Edited 24 Jan 2020 13:17, 11 months ago, edited by don_dunstan

ON the topic of road safety and the police, I get sick to death of the claim that 'there's no such thing as accidents' and that every single crash can be prevented.

Take this incident last August when two truck drivers lost their lives in tragic circumstances last August in Truro SA during a dust storm - [url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-09/police-say-bad-decisions-to-blame-for-truck-driver-deaths/11398674]ABC[/url];

[i]The crash came amid a severe weather warning, with conditions along the highway reducing visibility to about a metre, according to police.[/i]

[i]The circumstances are still being investigated, but the state's Road Transport Association has rejected suggestions pulling over would have been the safer option, saying it could have put other road users at risk.[/i]

[i]However, Police Commissioner Grant Stevens said while the crash was a "tragic collision" and expressed his deepest sympathies for both victims and their families, he said poor decisions were to blame.[/i]

[i]"A dust storm does not cause vehicles to crash. It's the decisions of the drivers," Commissioner Stevens said.[/i]

[i]"Every collision that occurs on our roads primarily [i] a result of a bad decision by someone using a vehicle.[/i]

[i]"In this case, those decisions related to a choice made to continue driving, or driving in a manner which was not consistent with the conditions."[/i]

[i]"Airlines don't let pilots take-off when they can't see. If airports are fogged in, or weather conditions prevent safe flying, planes don't take off," Commissioner Stevens said.[/i]

[i]"What makes us think we can continue to drive on our roads if visibility is down to zero?[/i]

[i]"If zero is the extent that you have visibility, then zero is the speed you should be doing."[/i]

The families of the deceased truck drivers criticised the Police Commissioner for that statement blaming the truck drivers for what happened - because as it turns out (from a subsequent investigation) one of the trucks was forced to swerve into the path of the other truck by a motorist who had stopped on the highway (just as Commissioner Stevens said they should have done) but had not pulled fully off the road [i]because of the lack of a shoulder.[/i] So in fact the crash was caused by a third party AND the lack of somewhere safe to pull over.

I've driven that road a fair bit to visit friends in the Riverland and its really not a very good road - I'd hazard a guess that the truck drivers may have even been looking for somewhere safe to pull over when the accident happened. For Commissioner Stevens to try and say that they caused the accident by being on the road when there was probably no other safe option at that moment was frankly disgraceful and a kick in the guts to the families of the deceased.