DRIVE A2B March 2018

ROAD SAFETY
Road crashes greatest in
RURAL AREAS
Run-off-road crashes remain the
single biggest cause of deaths on
Victoria’s country roads, with all
regions recording more deaths
from this crash type than any
other.
The new road trauma data
released in January 2018 shows
that of the 155 people who died on
Victoria’s rural roads last year, 109
were involved in a crash where a
vehicle left its lane, with 72 lives
lost in single-vehicle crashes
on the roadside, and 37 deaths
resulting from a head-on collision.
Regional Victoria remains
tragically over-represented in the
number of lives lost on Victorian
roads.
The number of people killed on
rural roads increased by five in
2017, from 150 to 155, while
Victoria’s overall lives lost figure
dipped from 290 in 2016 to 257
last year.
It’s not only fatalities that are overrepresented
in country areas, one
in five people seriously injured are
on high-speed regional roads.
The Victorian Government is
installing more than 2000km of
flexible safety barriers, which have
been proven to reduce run-offroad
and head-on crashes by as
much as 85 per cent.
Minister for Roads and Road
Safety Luke Donnellan says, “We’re
investing in the things we know
save lives on country roads, rolling
out more than 2,000 kilometres of
flexible safety barriers, thousands
of kilometres of rumble strips as
well as new turning and overtaking
lanes”.
14 DRIVE A2B magazine · March 2018