By EWAN KENNEDY
21 April 2008

Driver attitude and behaviour behind the wheel are the most important aspects of safe driving. Trouble is they can’t be easily measured, certainly not with a machine beside the road as can speed, alcohol and other drugs.

So it’s great to see a voluntary survey of drivers conducted by Private Fleet, a car buying service, looking deeply into this vital matter. The survey was done online and was totally private so drivers could be honest in their answers.

Some of the results were shocking, but, sadly, didn’t come as a real surprise to me. My attitude to mobile phones is already well known to regular readers. I regard them as killers, possibly the worst road safety hazard on the roads today. Yet about 65 per cent admit to using hand-held mobiles while driving, though most said they only did so occasionally.

The trouble is that death doesn’t care whether your distraction was occasional or not…

Results are odd in some ways; while young (17-25) Toyota drivers are 40 per cent more likely than the average driver to talk on the phone whilst driving, they are about 30 per cent less likely to drink and drive

BMW drivers may be the best behaved when it comes to text messages but they take out the dubious honour of the worst drink drivers with 42 per cent admitting to having driven after drinking three or more standard alcoholic drinks.

The ladies will care to note that male drivers are worst in all categories except "Text Messaging Whilst Driving" category which female drivers came out tops.

Text messaging is even more dangerous than talking on a mobile phone, yet almost 30 per cent of respondents to the survey said that they had done it at least occasionally, and two per cent said it was a frequent occurrence in their car.

Interestingly, the best overall segment of drivers is female drivers in Queensland aged between 41 and 60. The worst drivers are male P-platers from New South Wales.

Having seen some of the lunatics on green P-plates in action in and around Sydney this doesn’t come as a surprise to me.

Drink driving is alive and kicking in WA, with an incredible 51 per cent of drivers reporting that they have driven after having consumed three or more standard drinks. Pleasingly, NSW comes out as the best behaved with 34 per cent admitting the same. Not that having a third of drivers over the limit is a pleasant thought.

Those in Holdens hold the sad title of being Australia's worst drivers, Mazda come out on top as the having the best behaved drivers.

Overall, South Australia is home to the country's worst drivers whilst Australian Capital Territory drivers are comparatively clean.

The survey was conducted online by privatefleet.com.au/aussiedrivers/, Australia's largest car buying service and drew responses from over 2,500 motorists. You can get online to see full details of all aspects of the survey. Then we trust that you drive with even more care when you realise just what is happening all around you when you are out there on the road.

ewan@marque.com.au

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