost includes road maintenance, funeral costs, insurance and other expenses.

Due to the increased amount of teens dying in car accidents the government has brought new laws such as the anti-hooning laws. They have recently brought in a new law that for the first 6 months of having your P-plates you can only have yourself and one other person in the car under the age of 21. The Government is hoping that by doing this their will be a minimised amount of teen deaths on the road.

When buying a car we were told to look out for rust on cars because the more rust the more likely they are going to crumble in a car accident. When buying a car it’s important to have anti-lock brakes, shatterproof glass, ESP to help minimise the dangers of car accidents.

This presentation was informative, simple language and had visual aid which helped keeps us focused on the presentation. Some aspects of the presentation made me think more about when I get my p-plates and the hazards I’m going to face on the road and it scared me.