Safety
Overall, road transport safety in Australia is of a relatively moderate to high standard. Road quality, safety barrier and features is of a moderate level in urban areas and of a high standard on new roads, however in regional areas and some major highways, road quality is sometimes severely affected by lack of funding and maintenance. Speed is generally limited to around 100 km/h.
Vehicles are generally moderately safe. Many vehicle users cannot afford newer vehicles and as a result, the second-hand car market is quite large. There are many older model vehicles and while they require a Road Worthy Certificate (RWC) to ensure basic operation is sound, only newer vehicles have safety features such as crumple zones, air bags, etc. Seat belt usage is generally very high and it is illegal to go without a seatbelt.
Several efforts have been at educating the mass population about road safety, the most prominent and successful being the Victorian state Transport Accident Commission (TAC) road safety advertisements, began in the late 1980s in print and television, which often depicted horrific and graphic road accidents initiated by various causes such as speed, alcohol and drug use, distraction, fatigue and many others. The TAC ads were very effective and reduced the road toll drastically. The method was subsequently adopted elsewhere in Australia and the world.
Speed limits have been progressively reduced in urban streets, from 60 km/h to 50 km/h and more recently, to 40 km/h near schools, built up areas and shopping strips. This is to ensure safer stopping distances to minimise/reduce pedestrian injuries and casualties.
Read more about this topic: Roads In Australia
Famous quotes containing the word safety:
“[As teenager], the trauma of near-misses and almost- consequences usually brings us to our senses. We finally come down someplace between our parents’ safety advice, which underestimates our ability, and our own unreasonable disregard for safety, which is our childlike wish for invulnerability. Our definition of acceptable risk becomes a product of our own experience.”
—Roger Gould (20th century)
“Perhaps having built a barricade when you’re sixteen provides you with a sort of safety rail. If you’ve once taken part in building one, even inadvertently, doesn’t its usually latent image reappear like a warning signal whenever you’re tempted to join the police, or support any manifestation of Law and Order?”
—Jean Genet (1910–1986)
“I nightly offer up my prayers to the throne of grace for the health and safety of you all, and that we ought all to rely with confidence on the promises of our dear redeemer, and give him our hearts. This is all he requires and all that we can do, and if we sincerely do this, we are sure of salvation through his atonement.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)