FLEETDRIVE
down the vehicle and redirecting it away
from the hazard. This flexibility means that
the barrier absorbs impact energy, reducing
the force on the people in the vehicles, and
ultimately resulting in less severe injuries than
other safety barrier systems and a normal
collision.
“The flexible road safety barrier cables flex
on impact, slowing the vehicle down and
pushing it back into its lane,” says New
Zealand Transport Agency’s project delivery
manager Peter Simcock.
“We suspect many of these strikes on the
safety barriers are caused by fatigue or
inattention, and putting in the rumble strips
is expected to reduce strikes and other
potentially serious incidents.”
Part of the appeal of the barriers is their
useability for many rural roads, particularly
narrow ones – as they can often be
installed without significant widening of
the road. They are also cost effective to
install and provide instant results, with
data from the NZTA showing an almost
70–80 percent reduction in road fatalities
wherever they’re installed.
So what role do organisations and
governments have in reducing the
dangers of regional roads? Ultimately
it comes down to continued education
and reminders for drivers, lobbying to
government for hastier improvements and
supporting initiatives such as the flexible
road safety barriers.
In the fleet management sector we all
have a collective responsibility to be
agents of change in our workplace –
so considering regional road safety is
definitely something we all need to take
more seriously.
“There is still a long way for us to go
in reaching zero lives lost and serious
injuries on our roads”
Summary of the National Road
Safety Strategy 2011–2020
Source: roadsafety.gov.au
1. Create strong national leadership by
appointing a Cabinet minister with specific
multi-agency responsibility to address the
hidden epidemic of road trauma including its
impact on the health system.
2. Establish a national road safety entity
reporting to the Cabinet minister with
responsibility for road safety.
3. Commit to a minimum $3 billion a year road
safety fund.
4. Set a vision zero target for 2050 with an
interim target of vision zero for all major
capital city
5. CBD areas, and high-volume highways by
2030.
6. Establish and commit to key performance
indicators in time for the next strategy
that measure and report how harm can
be eliminated in the system, and that are
published annually.
7. Undertake a National Road Safety
Governance Review by March 2019.
8. Implement rapid deployment and
accelerated uptake of proven vehicle safety
technologies and innovation.
9. Accelerate the adoption of speed
management initiatives that support harm
elimination.
10. Invest in road safety focused infrastructure,
safe system and mobility partnerships with
state, territory and local governments that
accelerate the elimination of high-risk roads.
11. Make road safety a genuine part of business
as usual within Commonwealth, state,
territory and local government.
12. Resource key road safety enablers and road
safety innovation initiatives.
13. Implement life-saving partnerships with
countries in the Indo-Pacific and globally as
appropriate to reduce road trauma.
ISSUE 15 2018 / WWW.AFMA.NET.AU
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