By Gabriella Payne
A Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into the increased number of lives lost on our roads has released its findings recently, and is recommending the state government review speed limits on all rural and regional roads as a way to combat the issue.
The report, released on Thursday 25 March, stated that the Victorian government’s ‘towards zero’ campaign, which ran between 2016-2020, had set ambitious targets to reduce the number of lives lost per year to under 200, but unfortunately the target had not been met.
In 2019, 266 people tragically lost their lives on Victorian roads and the report found that instead of the state’s road toll reducing in recent years, it had rather “plateaued” – due to a number of reasons.
Enver Erdogan, the Chair of the inquiry, stated that “there is no silver bullet to fix the problem” and it would take “more hard work over a wide array of policy areas” to reduce the state’s road toll.
While lowering speed limits may help improve road safety for motorists and be a step in the right direction, opposition leaders are calling this a “band-aid solution” and stated that the government should be working to repair road surfaces rather than take the “lazy option” of reviewing speed limits.
The Shadow Minister for Rural Roads, Roma Britnell, said that Victoria’s country roads were in dire need of repair and simply lowering the speed limit wasn’t good enough.
“Years of neglect means our country roads are crumbling, yet the Andrews Labor Government’s answer is to lower the speed limit and say job done,” Ms Britnell said.
“It’s a lazy option and isn’t the way to fix the safety issues on our roads,” she said.
But Jordan Crugnale MP, the Member for Bass, said that “Victoria is proud to be a pioneer in road safety” and the government would continue to work hard to find a way to save lives on our roads.
“We’re always working hard to prevent the heartbreak of a loved one not making it home but tragically, road trauma continues to take a devastating toll on hundreds of families each year,” Ms Crugnale said.
“We moved quickly to tackle the rising number of lives lost on our roads in 2019 and since then we have launched Victoria’s Road Safety Strategy 2021-2030, based on extensive research, analysis and collaboration.”
Ms Crugnale said that the state government would take the inquiry’s report into consideration moving forward and would use all the tools at their disposal to improve road safety, including enforcement, policy, innovation and technology, infrastructure, public information campaigns and education programs.
“We know our work will not be finished until no lives are lost on our roads and will carefully consider the recommendations of this report,” she said.
