By Gary Hughes Tuesday, August 08, 2006 at 12:04am
The roads are more dangerous over holiday periods such as Christmas and Easter, right? After all, that’s what police and politicians tell us when they launch the annual holiday road blitzes and impose double demerit points. And they wouldn’t lie, would they? But the reality is that you are as safe on the roads over holiday periods as you are at other times, according to new research by the federal government’s peak transport safety agency.
The Australian Safety Transport Bureau has analysed national road toll data between 1996 and 2005, looking for evidence that deaths increase over holiday periods. The result was that average daily fatality rates during the holiday periods were found to be no higher or lower than fatality rates at other times of the year.
For example, between 2001 and 2005, there was an average of 4.4 deaths per day during Christmas holidays and 4.6 during Easter holidays. The daily average of deaths for the rest of the year was 4.5.
“Further analysis of average daily fatality rates was unable to find any clear seasonal patterns or annual cycles in the data,” says the ATSB report released on July 28.
Nor were there differences in the reported involvement of speed, alcohol or fatigue as the main cause of fatal crashes.
The study attributed the at times large fluctuations in holiday road toll figures to “random events”. But it warned it would be wrong to assume that the holiday road blitzes and driver warnings were unwarranted. While it was difficult to quantify the impact of these campaigns, it was possible they were stopping additional deaths.
