Franklin's Road Safety Liaison Group - Update

Most serious crashes in the last six weeks involved local skilled workers not driving to the conditions, or driver error, on rural Franklin roads. That’s the findings from Franklin’s Road Safety Liaison Group after their latest meeting on 24 April.

Franklin isn’t the safest place in the country to be on the road – but the Franklin Road Safety Liaison Group aims to change that. The group, with representatives from the New Zealand Police, Franklin District Council, ACC, LTNZ, Opus, Counties Power and others, is coordinated by Franklin District Council. Together they cover the areas of road safety expertise – Education, Engineering and Enforcement. As a direct result of their work together targeted enforcement of problem areas, road improvements, and road safety campaigns have occurred. The thing they can’t control though is the biggest problem – Franklin drivers.

“Everyone, in their mind, has a stereotype of a ‘bad driver’ – the kind of people who have crashes. It could be a young hoon, a drunk driver, tourists, learner drivers; they don’t usually picture themselves. However the latest serious crash report the group received from Police Intel indicates it is most likely to be a local, driving on local roads,” says Franklin District Council’s Road Safety Co-ordinator, Monique Haines.

The Serious Crash report for 12 March – 22 April indicated the following:

There were almost 100 traffic crashes in the period
10 were serious, resulting in either significant damage and/or medical attention being required
80% of these serious crashes were due to driver error and driving too fast for the conditions
Only 1 of the serious crashes was due to alcohol
70% of the drivers who had a serious crash were local residents, most not far from their homes (there fore assumed to be on familiar roads)
None of the serious crashes involved a learner driver
Most were skilled workers.
 

“Fortunately there were no fatal crashes within the District during this time period; however we probably have the dry weather conditions to thank for this. As the weather closes in everyone needs to remember to drive to the conditions,” says Monique.