Nearly 60 per cent of serious injury crashes in Victoria involved driver(s) that were defined as ‘Safe Driver(s)’ in the ECIS. They were:
- Wearing a seat belt
- Within the speed limit
- Not handling a mobile phone.
- Within the BAC for their licence class
- Not using illicit drugs or abuse/non prescribed use of benzodiazepines and/or opioid-based analgesics, AND
- Were not excessively drowsy.
While continued efforts to promote compliance with these essential safety measures remain crucial, this high proportion of Safe Drivers involved in severe collisions underscores the inherent limitations of the current road and street transport system. This reinforces our need to prioritise systemic reform where we minimise the mistakes made, but manage the energy of the crashes.
Source of the stats: Fitzharris et al., Enhanced Crash Investigation Study (ECIS) Report 3: Understanding Contributing Factors for Serious Injury Crashes Using Crash Chain Analysis, Dec 2022.