Motor vehicle crashes and Maori

Tena koe Mr Speaker, Tena tatou katoa



This Bill is more than a matter of a technical amendment to the Land Transport Act 1998.



There is a bigger picture here, which we cannot ignore.



It is the situation in which motor vehicle traffic crashes are a major cause of mortality and morbidity for Māori, particularly young Māori.



A situation in which 23% of all drivers involved in fatal crashes are Māori. A situation in which 28% of all casualties involved in fatal crashes are Māori.



There is literally a fatal attraction between motor vehicle and Māori and in particular our young.



Just over the last few years from 2004 to 2006, the figures tell us that driver alcohol and drugs was a factor in some 29% of fatal crashes, and that includes both legal and illegal drugs; 19% of serious injury crashes and 12% of minor injury crashes.



I hate data like this, but the casualties from the crashes give us every reason to explore all avenues possible to prevent the ever-rising growth of such sobering statistics.



This Bill tries to address this by increasing the power of the police to deal with drug-impaired drivers and I take into account what my friend from the Greens has said about these powers that the police will have.

The Bill also seeks to address issues that have arisen around the use of personal information held on the register of motor vehicles.



Both of these are serious yet very different matters - and might have best been addressed through introducing two separate bills.



Drug Impaired Drivers

This whole area around motorcar injury and the impact of drug impairment is, however, clouded by uncertainties and dubious information.



There has also been very little research identifying the key factors associated with crashes involving Māori. This has inevitably restricted our capacity to develop effective strategies aimed at reducing Maori mortality and morbidity related to motor vehicle crashes.



In an article published in the New Zealand Medical Journal in 2004, it was suggested that one of the reasons for such a lack of information has been the difficulty in obtaining data by ethnicity. Police traffic crash reports which are required for all crashes involving injury have not included ethnicity.



What the New Zealand Medical Journal article was able to report was that alongside being young and male, a high proportion - seventy percent - Maori who were hospitalised or who died - were from areas with very high levels of deprivation.



The age factor is a particular concern. Two thirds of Māori casualties were between 15 and 34 years, with the group between 15 and 24 years particularly over-represented. This one group makes up to 45% of the non-fatal casualties and 39% of the fatalities.



That figure is absolutely criminal. That our rangatahi, the hope of our future, the leaders, the designers, the shapers, and the thinkers – are those who lose their lives in their prime.



And of course when we think of Maori who were hospitalised or who died from motor crashes, I am reminded that for every one hundred 100 drunk or drugged drivers killed in road crashes, 56 of their passengers as well as 39 sober road users die with them.



The loss of the benefits that can flow from competent, healthy and skilled whanau members, from being able to grow and develop as fully functioning families, can never be accounted for.



As a worried mother and grandmother, my cautionary advice to our young ones who have been venturing out late at night, has been everything to do with their driving ability.



I always told my children to call me regardless of the time, if there was not a safe driver available, or if they had consumed alcohol.



And so I look at this Bill today, in being one way to address what we know to be a contributing factor in the appalling car crash data and we know that alcohol is the major drug.



Of course it isn’t a perfect science. We know that drugs other than alcohol can be difficult to identify and recognise as having a role in an accident. Research also suggests that the contribution of drugs other than alcohol to accidents may be under-represented in the police reported crash system.



With or without the data, without or without the ethnicity records, there is little doubt that any drug which has an effect on the central nervous system has the potential to impair driving.



And so we in the Māori Party support this legislation, to make our roads safer.



We support, also, the intention to make the penalties identical to the penalties for drink-driving; and that police can apply the same powers to stop people from driving under the impairment of drugs provided there is proof.



There are, however, some concerns which we will be seeking further advice on.



We are concerned about the possibilities of the test being used as evidence in drugs charges. The Bill brings into the testing regime, a compulsory impairment test which police officers can require people to undergo if good cause to suspect drug-taking.



But there is real concern with the provision in the Bill allowing blood specimens already taken to be re-analysed for research purposes. The aim of the exercise, supposedly, is to enable a better picture of drug-driving in New Zealand to be established but we believe there is sufficient concern around privacy, confidentiality and basic human rights to warrant there being a far more robust rationale provided to justify such an intrusive approach.



The other key intervention which is introduced in this Bill is to establish a regime to protect personal information held on the register of motor vehicles while still permitting that same information to be used for purposes consistent with the purposes of register.



Currently the name and address of the current and any previous registered owners are able to be given to any person who quotes a vehicle’s registration number.



A violent offender can track down their partner; direct marketing agents can access addresses for their own commercial gain, debt collectors can use the data for credit profiles. There have also been concerns about the use of vehicle names and addresses by persons who wish to trace owners to harass them or steal their vehicles.



Privacy and confidentiality concerns have therefore led to the amendment in this Bill, to protect personal information from release.



That’s all for the good of course.



But the question will arise as to whether the overly rigorous requirements about having ownership details recorded are justified.



The Bill creates an infringement offence of failing to notify change of ownership, and if enacted, would mean that the Police would be able to order your car off the road, or impound your vehicle if ownership details are not on register.



And so, I return again to the research cited in the New Zealand Medical Journal which identified a disproportionately high number of Māori casualties were representatives from areas with high levels of deprivation (deciles 7–10).



This finding is consistent with international research which suggests there is a strong association between the social and economic determinants of health in relation to injury and motor vehicle traffic crashes.



This being the case, we raise the question as to whether having insufficient income to go forward with registration papers or with change of ownership papers has any relevance to the high mortality and morbidity for Māori attached to motor car crashes.



We will support this Bill at this stage through to first reading, but we have many questions which we hope will be fully addressed at the select committee stage of this Bill.