Please people, read my analysis below. I cannot find any evidence that shows demerits work, but my own analysis proves conclusively they do not!

Demerit points were first introduced in Australia by QLD in December 1967, NSW in March 1969 and all the other states followed suit and had them by the end of 1969. The ACT did not introduce demerits until 1993.

 The fact of the matter is, there is no research to suggest that demerit points work, so I did a little check of my own.

 Let’s start with QLD. In 1968 their road toll dropped to 477 from 502, but this could have been a statistical anomaly. In 1969 it was back up to556.

 For the rest of Australia, the road toll was 3382 in 1968, and in 1969, the first year of demerits, the road toll was 3502. Amazingly, the national road peaked at 3798 in 1970, the first full year of demerits.

 The national road toll was higher than both the 1968 and 1969 levels all throughout the 70’s and the decade finished with a road toll of 3508, still much higher than the 1968 pre-demerits level.

 In the ACT, their road toll was 20 in 1992 and dropped to 12 in 1993, the year they introduced demerits. They recorded 23 & 22 deaths in 1996 & 1998 respectively, and last year recorded 26 fatalities. From 1993 to 2006 the ACT’s death rate per 100,000 population dropped from 4.01 to 3.95 – hardly impressive.

 Only in 1980 did the road toll start coming down interstate and that was obviously due to the introduction of random breath testing.

Sorry, copied the link in incorrectly. Try this one.

http://www.mynrma.com.au/cps/rde/xbcr/mynrma/demerits_2.pdf