Coroner's Finding: Peter Gordon Wilson

Contributing factors

• Exposure of police on foot to high-speed traffic on freeway
• High-speed freeway environment with long straight sections encouraging excessive speeds
• Motorists traveling at excessive speeds (130+ kph in 110 kph zone)
• Poor visibility and ambiguity of police hand signals from distance
• Lack of early warning to motorists of police presence (warning lights not illuminated)
• Police operations concealed by vegetation on median strip
• Median strip position reducing predictability of police presence
• Inadequate training on human factors in traffic and driver behavior
• Over-confidence in risk assessment by experienced officers
• Site assessment procedures compromised by familiarity with location
• Rear-end collision between following vehicles triggered by sudden braking
• Out-of-control vehicle striking officer attempting to escape

Coroner's recommendations

1. Subject current Standard Operating Procedures to full risk assessment by independent expert or organisation
2. When reviewing SOPs, consider relevant and comparable international practice and gauge against best international practice
3. Modify SOPs to prevent police from working on roadways unless protected by police vehicles or stationary protective barriers
4. Amend SOPs to ensure as much warning as possible is provided to approaching vehicles by using warning lights once speeding vehicle is detected
5. Amend SOPs to incorporate express operating assumption that every officer stopping an oncoming vehicle is exposed to person who may deliberately, negligently or accidentally drive at them
6. Base all safety procedures on premise of exposure to dangerous drivers and reduce such exposure to minimum necessary to conduct operations
7. Consider eliminating traffic law enforcement operations by police on foot at multi-lane sites where speed limit is 80 kph or greater, replace with alternatives such as mobile speed cameras and vehicle-based lidar
8. Include within Highway Patrol Education Program at Goulburn Police College training dealing with role of human factors in road accidents and danger experience to heighten officer perception of dangers in stationary speed enforcement
9. Expand Highway Patrol annual radar assessment to include practical education reinforcing importance of human factors in accidents and countering over-confidence in danger perception
10. Create database within Traffic Services Branch recording information about sites used for stationary traffic law enforcement operations, including details of incidents, accidents and near-misses
11. Use established database to review and increase safety of police methodology, improve training of Highway Patrol officers, and disseminate relevant information to Highway Patrols in NSW
12. Roads and Traffic Authority to locate fixed speed cameras on freeways and motorways in areas identified by police as used regularly by motorists traveling at dangerous speeds
13. Roads and Traffic Authority to place detailed information on website, especially for inexperienced drivers, about potential hazards of approaching police traffic operations sites and motorists' responsibilities