What is a Road?

The Australian Road Rules, and as adopted by NSW in the NSW Road Rules (2014), provide a definition for road that provides the inanimate 'motor vehicle' as the focus for the rules, as below:

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12 What is a road 

(1) A road is an area that is open to or used by the public and is developed for, or has one of its main uses, the driving or riding of motor vehicles.

(NSW Road Rules, 2014. Accessed 29 September 2016.) 
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This is the same definition provided in the former NSW Traffic Act (1909) (repealed).

The definition dehumanises the road environment - proposing that roads are for motorised lumps of metal, plastic and rubber - and takes the focus away from the person, the most important and also the most vulnerable user of the road.
Each of those motorised lumps contains (at least) one person, and is only one of the available modes of transport.

With the significant increase in deaths on NSW roads, particularly the number of pedestrians killed, the focus of the Road Rules must change from the equipment to the person and their needs.

The focus of Rule 12 should be to that of the user, rather than their equipment, viz:

12 What is a road

(1) A road is an area that is open to the public and is developed primarily for the movement of people and goods.

Is anyone keeping an eye on the NSW road fatality data?

For the 12 month period to the end of March 2016 (i.e. 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2016) 70 more people died using NSW roads compared to the previous 12 months (i.e. 1 April 2014 to 31 March 2015).

SEVENTY MORE PEOPLE DIED!

The number of people who have died is up 24% - to more than 360 people dead, in more than 340 separate incidents, over the last 12 months.

Compare this with acts of terrorism throughout Australia in the same period:
Sep 2014 - Melbourne - 1 killed, 2 injured
Dec 2014 - Sydney - 3 killed, 4 injured
Oct 2015 - Parramatta - 2 killed
(and in each of these three cases, one of those killed was the terrorist).

The government has the national terrorism threat level as 'probable'.

If the national terrorism threat level is probable, with one attack in Australia in the last 12 months; 

what should the threat level be for using NSW roads?

 

 

Right of Way

I hear people talk about right of way, such as: ‘I was driving down the road when some idiot went through a stop sign and ran into my car – I had right of way!’

But what is right of way?

In traffic law there is no such thing as right of way, at least not in Australia[1]. Simply, right of way refers only to a legal agreement between landholders that allows one to pass over the other’s land.

What is actually being referred to is priority. Traffic law provides an order of use for a section of road. This provides a level of certainty for who should proceed next, promoting improved traffic flow and efficiency, and road safety.

Thinking in terms of right of way suggests that everything else should, no, must get out of my way, it is my right to use the road! All bow before me as I have right of way… oh, that is not really the way the roads are intended to be used, is it?

The NSW Road Users Handbook has a short piece on sharing the road, which is a step in the right direction, but what happened to having a duty of care for other road users? This concept is legalised in work health and safety legislation, yet not in traffic law.

All road users need to understand they hold a duty of care to themselves and all other road users.

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[1] The NSW Drivers Handbook erroneously refers to pedestrians having right of way on page 50.