A new alliance has formed between key community stakeholders to address and tackle death and serious injury on wheatbelt roads.
Police, state and local government and private industry will take a strategic approach to road safety issues along Great Eastern Highway, through implementation of initiatives outlined in the State Government’s road safety strategy – Towards Zero 2008-2020.
An official launch was held for the Great Eastern Highway Road Safety Alliance last Thursday at the Northam Recreation Centre.
Road Safety commissioner Kim Papalia attended the launch.
“We’ve had a tragic year on regional roads in WA, including the wheatbelt and Great Eastern Hwy,” said Mr Papalia.
“So far in 2016, 25 people have been killed on Wheatbelt roads, three of those deaths have occurred along Great Eastern Highway.
“The objective of the alliance is to generate and implement road safety initiatives to reduce road trauma in this region.”
The inaugural meeting had a presentation from Main Roads WA on road statistics for the region, as well as an overview of road safety campaigns and initiatives implemented by other alliances around the State.
Central Wheatbelt MLA Mia Davies also attended the event and said the cooperative approach would help combat the “unacceptably high road toll” in the wheatbelt region, and assist towards eliminating death and serious injury resulting from local crashes.
“Data was presented at the meeting to suggest that while 25 per cent of accidents were fatigue related, there was no real pattern or common cause relating to the serious injury and deaths on the highway,” she said.
“However, there were contributing factors of excessive speed, alcohol and non-use of seatbelts in a number of incidents.”
“It was agreed there is no silver bullet to resolve this for our region. "It must be a multi-faceted approach and the group agreed it needed to be led from the grassroots using people from the community to assist in delivering the message.”
The State government also allocated $7.8 million in the 2016/17 budget to carry out road safety improvements in the wheatbelt.
As a response to the alliance, the Shire of Northam RoadWise Committee has applied for grant funding to the Road Safety Commission for a road safety campaign in 2017/18 concentrating on the key issues of drink-driving, distraction and fatigue.
