Residents from Bendigo and the surrounding region will share their ideas and thoughts on how to make local roads safer at the regional road safety forum.
It has been a devastating year to date on Victoria’s roads, with 191 deaths, compared with 133 at the same time in 2018, with the majority of these deaths occurring on regional roads, where 105 people have died.
So far in 2019, 29 people have died on the roads in the Bendigo region including, Greater Bendigo, Campaspe, Central Goldfields, Gannawarra, Horsham, Loddon, Macedon Ranges, Mount Alexander, Mitchell, Northern Grampians, Strathbogie and Buloke.
In 2018, 27 people died on roads in these regions and a further 70 people were seriously injured.
Bendigo Forum will be attended by road safety experts and government representatives but has been designed to ensure all attendees will have ample opportunity to have their say.
In addition to looking at local and regional road safety issues raised by attendees, the forums will invite the community to comment on the four areas that make up the Victorian Government’s Towards Zero strategy: safer people, roads, vehicles and speeds.
The first six of the eight forums were held in Ballarat, Marysville, Shepparton, Sale and Portland since early July 2019, with hundreds of community members sharing the experiences and knowledge of their local roads.
The forums follow the Melbourne Road Safety Summit in May 2019, where road safety experts and community leaders gathered to discuss what more could be done to address the horror start to 2019 on Victoria’s roads.
The Victorian Government will consider the ideas from the summit and forums as part of the development of the next Victorian road safety strategy.
Source: Vic Government