Every week, 11 of our friends, neighbours, family members or workmates start a journey that they never complete. Every week, more than 500 people suffer injury on the way to or from work, home, visiting friends, going shopping,doing what they expect to be able to do safely.

Consider Sarah, a 28 year old mother of two children, who worked as a teacher. Sarah was killed in an accident involving a speeding motorist. Sarah’s children lost a mother, her husband his wife, her parents their daughter, and our community has lost someone who was making a valuable contribution.

We have done well so far in reducing fatalities. In metropolitan areas, fatalities totalled 199 in 1998, a reduction of 55 compared with 1997. On local roads, the 50km/h Urban Speed Limit Program has reduced the number of crashes. However, while there have been major long term reductions in the number of fatalities in some areas, there have been some increases in country road fatalities in recent years.

In 1998 there were 357 people killed on country roads, an increase of 35 over the previous year. Speeding and driver fatigue, particularly amongst young drivers, and failure to wear seatbelts continue to be road safety problems and are the major contributors to the annual road toll. As such, future safety strategies and initiatives will primarily focus on these issues.

To achieve our goal of having the safest roads in the world, the State Government will pursue a range of initiatives in three key areas:
• Safer people
• Safer roads
• Safer vehicles.

Better community understanding of road safety issues and solutions is important in achieving our goal. As a community we now have greater awareness and understanding of the factors contributing to road deaths and injuries, and these have changed some of our attitudes. For example, drink driving is now largely regarded as socially unacceptable behaviour.

We need to change people’s attitude to speeding, driving while fatigued and not wearing seatbelts to achieve a similar change of culture to reduce the road toll. The over-representation of novice drivers in accident statistics requires a new approach to be taken.

A Graduated Licensing Scheme will ensure that novice drivers do not progress to an unrestricted licence until they demonstrate greater knowledge about road conditions and have had more experience behind the wheel. The RTA will also work with the police and courts to develop initiatives that have greater impact on repeat offenders.

Such initiatives could require repeat offenders to be ordered by the court to undertake road safety education courses, or have specific devices such as alcohol interlocks fitted to their vehicles. Improvements to date have been achieved through a whole of government approach between State, regional and local stakeholders working in partnership in the planning and delivery of road safety programs to the community. In recognition of the important ongoing role of Local Government, the State Government will continue its strong support for road safety initiatives such as the 50km/h speed limit program for council controlled roads.