The great road toll lie

I can’t take it any more. The bullshit that I and all others have had to endure over the festive season. The great road toll lie perpetuated over and over and drummed into us relentlessly through the press and huge government safety campaigns.

Here are the statistics from the Australian bureau of statistics of the underlying causes of death in 2004 for the state that I live in

Cancer 3409

Testicular cancer 218

Endocrine metabolic diseases 474

Diabetes 346

Mental illness 239

Nervous system diseases 486

Heart disease 3704

Lung disease 894

Digestive system disease 406

Road accidents 201

It is one of those unfortunate situations where the press and the politicians both want the same thing. As a result they never question each others motives for lying to the public about the road toll. They both want the dangers of road deaths greatly exaggerated. It is to both their advantages to have the public believe that road fatalities are a significant threat to us. They aren’t. Road accidents amount to one thousandth of one percent of the states population each year.

More men die of testicular cancer than the entire road toll for both men and women. Thus testicular cancer is more of a threat to us but you just never hear the press and politicians talk about it.

Cancer and heart disease are a far more serious threat to us than car accidents and you hear about them much, much less often. Why?

Dangerous curves

Reporting the road toll obviously sells for the press. It makes them money. If it didn’t they certainly wouldn’t report it at least as much as they do. Over the festive season it is reported relentlessly. It also works for the politicians. If they can get in the public eye talking about the road toll and say things like zero tolerance and mandatory sentencing they know they are on a winner which they are as they know the public believe the great road toll lie.

Then there is the police commissioner who is forever huffing and puffing about the road toll. He actively and knowingly misleads the public about the dangers to it. Remember - one thousandth of one percent. Why? Because it is he and his department that are the main recipients of all that public money wasted on the road toll when it could be spent on far more serious threats in the community. In this years festive season an extra 5000 police man hours are being funded for policing the roads we are told. How much does that amount to in wages?

So the police, politicians and press never publicly question each other as to why they are misleading the public and unfortunately it is the public who suffer by having vast quantities of public money unwisely spent. I can’t recall ever hearing a politician state this view presented here or ever recall hearing this argument being presented in the press.

Every time you see one of those huge booze buses crawling with truck loads of police think of one thousandth of one percent and all those who are dying from cancer, heart disease and so forth as all that public money is wasted on a far less dangerous threat to us.

Graffiti