With the Christmas and new year holiday period comes holiday traffic on our roads -- and in some states, double demerit points to discourage poor behaviour. Governments say the strategy leads to fewer crashes, infringements and fatalities on the roads. But some academics are calling for more peer-reviewed research on the campaigns. As their effectiveness haven't been examined for more than 16 years.
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00:00There hasn't been a lot of research on double demerit points recently. We do know from Transport
00:08for New South Wales data that there are fewer fatalities during holiday periods than you
00:14would otherwise expect, which may be related to the double demerit point system that they
00:19have. There was research done years ago when the systems were first introduced, but there
00:25hasn't been a lot since, and it would be good to see an evaluation of the various different
00:32systems that there are around the country to see exactly where the efficacy is.
00:37Yeah, could you take us through what double demerit looks like around the country or what
00:43the sort of schemes are in all the states and territories around Australia?
00:47Yeah, it does vary by state and territory in Australia. So in New South Wales, the ACT
00:54and WA, you have double demerit point systems in place for everyone during holiday periods
01:01where there's increased risk. In Queensland, in contrast, you have double demerit points
01:08in place all the time, but only for a second or subsequent infringement within a 12-month
01:15period. And then in the other states, there aren't double demerit point systems in place.
01:22So with this sort of lack of research, as you say, even if there is little or nothing
01:27to prove that double demerits do work in the way that they're intended, is there any harm
01:33in running those campaigns anyway, though?
01:36Sadly, in this country, three people on average will lose their lives every day to road trauma,
01:44and 100 will end up in hospital with serious, possibly life-changing injuries. And over
01:50the last four years, those numbers tragically have been going up rather than down. So anything
01:56that we can do to raise awareness about road safety, to get people thinking about driving
02:02more safely, is going to be a good thing. The holidays are a period of increased risk.
02:09You have heavier traffic on the road. You have people driving long distances, perhaps
02:15to unfamiliar locations. Perhaps there's a caravan attached that you wouldn't normally
02:19be driving with. And then you get traffic jams and people who are tired and stressed.
02:26So you've got all the ingredients for increased risk. And we need to be thinking all the time
02:31about how to keep everyone safe on our roads.
02:34Absolutely. At the moment, these double demerit campaigns and other sort of road safety campaigns
02:40are really rolled out for significant holidays. Do you think there would be any benefit in
02:46expanding these sorts of schemes?
02:48Well, that would be part of an evaluation to look at the differences, for example, in
02:54the outcomes from the New South Wales ACT and WA system versus the Queensland system,
03:01for example. But there's a whole lot more that goes into it as well. There are community
03:06awareness raising campaigns that have to happen around it so that people are aware of the
03:11double demerit points. And you've got to make sure that there is timeliness. If you
03:17have an infringement and you don't know anything about it until four weeks later when it turns
03:22up in the mail, then it hasn't actually done anything to change your driving behaviour
03:26at the time. So there are lots of elements to be considered.