While double demerit periods for traffic offences end after the Christmas and New Year holiday season, there's a lack of recent Australian research on their effectiveness. Academics call for more studies to understand the impact of these campaigns.
NSW police target speeding, among other offences, which attracts double demerit points in the holidays.Only NSW, ACT and WA enforce double demerit penalties during peak traffic periods such as Christmas and New Year.What's next? Academics say more peer-reviewed research on the effectiveness of double demerit penalties is required.
As double demerit periods in participating states come to an end for the Christmas and New Year holiday season, no peer-reviewed Australian research has examined their effectiveness for more than 16 years. 'There's not a lot of good research on the efficacy of these campaigns and, while there is some older research from when it first started, there hasn't been a lot which has been done recently,' Australasian College of Road Safety CEO, Ingrid Johnston said. New South Wales and the ACT have been using the double demerit penalty system for some traffic offences during busy holiday traffic periods since the late 1990s. Drivers have twice the usual demerit points deducted from their licence for offences including speeding, not wearing a seatbelt, and using a handheld mobile phone while driving.A NSW police officer points the LIDAR speed gun at holiday traffic at Coffs Harbour.Despite the lack of recent peer-reviewed academic research on the double demerit system, there is data from participating states that suggests double demerits encourage safer driver behaviour.Ingrid Johnston is the CEO of the Australasian College of Road Safety.'We know in NSW that sadly, there is about one fatality every day on our roads, and during the Christmas–New Year holiday period … there were five fatalities,' Dr Johnston said. Emeritus Professor Ann Williamson, who is part of the University of NSW Transport and Road Safety Centre research group, agreed there had been very little academic research on double demerit penalties, but said there was 'quite a reasonable amount' on demerit points generally
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