Road death toll cause for concern
A CONTINUED crackdown on impaired driving has led to increases in official police figures, and drivers are on notice the relentless focus won’t ease any time soon.
Official police figures show less people died on the Darling Downs district roads in 2017 when compared to the previous year, but with 15 people killed, the toll was still too high.
In the wider Southern district, which stretches from Ipswich and Moreton to Toowoomba into the south-west areas, 65 people died as a result of car crashes.
It was nine less than the year before.
“We’re still seeing that the Fatal Five is a contributing factor to our road fatalities,” Inspector Stephen Angus said.
“It is concerning that in this modern day and age we are still seeing avoidable fatalities.”
While fewer lives lost was positive to some degree, Insp Angus said there was more
room to improve and implored drivers to be safe on the roads.
The number of people injured in traffic crashes, and the number of crashes which led to hospitalisation in 2017 were down when compared to 2016.
High range drink drivers including a woman who was allegedly six times the legal limit in Toowoomba just before Christmas was “concerning”, he said, as well as the increase in the number of drug drivers.
“Police are always actively patrolling drink and drug drivers,” he said.