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Speaker 1: Now are there are calls for us to start upping

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Speaker 1: the fines for speeding. So researchers found that drivers who

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Speaker 1: get speeding tickets are three times more likely to be

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Speaker 1: in a crash than drivers who don't get any speeding tickets.

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Speaker 1: Speed is a factor in about a third of the

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Speaker 1: fatal crashes that happened last year. Now, the guy behind

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Speaker 1: this research is doctor Darren Walton from the University of Canterbury. Darren, Hello, Darren,

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Speaker 1: did this surprise you?

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Speaker 2: The result surprises us in that it is always the

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Speaker 2: case that people who accumulate more and more tickets have

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Speaker 2: an increasing odds of having a crash. And the purpose

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Speaker 2: of getting people is to change their behavior. So you

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Speaker 2: would normally expect that, you know, the fines that people

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Speaker 2: accumulate would reduce the chance that they to have crash.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, because obviously you speed. Like, That's how it worked

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Speaker 1: for me anyway, I sped, I got busted. It was

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Speaker 1: such a big fine. I pretty much tried never to

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Speaker 1: do it again. That's how it should work. So why

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Speaker 1: is it not working like that for people?

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Speaker 2: Well, some of these people have simulated a large number

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Speaker 2: of tickets, so four or five tickets over a couple

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Speaker 2: of years. It's quite a rare thing to do. It's

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Speaker 2: quite hard to do because these are all officer issue tickets,

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Speaker 2: so that's a rare event. You do that a few times,

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Speaker 2: it shows that you are out there with a proclivity

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Speaker 2: to speed, and that speeding is what is altering your creshuous.

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Speaker 1: Oh okay, so it's not so much that, because I'd

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Speaker 1: wondered if what it was was you get a speeding

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Speaker 1: ticket and actually a lot of people, isn't that expensive,

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Speaker 1: So they go bugger and I'll just keep on speeding.

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Speaker 1: So almost you know, encourages them because the punishment isn't sufficient,

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Speaker 1: they keep on doing it. But that's not actually what's

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Speaker 1: going on here, is it.

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Speaker 2: It's not. It could well be part of it because

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Speaker 2: we have not changed our fine regime since nineteen ninety

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Speaker 2: nine when that was introduced, so over twenty five years,

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Speaker 2: that thirty dollars ticket for the minimum fee that you

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Speaker 2: would get for a speeding ticket is almost the same

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Speaker 2: as a parking ticket. You can get a parking ticket

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Speaker 2: that's more than that these days. And so whether that

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Speaker 2: is a suitable punishment for the type of behavior is moote,

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Speaker 2: but it is certainly out of culture with the rest

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Speaker 2: of the world. Lots of other places have larger fines

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Speaker 2: than we have in yourself.

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Speaker 1: Well, the alternative explanation is that the reason that you

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Speaker 1: end up with so many tickets is because you're a

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Speaker 1: bit of a home and you like to give the

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Speaker 1: finger to authority, and so you are a problem already, right,

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Speaker 1: It's more a reflection of your attitude.

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Speaker 2: The point that I would take from that is that

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Speaker 2: when you are accumulating tickets, what we tend to do

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Speaker 2: is we treat those as independent events. But we actually

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Speaker 2: once you've got three or four tickets and you're being

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Speaker 2: pulled over by a police officer, it is an opportunity

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Speaker 2: is the police officer knows that in order to offer

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Speaker 2: an intervention, at least offer that the crash risks to

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Speaker 2: that individual. I would increase the fines, but okay, how

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Speaker 2: much is Darren?

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Speaker 1: Where are we pushing these fines to to stop these hons.

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Speaker 2: The opportunity is to apply a multiplying So you could,

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Speaker 2: if you don't treat it as independent events, increase science

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Speaker 2: portion to how many tickets persons they've had over the

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Speaker 2: two year period. You could alter the demerit points, because

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Speaker 2: that is one mechanism that we have for at least

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Speaker 2: changing the risk profile. People know that as they get

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Speaker 2: closer and closer to the each of losing their license,

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Speaker 2: that they might change their behavior that way. But it

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Speaker 2: is certainly possible to have four or five tickets for

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Speaker 2: over a two year period and retain one's license, and

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Speaker 2: that is an extraordinary risk to carry in terms of

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Speaker 2: the crastionalities that we've done.

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Speaker 1: What's the maximum vying you can get at the moment.

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Speaker 2: Six hundred and thirty dollars for a forty six to

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Speaker 2: fifty kilometer per hour. After that, it's a criminal offense,

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Speaker 2: but that is small relative to other places in the world.

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Speaker 1: So okay, Darren, but tell me what do you think.

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Speaker 1: And if six hundred and thirty bucks isn't putting you off,

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Speaker 1: and Jesus to put me off. But if it's not

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Speaker 1: putting you off four or five times of that, what

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Speaker 1: do we increase it to to put you off?

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Speaker 2: Some people would suggest it should be income or wealth related,

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Speaker 2: so that the fine is associated and the proper a

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Speaker 2: proper deterrent to accumulating such a ticket. But I've got

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Speaker 2: to say a forty to fifty kilometer hour over the

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Speaker 2: speed limit ticket is an extraordinary event, and that's why

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Speaker 2: it's said at that maximum rate, a ticket of one

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Speaker 2: hundred and twenty dollars for doing fifteen to twenty k's

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Speaker 2: an hour is not getting four or five of those.

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Speaker 2: That's what people are accumulating, but that risk is really

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Speaker 2: unacceptably high.

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Speaker 1: Darren's really good to talk to you, mate, Thank you

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Speaker 1: for running us through. That's doctor Darren Walton of the

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Speaker 1: University of Canterbury.

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