Road Traffic Incident Management Seminar 2014 Supt. Carey Griffiths National Manager: Road Policing

Outline  Strategic direction for road safety  The Safe System  Road safety trends and issues  Enforcement focus for road policing  Crash response

Strategic Direction for Road Safety Sector priorities:  Lowering BAC levels  Speed management  Signature projects  Accelerating exit of unsafe vehicles

Safe System Approach  Big emphasis on training in safe system approach to road safety

A 63 year record low achieved in 2013

Focus on deaths a risk  The death focus means we lose sight of hospitalisations  It means that drivers see crash risk in terms of extreme behaviours that make the headlines (“it’s about someone else”)  Dec 2013-Jan 2014, over 60% of fatals were “normal people” paying a high price for mistakes

A change in understanding Fatal Crashes Extreme behaviour Lapse / error Minor illegal Wundersitz and Baldock (2011)

Crash hospitalisations > 1 day  Average around 2700 a year (for more than a day)  The five year national trend for quarterly hospitalisations is now showing a slight increase after a sustained period of reductions.  Discernible upward trends are observable in the Auckland, Canterbury, Central, Northland and Wellington districts.  The following districts recorded hospitalisation counts in the September 2013 quarter that were in excess of the average of the previous five September quarters: Southern (35%), Northland (17%), Canterbury (16%), Tasman (14%) and Auckland (2%). Why hospitalisations and not reported injuries from Traffic Crash Reports?

Percentage Change in Deaths, Hospitalisations, Population, Vehicle Kilometres Travelled (VKT) and Vehicle Numbers

Social Cost  The total social cost of motor vehicle injury crashes in 2012 is estimated at approximately $3.29 billion (up from $3.26 billion in 2011).

Fatal Five  Speed  Alcohol and drug impaired driving  Failure to wear Restraints  Dangerous and careless driving behaviours  High risk drivers

What are Police Doing to Improve Road Safety?  Mobility devices and greater efficiency of roadside enforcement.  Prevention through deployment of enforcement to crash risk.  Speed Camera Expansion Programme, ANPR and other technologies  Implementation of the lower blood alcohol limit and improved child restraint laws.  High visibility campaigns and increased enforcement activity.  Safer Summer – including trial of a reduced speed tolerance and coloured and marked Highway Patrol vehicles.  ‘Safe Driver- Safe Vehicle’- checks on both driver compliance and vehicle safety.

What is the community thinking?  93% of New Zealanders would like police efforts to enforce road safety laws either - increased (41%) or - maintained at the current level (52%)  How effective are demerits and fines in preventing reoffending? - Fines 81% ‘very’ or ‘quite’ effective - Demerit Points 81% ‘very’ or ‘quite’ effective Is there an opportunity to do more with demerit points?

One of our Our biggest challenges?  Attitudes to speeding – kinetic energy management is critical to all aspects of the safe system  Failure to understand collective risk (most people understand high personal risk)  Perceptions of revenue gathering: “why don‘t you focus on the really bad drivers?”

Speed vs alcohol risk

Post Incident Response  Introduction of robotic total station theodolites allowing faster clearing of scenes  Purchase of additional district equipment.  Continued focus on managing site efficiency vs. simply gathering evidential requirements.  Crash debriefs embedded into the national Police Lessons Learned framework.  Continued focus on training staff in crash investigation and attendance from handling minor through to fatal crashes.

Conclusions  Good progress has been made to reduce serious crashes and fatalities on New Zealand roads over the last ten years.  NZ Police is investing heavily in road policing through improved enforcement, better use of technology and the trialling of new enforcement tools.  Police continues to support Safer Journeys partners to implement the Safer Journeys Action Plan and enable a change in the strategic policy direction and legislation (i.e. lower BAC limit) to enable a long-term decline in road trauma.  NZ Police will continue to target the key drivers of road trauma to improve safety of New Zealand roads.

Questions?