Victoria Police, VicRoads and the Transport Accident Commission pledge support for the UN’s campaign to reduce road trauma
May 11, 2011
Victoria is joining the rest of the world today in launching the Decade of Action for Road Safety – a campaign led by the United Nations to reduce road trauma.
The state’s key road safety agencies are supporting the campaign as one person is killed or seriously injured on the world’s roads every six seconds.
There are 3,500 people killed every day in road crashes world-wide, and road trauma remains the number one cause of death for young people.
The Transport Accident Commission (TAC), Victoria Police, VicRoads, Monash University Accident Research Centre, the SES and the City of Melbourne have committed to sharing knowledge with developing nations and leading by example on reducing road trauma.
The TAC’s head of community relations Phil Reed says Victoria has led the world in road safety for a number of decades through the introduction of several of life-saving policies.
“From the 1960s when we introduced seatbelt legislation, to the introduction of drink driving and most recently the mandating of electronic stability control (ESC) in all new vehicles, Victoria has been at the forefront of road safety,” Reed says.
“There is no doubt our priority lies with improving road safety here in Victoria but we are also keen to share our expertise with countries that are in need of extra help.”
Some 90 percent of the world’s road deaths occur in developing countries.
VicRoads director of road safety and marketing James Holgate says providing assistance to developing nations is critical to reducing the global road toll.
“In Vietnam, VicRoads is designing, developing and supporting the implementation of a computerised national road traffic accident system, (which) provides the tools and information necessary to make data-led decisions to reduce the impact of road trauma in Vietnam,” he says.
VicRoads, together with Victoria Police, is working with Vietnam’s National Transport Safety Committee in implementing road safety awareness campaigns in conjunction with traffic police enforcement.
Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner for road policing Kieran Walshe says police enforcement will continue to develop and become more targeted over the next decade to help reduce the state’s road trauma.
“I’m signing today on behalf of all members of Victoria Police who are whole-heartedly committed in doing all that we can to get dangerous drivers off the roads to make them safer for our community,” Walshe says.
Locally, the key aim for Victoria over the next decade is to change the community’s attitude towards speeding, Reed says.
“Our research shows that drink-driving and not wearing a seatbelt is widely regarded as socially unacceptable but we have got some work to do when it comes to speeding.
“The sooner Victorian motorists wake-up and realise that speeding severely increases your chances of dying or being seriously injuries in a crash, the sooner our road toll will decline by up to 100 deaths.”