Police vigilant on roads
Police will continue to drive home road safety messages this year, following the highest road toll in three years which showed the majority of fatalities occurring on regional roads.
The Baw Baw police services area was not exempt from the road toll, with four fatalities recorded.
Baw Baw highway patrol acting sergeant Grant Phillips said four fatalities was four too many.
Acting Sgt Phillips said police would not be letting down their guard and will remain vigilant in policing local roads this year.
He said it was not just about fatality statistics, but also the many drivers and passengers impacted each year by life changing injuries in serious injury collisions.
Acting Sgt Phillips said speed, alcohol, drugs, fatigue and distraction continued to be the five key contributors to the road toll.
“We will continue to be vigilant and not give up the fight against road trauma. It affects so many people in the community, there is a ripple effect.
“People are still speeding. It is a small percentage of people that are breaking the law but the ones that do are doing high speeds and often involve alcohol and drugs,” he said.
Acting Sgt Phillips said while speeding offences were a concern along the freeway, mobile phone distraction was the major issue on local roads.
He said police also continued to focus efforts on drink driving and drug testing.
For the Baw Baw psa, there were four fatalities in 2019 – a motorcyclist in Trafalgar, a single vehicle collision in Westernport Rd, near Ripplebrook and a double fatality near the Thomson Dam.
Road trauma data released by the TAC last week showed the majority of the 146 deaths on regional roads last year were people driving in their local area.
Victoria encountered its highest road toll in three years, with 263 fatalities.
Across regional Victoria, 73 per cent of deaths were people driving in their local region with run-off-road and head-on crashes resulting in 94 fatalities while 101 people were killed in high-speed zones.
Fatal crashes were up across every road user group, including drivers and passengers as well as pedestrians and motorcyclists.
Speeding, driving while under the influence of alcohol or drugs, fatigue and not wearing seatbelts were common contributing factors in the increased road toll.
In 22 per cent of accidents, speed was a factor while around one in five crashes were attributed to fatigue or distraction, such as using a mobile phone.
Acting Roads and Road Safety Minister Jacinta Allan said the state government would continue its unprecedented investment into roadsafety infrastructure – more than 340 kilometres of safety barriers will be rolled out in addition to the 2300 kilometres already installed on highrisk roads, to help prevent head-on and run-off road crashed.
She said the total number of crashes resulting in deaths and serious injuries on roads with safety barriers had almost halved since works began.
Ms Allan said during 2019, barriers across the state were hit 3307 times – representing thousands of potential serious or fatal crashes avoided.
Acting Sgt Phillips said statistics supported that barriers were saving lives.
He said there were a lot of different opinions about their effectiveness, but the statistics showed barriers, like seatbelts were helping to save lives.