My survival is proof that death happens only to other people, and so I am as untroubled by the RTA's roadside warnings SPEED KILLS as I used to be by cigarette packets' SMOKING KILLS. I read the RTA warning as SPEED KILLS OTHER PEOPLE, just as it used to be that SMOKING KILLS OTHER PEOPLE. It is very likely that you are the same, even if your confidence is not as well based as mine!
This notion of risk applying to others is the hardest nut to crack, and the RTA alluded to it late last week in responding to a Mercedes-Benz safety chief's statement that crash-avoidance systems and better roads would save more Australian lives than tougher speeding laws. I don't disagree with him, nor do I disagree with the RTA when it says that drivers believe that speeding, a major factor in road deaths, does not put them at risk.
Risk applies to other people. Just ask a smoker. On second thoughts, don't, because there's too much denial and obfuscation going on inside for a straight answer.
It is true that when I'm driving over the speed limit I do not countenance for even a millisecond the RTA's claim that I am subjecting myself, my passengers and other road users to extra risk. For starters, I'm speeding only a little bit, and that's all right, although it is true too that on the rare occasions that I speed a bigger bit I do so just as safely.
Risk applies to other people, and the fact that I'm here now is evidence of that.
Do you see risk applying to me instead of you? And is there a better way than the RTA's horror ads of making risk real?
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