Drivers urged to heed festive road safety call

RESPONSIBILITY for preventing carnage on the state’s roads over the holiday period will come down to motorists and the choices they make, police and safety advocates said on Thursday.

Police and transport inspectors conducted a road safety operation near Hobart Airport, as Transport Minister Michael Ferguson reinforced the holiday road safety message.

“We’ve lost 50 precious lives this year and 297 people have been involved in serious crashes – they’ve either died or have a serious injury,” he said.

“Our death rate is up 50 per cent, our serious injury rate is up nearly 10 per cent. And we’ve just got to do so much better.

“We’re just begging people, would you work with us to be as safe as possible this Christmas and New Year?

“We’re doing everything that we can as a government and as law … to build safer roads, to have more speed cameras and more police.”

Tasmania Police Assistant Commission Adrian Bodnar said police would be out in force over the break for Operation Safe Arrival.

“We will be policing those factors that we know contribute significantly to fatal and serious crashes across our community,” he said. “That’s about speeding, it’s about inattention, it’s about fatigue and not wearing seatbelts and also drink and drug driving.”

He said several recent incidents involving speeding and high-range drink driving showed some drivers were placing others at risk.

He asked anyone with footage of dangerous driving to provide it to police.

“If anyone in the community has any examples of poor driving behaviour, dangerous driving, we have a portal on the Tasmania Police website, which provides a facility for footage and dashcam footage to be uploaded,” he said.

“In addition to that, if you’re witnessing some dangerous behaviour at the time, I’d encourage anyone in the community to ring the police number on 131 444.”

Road Safety Advisory Council chair Scott Tillyard said it was important that people didn’t use their mobile phones while driving.

“Mobile phones are a significant cause of distraction,” Mr Tillyard said.

“We’re urging people not to use those phones when they’re driving, if they don’t feel they’ve got the willpower to stop looking at it, they should turn it off, put it away, put it on silent mode, and avoid using it all together.”