Canberra road death toll hits 12-year high | How did we get so far from vision zero?

So far this year - with the busiest pre-Christmas, post-Christmas, post-COVID driving period still ahead of us - 17 people have died on ACT roads.

It's the territory's highest road toll in 12 years. And that's just the deaths, not the injuries nor the enormous grief and trauma which it inflicts right across our community.

Setting aside the separate issue of road-related serious injury - which is climbing here, as well as nationally - the ACT government describes our territory as having "the lowest fatality rate in the country". And on a per capita basis, this claim is correct.

But the bigger issue is the accelerated climb over the past four years. Fatalities on ACT roads have jumped from six in 2019, to seven in 2020, 11 last year and now 17.

Multiple fatalities always provide data spikes and the two teenage girls killed when a "borrowed" Toyota Camry rolled off the Monaro Highway in Hume, and three tourists killed in the Coppins Crossing Road head-on crash on October 16 have delivered those abnormalities.

However, the lofty goal of Vision Zero, as outlined in the ACT government's road safety strategy, now appears as far off as ever.

And here's another element to that conundrum: no distinct or common thread runs through all of these tragic circumstances.

This year's toll includes six drivers, seven passengers, a motorcycle rider, cyclist, an e-scooter rider and a pedestrian. Prevailing road and weather conditions at the times of these incidents have varied from poor to near perfect.

Inappropriate or excessive speed has been a contributor in several but certainly not to the extent where collision investigators can frame this as the over-riding, aggravating factor.

So from the perspective of those road safety authorities looking to a campaign or counter-measure to drive home a specific public message or strategy, Canberra's driving problem is just that: a problem.

From a road trauma perspective, added to this is the concern that with the passage of legislation in the Legislative Assembly this week, the ACT will embark on a calculated social experiment to decriminalise all illicit drugs for personal use.

Putting aside the separate discussion about health and criminalisation, this reform presents yet another complexity to add to the ACT's road safety problem.

Research shows that drug use increases the risk of being involved in a collision, with drivers with illicit drugs in their system being 10 times more likely to be responsible for causing a collision.

In its measured submission to the inquiry into the decriminalisation bill, ACT police stated bluntly "the currently available roadside drug tests do not test for all of the substances proposed to be decriminalised, which could be problematic".

Further, it stated that given this lack of capability police were concerned "that if certain substances are decriminalised, this could lead to a perception from the community that driving under the influence of drugs is acceptable".

"ACT Policing encourages the committee to consider whether this issue needs to be researched further in the ACT context, to ensure the bill does not inadvertently impact on road trauma."

Representing those front-line police officers in the ACT who have the onerous duty of knocking on the doors of those affected families and inform them that they have lost a loved one to a road crash, the Australian Federal Police Association concurred.

It also highlighted the significant impracticalities for officers on the road faced with a driver whom they suspect is affected by substances such as hallucinogens, but have no way of roadside testing for it.

"All substances [other than those for which roadside testing is available] would require the police to take the person into custody for a blood test," their submission stated.

"The ACT Health system is already stressed, and this would put extra pressure on hospital staff."

In other words, if an officer pulls over a driver suspected of being drug-affected that officer then has to forgo all other assigned duties for several hours to convey that suspect to the hospital and wait around for the results of the driver's blood.

So another officer comes off the road for hours, from a police cohort already operating well below the per capita operational number for every other state and territory.

As the ACT marches inexorably toward all illicit drug decriminalisation, no guidance has been offered to police as to how to deal with these very practical challenges.

The ACT government's aspirational Vision Zero - no deaths on our roads - is underpinned by the adoption of what it describes as the Safe System, focusing on what it describes in its strategy mission statement at "safe speeds, safe vehicles, and safe people and behaviours".

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And yet nowhere, in the recommendations from the drugs inquiry committee, has the potentially significant effect of decriminalised illicit drug use on road trauma - as described by the police - been either addressed, nor given any recognition.

The ACT government funds speed cameras, both fixed and mobile, develops road safety public information campaigns, legislates road transport laws, administers the licensing regime and vehicle inspections, and importantly, designs and maintains the road network.

It is also responsible for developing policy which encourages people to change their driving behaviour to that which is safer for themselves and everyone else. Without this, we are sunk.

Given the trauma trajectory the territory is on, the key question which remains, and which no amount of government spin can deflect, is how many people killed or seriously injured on our roads is the ACT community willing to accept before some hard questions are asked.