The Victorian Government will hold eight road safety community roundtables across Victoria in the coming months to seek views on reducing the number of lives lost and serious injuries on regional roads.
The community roundtables will follow on from the Road Safety Summit at the State Library, 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 majority of 2019’s increase in road deaths has happened on regional roads, with 86 people killed compared with 47 at the same time in 2018.
Overall, 143 people have died on the state’s roads in 2019, compared with 88 at the same time in 2018 – an increase of 63%.
The community roundtables, which will focus on road safety issues affecting regional communities, will be held in Ballarat, Marysville, Shepparton, Portland, Mildura, Sale, Bendigo and Geelong.
The summit heard from local and international road safety experts that the Government’s $1.4 billion Towards Zero strategy was world-leading in many respects, but the development of a new strategy to commence in 2020 presented opportunities for new initiatives.
Some of the key themes to emerge from the summit included enforcement, speed limits, technology and infrastructure. The roundtables will explore these issues and focus on local issues, as raised by local people.
The Government will consider the ideas from the summit and community roundtables as part of the next road safety strategy which is currently being developed.
Source: Vic Government