By Gill Cooper
Nine people died on Geelong and the Surf Coast roads between July 2017 and June 2018 and 495 serious injury claims made in 2017 as a result of road trauma, according to the Traffic Accident Commission.
However the TAC’s annual report, tabled in State Parliament this week said $283 million spent on life-saving road safety infrastructure across the state in 2017/18 was already making a difference.
The TAC said it had achieved “record results in both the prevention of road trauma and in the support of people injured on Victorian roads” during the past financial year.
The report said the TAC’s work helped the number of lives lost on Victoria’s roads reach “its lowest recorded six-month total of 102 in the first half of 2018”.
TAC Chair Penny Armytage said this downward trend, “despite significant population and traffic growth, is extremely positive. However road trauma, particularly in country Victoria, remains a concern”.
“It is our unwavering conviction that one life lost is one too many and we will continue to strive to reduce road trauma in our state,” she said.
Ms Armytage said the TAC and its road safety partners had “reached new milestones in the roll out of flexible barriers, designed and tested to withstand the force of being hit by vehicles travelling at high speed, including trucks”.
“More than 3000km of infrastructure is now safeguarding stretches of the state’s most dangerous roads.”
This includes regional road safety works in Geelong and Surf Coast along 22km of the Great Ocean Road from Bellbrae to Anglesea costing VicRoads $12million; Geelong-Bacchus Marsh Road, from Geelong to Bacchus Marsh (41km) for $49.5m; Princes Highway West, from Little River to Corio (43km) for $12m; and Geelong Ring Road, from Corio to Waurn Ponds (28km) for $5.7m.
The works were all part of the Victorian Government’s $1.4 billion Towards Zero Road Safety Strategy and Action Plan.
The TAC’s annual reported stated that in 2017 safety barriers across the state were hit more than 1700 times with “each incident representing a potential life saved”.
“Flexible barriers have been proven to reduce the chances of head-on and run off road crashes by 85 per cent,” the report said.
“As part of the package of measures, an estimated 4150km of tactile line marking is also expected to be completed by mid-2019.”
Ms Armytage noted that significant investments in enhancing the support provided to its clients “to get their lives back on track was also paying dividends, with the highest ever client experience score recorded”.
Around 4266 clients returned to paid work – up from 3382 in 2016/17, the report said.
“It is extremely pleasing to see the TAC’s strong investments in both prevention and rehabilitation making a real difference to the Victorian community,” Ms Armytage said.
