Police and a personal injuries lawyer have lined up in support of La Trobe University’s plan to create a regional road trauma hub at its Bendigo campus, arguing a different way of thinking about driving behaviours was needed to better prevention.
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The university plans to combine pre-existing expertise at the university – from paramedicine to law – with senior researchers to develop a greater understanding of how and why crashes occur in a regional setting.
Senior Sergeant Ian Brooks of Bendigo Highway Patrol said enforcement messages were “not getting through” to a minority of road users.
Senior Sergeant Brooks said attitudinal change was required and the community had to take greater ownership of the problem.
“Five per cent of the state's total road trauma, which includes people seriously injured, is accountable to central Victoria’s Highway Patrol Division,” he said.
"Our community should be outraged we contribute five per cent of the road trauma in central Victoria.
"If as many people were dying from something else there would be a public outcry.”
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Over the past three months, no one has died on central Victorian roads due to driver behaviour, Senior Sergeant Brooks said.
"If we can do it for three months, why can't we do it for 12," he said.
He said he noticed attitudes toward road safety change a few years ago when central Victoria's road toll went from 24 to 13 the following year.
"I noticed it when we had a really really low road toll. Nobody noticed it. It drove home to me nobody really cared," he said.
Senior Sergeant Brooks said he welcomed any initiative that aimed to save lives on the road.
Personal injuries lawyer John McPherson said the over-representation of regional drivers in road death and trauma statistics was obvious to anyone with an interest in the field, and warranted further investigation.
"For example, single vehicle incidents from kangaroo collisions are something we see in increasing numbers of recent times," he said.
"This is just one example of a problem far more likely encountered by a regional driver than someone whose driving is confined to Melbourne and the suburbs".
Mr McPherson said since its inception in 1987, the Transport Accident Commission has been focused on compensation for people injured in motor vehicle crashes, and spending money on prevention, including research funding.
He said he hoped the The Rural Road Trauma Research Hub could secure support from the TAC.
"One of the perversities of greater safety features in cars is that people are now less likely to die in motor vehicle crashes, and the road toll is obviously significantly down over recent decades. However, people who survive what once would have been fatal car crashes are often left with very profound permanent injuries, causing great loss to those individuals and their communities," Mr McPherson said.
“Injury prevention and reduction is as much a goal of road safety entities as is lessening the number of road deaths.”
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