Australian Road Toll - Manipulated Statistics

One of the greatest money spinners for the government is what is termed in Australia and New Zealand is the "Road Toll" or death on the roads, campaign.

The government is on a never ending crusade to inform the public that SPEED KILLS.

Technically speed (or rather velocity) NEVER killed anyone, but rather the sudden stop.

So the government is already misinforming the masses.

Catching speeding motorists is one of the easiest tasks and highest money earners for the government, and the government WANTS the revenue associated from speeding fines.

Catching motorists driving 102km/h in a 100km/h zone on a freeway where there is NOBODY is a serious OFFENSE.

The stats never lie.

Well that is NOT entirely true.

The statistics can be manipulated to suit a particular agenda.


A sample from the government website :

http://www.tacsafety.com.au/jsp/statistics/roadtollannual.do?areaID=12&tierID=1&navID=17

2009 toll	290
2010 toll	291 (up 0.3%)

Every year there is an increase in population and registered vehicles on the road.

Complementing the above example, there were 4,010,276 registered vehicles in Victoria in 2009.

ref : http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/9309.0/

From that there is an approximate 12% increase of registrations per year.

So the road toll figure should also rise an approx 12% all things being even.

Since in the above example there has been one death although an increase of 0.3%, this is actually a decrease for the amount of road users.

The government also uses the common statistic per 100,000 population, which may not realistically be correct.

The population's circumstances may change (economics can be country specific), and this is another figure that can be doctored to the government's agenda.