Maria Lovelock: Road Safety Education NZ General Manager on the drop in road fatalities

New data shows a drop in fatalities on the road - with older drivers at higher risk for deadly crashes for the first time.

A new analysis by Road Safety Education Limited reveals that deadly accidents among younger drivers have halved over the past 25 years.

Road Safety Education's Maria Lovelock says as drivers get older, their cognitive abilities and eyesight decline, putting them at risk.

"But also, your ability to survive a crash is not as great either. Your body isn't as able to bounce back at the same speed when you're in a crash."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
New data on road safety programs. Road fatalities are at
a historic twenty five year low, which is the good news.
Since the year two thousand, they're down thirty six percent
the number of deaths on our roads. Now the number
of youth road fatalities down by fifty five percent. That's
even better news. But for the first time it is
older New Zealanders who have the highest fatality rate on

(00:22):
our roads. Maria Lovelock is the general manager for New
Zealand at Road Safety Education. She's with us him Maria here, Hi, Ryan,
what age are we talking here?

Speaker 2 (00:35):
So with what we're talking you talk about the older
age group. Yeah, that's yeah. So that was sort of
looking at it can combine that's across Australia and New
Zealand and so that was very targeted that eighty five percent.
We noticed there was a real trend where with the
licensed drivers in that age group. And obviously as you
get older you have to go through a lot more

(00:56):
testing from seventy five, but the ones that still have
there since they definitely there was a spike there that
we found quite interesting. You know, according to the population drivers,
so they might it's not so obvious when you look
at the overalls road staffs, so seventy you know, when
you're looking at the New Zealand rates of sort of

(01:17):
older drivers, which you know they count perhaps say ten
percent of the total from seventy six to one hundred.
But then you sort of beg into by license holder
and that it's a really spiked.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
Right do you know why? I mean, is it that
you've got a lot of older people behind the world
maybe having a medical event and crashing because of that,
or is it that they're having accidents for other reasons.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
It's probably a range of all those regions. So I mean,
this is why you get that sort of testing. And
at the older age group. You know, from seventy five,
you know your cognis cognition things start happening, your eyesight
gets poorer, your reactions times aren't necessarily as quick as
when you're younger. But also your ability to survive a
crash is not as great, so you're your body isn't,

(02:02):
as you know, able to bounce back so to speak
when you're when you're in a crash, So you know
that's why they sort of coming through.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Do we do anything You mentioned that you've been comparing
with Australia. Do we do anything differently to them when
it comes to older drivers.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
To older drivers. I was just talking to my colleague
and Australia about this. Actually we caught the interview and
it seems very similar. It's the same sort of thing
where you do in cognition test and maybe going on
and doing a driver since you driver training. So so
in New Zealand you go and get your medical but
then you will benefit. The doctor thinks, oh maybe you'll

(02:37):
have to go and do it and base it, your
refit your driver license and test again and so and
that happens sort of every two years from once you
tune eighty, not that you have to set your test again,
but you have to go and get checked. And I
think it's similar. I haven't dug straight into exactly what
they do, but it is similar and it's a similar
trend that we're seeing across both country.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Interesting. Maria, thank you very much for that. Great to
have you on the show. Maria Lovelock, general manager in
ZED at Road Safety Education. For more from Heather Duplessy
Allen Drive, listen live to News Talk zed B from
four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.