More than two-thirds of drivers charged with culpable driving in Victoria were speeding or alcohol-affected, a new study has found.
The Sentencing Advisory Council last week released its “most detailed examination” of the four major offences in Victoria – culpable driving, dangerous driving causing death, negligently causing serious injury, and dangerous driving causing injury.
The council studied almost 360 cases of drivers convicted of the offences in the seven years to July, 2013.
Melton man Jason Paul received the most severe sentence in that period. He was jailed for 10 years and six months in 2012 when he was 42.
Paul was speeding, drunk, drugged and unlicensed when he drove into the back of a car, causing it to explode and kill a father-to-be occupant.
A 24-year-old truck driver received the lightest sentence for culpable driving – two years – for killing an elderly couple at Toolern Vale in 2007. Michael Aparo is serving a total of six years for another three charges related to the death.
Most of the cases (60 per cent) involved one victim, and most of the victims (62 per cent) were male. While there has been a growing concern about methamphetamine, the drug was a factor in only 4 per cent of culpable driving cases. Cannabis was the drug most commonly involved in fatal crashes.
Senior Sergeant Ross Burbidge, of the Melton highway patrol, urged drivers to heed the road safety message. “Drivers should take more care on the road – don’t speed,” he said. “Some of the more common accidents we see are rear-end collisions and collisions at intersections where people go through red lights and run off the road because of inattention.”
Many of the fatal collisions in the municipality occurred when drivers veered off roads, Senior Sergeant Burbidge said.
“People are speeding and they’re not necessarily taking caution, in particular with road conditions,” he said. “Some people drive as if the roads are dry – when you get rain after long periods of dryness, the road itself gets slippery because of all the residue, such as oil and deposits.”
