If you want to avoid a car crash in Canberra, don't drive during evening peak hour on a Thursday or Friday during August. And always try to keep a good distance from the car behind.
In a data-led observation about the tailgating habits of Canberra drivers, the most frequent collision in the ACT is the rear-end one, making up more than 40 per cent of prangs - or almost 32,000 incidents - across the territory.
Thursdays and Fridays are the riskiest days to drive and when Canberra drivers are most likely to have a car crash, according to the latest ACT road crash report compiled in 2020, which also referenced territory data dating back to 2011.
Predictably, the peak times for a Canberra crash was between 8am and 9am, and between 3pm to 6pm, with the 5pm to 6pm evening peak-hour commute being when almost 11 per cent of all crashes occur.
Intersections between two cross-streets accounted for 23.6 per cent of crashes, and T-intersections for around 18.7 per cent.
Curiously, although the data revealed the depths of an ACT winter - August - as the month when most crashes occur, almost 85 per cent of crashes happen in fine weather, during daylight hours.
However, the commentary which accompanied this dataset cautioned the "higher number of crashes in fine weather conditions is not indicative of actual crash risk".
"Rather, what these statistics demonstrate is that the ACT's weather is predominately dry with fewer days of inclement weather.
"Several crashes were due to smoke or dust in both 2019 (65 crashes) and 2020 (50 crashes) compared with two crashes in 2018 and none in 2017. This could be attributed to the bushfire emergency which took place in December 2019 and January 2020."
"Uncontrolled" crash types were the most common at 45.6 per cent, followed by crashes at traffic lights (25.3 per cent) and give-way signs (24.2 per cent).
Almost 80 per cent of crashes involved a car or wagon, and 10 per cent utes.
The ACT government has tried various mechanisms to prevent Canberra drivers tailgating, including painting chevrons on the busy Tuggeranong Parkway to indicate to motorists the safest travel distance - 28 metres - between vehicles doing 100km/h.
However, that pilot project, funded by an ACT road safety grant, was deemed a failure according to an evaluation which found "from the data gathered, it is concluded that the chevron markings have not reduced tailgating or increased the safe distance between vehicles traveling on the Tuggeranong Parkway".
Much of the ACT road crash data collected during 2020 was distorted by a number of unusual factors, specifically the intense 2019-2020 bushfire season which led to smoke drift and weeks of poor air quality and reduced vision, and the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in the March which followed. From March 23, there was a territory-wide shutdown of all non-essential travel.
Nonetheless, the data revealed drivers aged between 15-29 made up over 39 per cent of all road crash casualties in 2020 which the report analysts suggested "may be an indication of the risk-taking undertaken by some in this age group on relatively quiet roads".
In 2020, there were just seven deaths on ACT roads, yet the following year the toll rose to 11, then rocketed up to 18 in 2021 - the worst outcome in 12 years.
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