Why "education" just doesn't work

Recently on the bikejournal forum there has been a discussion about hit and run assaults. This has, of course, been followed by the usual calls for "driver education" in an attempt to do something about it. If I could just take a moment, I'd remind the chaps in that post that similar schemes have been tried in the past. There is a reason the national road toll keeps rising despite all the money being spent on supposedly "educating" people (and that's without considering all the money spent on "road improvements" every year for the same reason).

The problem with education is that without some serious law enforcement to back it up, it just doesn't work. I've seen it tried in this part of the world for years, without having any effect at all. There are two problems. Firstly, selecting a medium that might actually be effective, and secondly, most people will just think it's the message is aimed at "everyone else".

Here in Queensland they tried running "share the road" advertisements on television some years ago -- a response to a relatively large number of hit and run assaults on the Gold Coast for a city of only 500,000. Television seems to be considered the only "acceptable" way to educate people these days. The problem, of course, is that the cost of it meant that we ended up with a 30-second slot that only aired sporadically. I'm fairly certain that most people just blocked it out along with all the other advertising that we're bombarded with day after day. In fact, I'd suggest that if you asked anyone (apart from a few cyclists) to remember the content of the advertisements (or even that they aired at all) six weeks later, I'd say most people couldn't.

Secondly, 90% of drivers seem to have this idea that they are somehow "above average" while everyone else on the road is a menace. Consequently, if someone does see an ad on the television, or a slogan on the invoice telling them that their rego fees are due, they'll probably just assume that it's aimed at "all those other hopeless drivers", and that they themselves can just ignore it. This seems to explain why "education" seems to be such a popular "solution" in political circles -- they can be seen to be "dealing with the problem" without actually upsetting anybody.

If anyone is serious about solving the problem, pass a law that makes any hit and run offence an automatic 30 year prison sentence -- with the only involvement from a judge or jury in each case being to ensure that the suspect is actually guilty. ENSURE THAT THERE IS NO POSSIBILITY OF A REDUCED SENTENCE FOR A HIT AND RUN DRIVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. The shock jocks in the media will likely create a heap of hysteria in response, which will be a far more effective (and much cheaper) educational tool than any diplomatically worded advertisement, and I guarantee that after two sentences have been handed out, the number of hit and runs will decrease dramatically.

Education doesn't work. It just gives people the option of blaming someone else, and the government a way to be seen to be attacking a problem without actually doing anything about it (or losing any votes a long the way). The only way to reduce the road toll is to start holding people accountable for their actions, and that requires law enforcement. Unfortunately, the prospect of this ever happening is somewhat remote as there don't seem to be any votes in road safety these days, but I suppose that's just "democracy" in action.