Blog: Society needs more awareness of road danger

A few months ago my cousin Brock Radich was in a serious car accident which left him in a coma. He suffered major lung damage and we were told that given the seriousness of his condition, he had a twenty percent chance of survival. So the odds were clearly not in his favour.

I spent many restless nights sleeping on the chairs in the waiting room just outside Auckland Hospitals intensive car unit, and it got me thinking just how quickly your life can change.

Driving is so dangerous, yet we hardly think twice before we get behind the wheel of a car or in the car with another driver. We are all guilty, at some point in our lives of speeding, driving under the influence of drugs and or alcohol, driving tired or at least driving a car that isn’t up to warrant of fitness standard. Why do we take these risks considering the implications of an accident can be so huge?

Our Government spends millions of dollars a year on raising awareness of the severity of all these accident contributions I mentioned earlier. One for example that had an impact on me is the television add where the guy kills his best friend due to drink driving. Although he’s dead he is looking his friend who was driving right in the eye. I can’t even comprehend why we put the people we love the most in such a deadly situation.

According to Land and Transport New Zealand as at Tuesday, 20 October, 318 people have been killed on our roads so far this year, and the saddest thing about all of this is the fact that majority of these accidents could have easily been avoided.

However some accidents can’t be avoided and these are the real killers because innocent people die.

Brock’s crash was due to aquaplaning, a term I hadn’t even heard of before his accident. It occurs when your tires ride above the road surface on a thin layer of water. It acts like black ice, you can hardly see it, but your car becomes like a sled and you have absolutely no control.

Fortunately after five days my cousin woke up. He is without a doubt a very lucky young man.

As New Zealanders we have this attitude of ‘it won’t happen to me’ – until it does. It’s sad that it takes an experience like this one to make us understand the seriousness of driving.

Research shows that it’s not until the age of 29 until we realise the severity of driving, and this is probably because by this time we have experienced in some way or another the effects it can have. Let’s hope that your learning experience doesn’t result in death.