Apparently Australia will not meet it's stated objective of reducing the road toll per 100,000 people by the year 2010.

Click on the link below to read the story:

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23296544-29277,00.html

Please note that in the article Albanese states "One in five of our road deaths involves heavy vehicles with speed a factor in around 30 per cent and driver fatigue a factor in up to 60 per cent".

Well, that's certainly very bloody interesting isn't it. Does this mean the jig is up? That is, are they finally admitting that speed is not the biggest killer on our roads?

Comments most welcome on this topic and about the road toll. Let's have some healthy debate!

Speaking of fatigue and car accidents. I wonder if the countries state govenments can turn this problems into one that makes them money. Otherwise it will go un-checked no doubt.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/australians-need-quality-shuteye/2008/02/29/1204226991467.html

SLEEP disorders should be made a national health priority alongside alcohol abuse and obesity, leading specialists have urged.

Problems with sleep underlie up to 70% of GP visits and cost the economy more than $10 billion a year.

Experts say the problem is being ignored, although fatigue

is implicated in a high proportion of car accidents, workplace injuries and depression cases.

They want to see sleep at the heart of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's preventive health policy and have criticised him for saying sleep is unimportant.

Bold education campaigns similar to recent smoking and TAC ads have been proposed to warn of the dangers of sleep loss.

Australasian Sleep Association president David Hillman said up to 80% of sleep disorders were undiagnosed. "The inappropriate regard for sleep really needs to be addressed because all that sleepiness translates into some major problems for the community," Dr Hillman said.

"The $10 billion is just the direct health effects so it's really the tip of the iceberg. Beyond that there are really substantial effects on productivity, safety on the road and in the workplace.

"The triumvirate of good health should be exercise, healthy eating and healthy sleep and we need a campaign that addresses that."

Dr Hillman said Mr Rudd, who is thought to get just five hours sleep a night and who said yesterday that "how much sleep you get is by the by", was setting a bad example.

"It's the wrong message," Dr Hillman said. "There's this attitude to sleep that it's really a nuisance and it gets in the way of productivity, but to put it in Labor Party terms, it's actually inimical to the notion of a clever country not to have that country sleeping properly."

Associate Professor Matthew Naughton, head of general respiratory and sleep medicine at The Alfred hospital, said rising obesity and a modern 24-hour culture meant people slept less.

"Ever since the light bulb was invented, the mobile phone and the internet, sleep disorders are just skyrocketing. It's as much a problem as obesity and alcohol abuse but because it's happening at night it's often ignored," he said. "We strongly suspect that if we had a national sleep health agenda it would result in fewer car accidents, fewer divorces and less physical abuse."

World Sleep Federation president Ron Grunstein, from Sydney's Wool**** Institute, said young people who stayed out late and missed sleep had the highest risk of car crashes.

"We need a serious effort at health promotion of good sleep habits among young people," he said. "We may have a lot to learn from the people who worked on preventing car accidents and smoking in young people."

A crackdown on employers who failed to give staff adequate time off between shifts, and sleep education for medical students, have also been proposed.

With an estimated 10% of Australians taking sleeping pills, doctors have been encouraged to try alternative methods such as cognitive behavioural therapy.

"We've got to educate GPs and the public about ways of managing insomnia other than medication but there's no investment in this area," Professor Grunstein said. "Dealing with insomnia is something that takes longer than a five-minute GP consultation."