Walking Home From The Pub Is A Risk, Too
Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday December 6, 1990
An unlikely road menace has emerged from a detailed study of eastern suburbs road casualties - the drinking walker.
While RBT and seatbelt campaigns have cut the overall toll, many alcohol affected pedestrians are among the dead and injured.
And road safety experts admit they don't know how to handle the problem: "They are out of the cars and on to the streets," Police Inspector John Clark of the Sydney District Traffic Office told a road safety seminar on Tuesday.
The safety and community affairs manager of the Roads and Traffic Authority, Ms Roslyn Young, said the drinking walker problem was becoming more evident as more blood alcohol data on road victims was available.
"It is worse than most people have realised," she said. "According to the St Vincent's Hospital trauma unit, 30 per cent of its casualties are pedestrians and a lot of them are affected by alcohol."
She said most drinking pedestrians did not realise they were at risk on the road.
A Melbourne study had shown that regulars who had six or more drinks after work were most likely to be injured, often near their hotel.
She said a campaign to "look after your mates" as they walked home from a pub or club would help cut casualties.
The RTA's safety promotions officer, Ms Denise Pendleton, told the seminar that pedestrians were involved in 31 per cent of all serious road casualties in Sydney's 27 council areas and the number was increasing.
Where the blood alcohol level was known, 34 per cent of those casualties had levels above 0.05.
Representatives of Botany, Randwick, Sydney, South Sydney, Waverley and Woollahra councils, police and education officials attended the safety seminar at the Airport Hilton.
They were given these details of pedestrian casualties:
City of Sydney and South Sydney. In 1989, of 129 pedestrian serious casualties with known blood alcohol concentrations, 54 had levels above 0.05; 38 of these accidents were in South Sydney; 19 of 26 fatalities in the two areas involved pedestrians.
Botany. Of 14 pedestrian serious casualties in 1989, half reported levels at or above 0.05.
Randwick. In 1989, of the 18 pedestrian serious casualties, seven recorded levels at or above 0.05.
Waverley. Four pedestrians of the total of 13 casualties had blood alcohol levels over 0.05.
Woollahra. Pedestrians accounted for 33 per cent of all 1989 serious casualties; of 21 pedestrian serious casualties, 11 were above 0.05.
The eastern suburbs' overall accident figures were generally below those of the Sydney metropolitan area.
Figures for all councils showed that 17- to 29-year-olds were the most at risk, accounting for 43 per cent of 1989 casualties.
There was also a high number of elderly people involved in accidents - 26 per cent of fatalities were aged 60 and over.
* Riding bicycles on footpaths might become legal, an RTA planner, Mr Mal Cross, told the seminar.
He said there was growing support for the move, with police soon to introduce a crackdown on riders not wearing helmets and going through red lights.
He said a recent meeting of safety experts and police discussed the proposal but he did not know whether the State Government would change the present regulation.
Woollahra Council's engineer, Mr Dennis Cafe, said any such move would be opposed by some councils because it would cause problems for the elderly and other pedestrians.
© 1990 Sydney Morning Herald