Australian Road Safety Conference 3rd to 5th October 2018

Motorcycle Riders Association of W.A. IncAttendance and Report from the Australasian Road Safety Conference, Sydney October 3nd – 5th 2018Wednesday 3rd October 2018OpeningAlong with 4 speakers our Minister for Police and Road Safety, Hon. Michelle Roberts M.P. gave a presentation on the road safety achievements in W.A.The minister also stated that 75% of all fatalities in W.A. the driver was not speeding, was not drunk, was not on drugs, was wearing a seat belt, was wearing a motorcycle helmet, these people lost their lives simply because humans make mistakes. We all need to embrace the 5 pillars of road safety of Safer Roads, Safer Vehicles, Safer Road Users, Safer Speeds and Efficient First Responders.1/ Dr T Bella National Transport Safety Board (NTSB) presentation on the in depth crash investigation undertaken in USA on all transport crashes, Road, Air, Maritime2/Launch of NSW Motorcycle Safety Month Presented by Steve Pearce, MCCNSW and Clair Murdock NSW Centre for Road Safety.3/ Liz de Rome from Deakin University and David Beck from Transport NSW presented on the Developing the Motorcycle Clothing Assessment Program.4/ Dan Leavy from Transport NSW presented on the testing and research into the attachment of cameras and communication devices onto approved motorcycle helmets. The test so far look promising however after a peer review it has been recommended that further testing be carried out before any announcement can be made.5/ Anne Sawyer from RAC WA gave a presentation on the results from their survey on the attitudes of car drivers on motorcycle riders and motorcycle riders attitude to car drivers, no real surprises here, it seem we don’t like each other.6/ Venkatesh Balasubramanian gave a presentation on case studies of motorcycle crashes in Chennai City in India. Some scary facts from his presentation were the fact that there are 154 million registered motorcycles in India, they have 17 motorcycle fatalities every hour in Chennai City, with 99% of the fatalities being male (the bread winner) even though the gender split of riders is male 60%, female 40%.7/ Liz de Rome presented on her study of the shortfalls of crash date analyses in NSW, with police and hospital data being linked and data reporting from hospitals can be random and a better use of police data is needed that includes RUM codes. She noted that crashes involving riders over 60 years of age had rise from 6% in 2006 to 17% in 2016 be this may be due to higher exposure. 60% of crashes in her study where multi vehicle crashes and 40% were single vehicle crashes. The average age of learner riders in NSW is 32 years.8/ During his presentation at the Conference Welcome reception, the Deputy Prime Minister, Michael McCormack MP announced that the establishment of a Federal Office of Future Transport Technologies.It is hoped that this new direction to implement a recommendation to the Federal Government will work closely with industry to make an improvement on our roads between technology and the human factors.9/ Plenary SessionVehicle as a workplace.Many occupations have a vehicle as there primary work place and many of these include a motorcycle such as a courier, Post office worker, food delivery, etc. and it is the responsibility of that persons employer under the current Work Health and Safety (WHS) regulations to unsure they they have taken all steps possible to ensure the safety of their employer weather they are directly employed or a contractor, this can include but is not limited to a roadworthy vehicle, suitable safety equipment and clothing, proper safety training. The employer must also ensure that they have the correct documentation to back up their WHS standards.Thursday 4th October 201810/ Paul Durdin from Abby Transportation Consultants gave a presentation on his thought regarding best practice infrastructure design, and listed the following “A” Strategic Direction, “B” Risk Identification, “C” Counter Measures and Identification Development, “D” Programme Development and Approval, “E” Design and Deliver Road Safety Audits. “F” Monitoring and Development.11/ Kenn Beer from Safe System Solutions gave a presentation on Delivering Safe System Outcomes, Kenn stated that the number of people killed or seriously injured on our roads could be reduced by 60% by building a high safe road system and the other 40% being made up from safe speed, safe vehicles, and safe road users. The ten most serious problems in road design that cause some of the highest killed and seriously injured being (from issue No1 to issue No 10) Signalised intersections, Clear Zones, Uncontrolled Right Hand Turns (at traffic lights) Undivided High Speed Roads, Pedestrians, Cyclists on 80km/hr Roads, Clearview at Intersections, Cyclists at Roundabouts, Left Hand Slip Lanes at Pedestrian Crossing, Public Transport in Centre of Road.12/ Professor Brett Hughes from Curtin University gave a presentation titled “The Relevance of Australian Road Safety Strategies in a Future Context, with his message to all of What got Us Here, Wont Get US There, Meaning we all need to work on new ways to reduce the carnage on our roads as the old strategies will not continue successfully to work in the future.13/ Aultapone Kamdacharuk from AARB gave a presentation and update on the latest Austroads guide to Road Safety Auditing (Part 6A)14/ Blair Turner from ARRB covered the latest Austroads document on Mixes use infrastructure.15/Bruce Corbin From Corbin Consulting presented on an evaluation framework for pedestrian safety in Victoria and the survivable threshold of 30 km/hr.16/Giulio Ponte from the University of Adelaide presented on single cyclist injury crashes in South Australia and stated that 90% of these types of crashes the cyclist is at fault and the numbers crashes are difficult to establish as many go unreported.17/ David Young from the Transport Accident Commission presented on autonomous vehicles (level 3&4) and the predicted fatality reduction of 50%.18/ Martin Small from Martin Small Consulting presented on Vehicles as Workplaces and how these would be covered under Work Health and Safety Regulations this covers all workplaces and puts the responsibility onto the employer to provide a safe workplace including trucks, cars, motorcycles etc.19/ Lisa Nicole Sharwood from the University of Sydney presented on post-crash care and the need to get spinal injury patients to diagnosed quickly and sent to specialist care facilities (major trauma centre) as any delay can change the outcome from rehabilitation and a normal life, to a life in a wheelchair.20/ Shane Turner from Stantec New Zealand presented on Crash Performance of Seagull Intersections with Left Turn Slip lanes. This research indicated that there is a higher crash rate at these type of intersection due to the design that can cause a lack of clear view of approaching vehicle and in some cases parked vehicles.21/ Dylan Thompson from New Zealand Automobile Association presented on serious injury and fatal crashed in NZ, with 7 times as many serious injury crashes and fatal crashes, there crash study covered 200 serious injury crashes and 100 fatal crashes. The top two cause were classed as speed related either being incorrectly posted speed limit, inappropriate speed by the driver, or inappropriate speed for the conditions. The average age of the vehicle in the study was 14 + years with no or a very low Ancap rating. Almost all or the crashes in the study failed in all four pillars of road safety.22/ Mathew Baldock from The Centre for Automotive Safety presented on Older Drivers May Not Have a Higher Crash Risk. Hs studies have shown that although older drivers are involved in more crashes that other age drivers, when taken on kilometres travelled and per head of population they are not a greater risk of being involved in a vehicle crash compared to other age groups and may be slightly below the risk of other age groups.Friday 5th October 201823/ Sean Yates from VicRoads presented on new guidelines for raised platforms at intersections, this design is to reduce the speed through vehicles at T junctions and four way intersections, it is pleasing to see the set back for the approaching roads is now at a distance that will not cause a turning motorcycle to become unstable as was the case when these treatment were first installed.24/ Evan Coulson from VicRoads presented on Roadside Design Principals, he highlighted the fact that ideally safety barriers should be offset from road edge three metres and a sealed shoulder provided to allow the safe return to the roadway in the event of driver mistakes. It was also shown that white posts on wire rope barriers reduce the incidence of crashes, particularly a night.25/ Bridget Southerly – Jenson from Abley Transportation Consultants presented on Intelligent Advanced Stop Warning Signs in New Zealand. These are placed 200 metres before the intersection and are activated as vehicle approaches the intersection to alert the drive of the intersection stop sign ahead. These are usually installed in rural areas with a history of crashes. The units are solar powered and stand alone with little or now maintenance, the cost per unit is only $2,000.00 plus installation which involves putting the post into the ground.26/ David Williamson from VicRoads presented on understanding the performance of public domain guard fence system. David explained that the old public domain W Beam that for many years was deemed to comply with Australian Standards, although it was never tested. This type of W Beam now requires testing to comply with our international standards and this was done some time ago and failed one of the two tests required to be accepted. This system of safety beam is now categorised in the historical standards and should no longer be used. The replacement w bean approved system is often referred to as a light post system, that is now being rolled out in new installations, this system can also be fitted with a underrun rub rail that is suitable for the safety of motorcycle riders on popular motorcycle routes.27/ David Bobbermen from Austroads launched the Network Design for Improved Road Safety, this is a world leading process of defining the standards for each road corridor for the best road safety outcomes. This design concept has been developed primarily for local Government road designers and planners to build entire road corridors to a minimum of 3.5 stars and use the established design and standards for new roads and upgraded sections of existing roads. It is expected that this concept will greatly reduce the time and cost of design time for all roads considerablyDave WrightPresidentRoad Safety OfficerMotorcycle Riders Association of W.A. Inc.