Dylan Thomsen: AA Road Safety Spokesperson on the lowest recorded road toll in 10 years

The annual road toll could be the lowest recorded in 10 years and potentially the lowest per capita in a century. 

290 people have died on New Zealand roads so far this year, as of 9pm December 29, equating to about five deaths per 100,000 population.

That is down from around seven for most of the last decade.

AA Road Safety Spokesperson Dylan Thomsen talks to Tim Beveridge about this milestone. 

LISTEN ABOVE.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from News Talk ZEDB. Follow
this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Yes, Welcome back and a major milestone for road safety.
At two hundred and ninety people have died on New
Zealand roads so far this year as of nine pm
last night, equating to about five deaths per one hundred
thousand population, down from around seven for most of the
last decade. The annual road toll could be the lowest
recorded in ten years and potentially the lowest per capita

(00:40):
in a century. An AA Road Safety spokesperson Dylan Thompson
joins me. Now, Dylan, good morning, Good morning. It sounds
pretty remarkable, isn't it.

Speaker 3 (00:51):
Well, it is in a lot of ways. I mean,
especially on that per capita basis when you take population
size into account, and we're looking at probably a lowest
rate of road deaths and close to a century. At
the same time, though, it's been a really happened down
and it sort of started in January with a horrific month,

(01:12):
and then we had through the middle of the year
kind of after month of some of the lowest monthly
road tolls we've had, and now we're ending the year
really horrifically as well. In December has been awful so far.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yeah, we've seen low road tolls before, so twenty fourteen,
twenty thirteen, round two, fifty two, ninety two.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
What's so?

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Is it just sort of the luck of the drawer
or is there something else happening.

Speaker 3 (01:41):
I don't think it's the luck of the drawer. I
think there's more to it than that. Of course, the
question you ask is the one everybody wants to know.
It's a really hard one to answer, and we need
more data which will take months to come through yet.
But what we suspect the AA is two big factors
this year have been the police have rarely lifted their

(02:03):
game big time in terms of enforcement out on the roads,
particularly around speed alcohol, and we think that's played a part.
And it's also likely that probably the tough economic conditions
have meant people have been driving less and just when
economic times are tougher, you often see a reduction in

(02:23):
road crashes, so we think those are PROCTI with effective.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
Do we know much about the serious injury stats because sometimes,
I mean, the safety of vehicles makes a difference, doesn't it.
You can have a terrible crash, but yet be alive.

Speaker 3 (02:38):
Oh absolutely so. I mean, in general terms, the more
modern and safer a vehicle you're in, the more likely
you're going to be to only suffer minor injuries if
you're involved in a crash. But we won't have the
injury data for this year for months yet, so I
don't know exactly where that stands this year.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
Are you worried about the way things are panning out
over the holiday period?

Speaker 3 (03:03):
Yes? I am. You know, I really hope and and
kind of thought in the way that we were going
to have an even better year than we've ended up having.
So seeing December be such a bad month just says
to me how these things can change so quickly, And
it's a reminder to all of us out there on

(03:24):
the roads to stay focused, to take care, to treat
it like the really risky behavior that it is, and
not to get too casual in base when you're out there.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
The speed limit thing, the low speed limits of the
government's going to be increasing in them, Is that going
to make any difference at all if you're talking about
the main reason for the low tab being economics and
the police enforcement.

Speaker 3 (03:49):
A hard question to answer in general terms, you know,
the faster you have vehicles traveling, the more risk there
are serious crashes taking place. But there's a few different
fagures at play that The first one is we're not
going to see all the speed limits that have been

(04:10):
reduced in recent years go back up, so it's not
a case of every road that's had limit reduction that's
going to increase. There are going to be some increases,
but we're still not sure exactly what roads those are
going to be. And the other thing is, at the
same time as that's going on, we also have a
big increase in police enforcement that I mentioned earlier. The

(04:31):
government's also looking at a review of traffic fines and
penalties next year, which could make a difference. And they're
also looking at some changes around driver licensing, and we
think we could do things a lot better with training
people at the start that can improve safety. So I think,
you know, there's different factors that are going to all
be involved in what happens in the years ahead.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
Excellent, Hey, thanks so much. That's still on Thompson, the
AA Road Safety spokesperson.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
For more from News Talk ZB listen live on air
or online and keep our shows with you wherever you
go with our podcast on iHeartRadio.