In response to a very high number of road fatalities at the start of 1997 on NSW roads, the Minister of Roads announced in March 1997 details of a package of initiatives targeting speed, fatigue and drink driving during the Easter holiday period. The major new initiative was the introduction of double demerit points. For the 1997 Easter school holiday period: (a) licence demerit points for speeding were doubled; and (b) demerit points for all other driving offences were increased by one point. In evaluating the double demerit points measure the following factors were examined: the extent of public education campaigns, the levels of police enforcement, public reaction as measured by a series of community surveys examined related to the measure, changes to the levels of unsafe road user behaviours as detected from an analysis of Police infringement data, and changes to the levels of road trauma as detected from an analysis of RTA crash data. Information was collected each of the trial periods and compared with results for corresponding periods prior to the introduction in Easter 1997. (A)
Abstract