THE Victorian government needs to increase road safety campaigns in the media to educate drivers, Member for Northern Victoria Wendy Lovell says.
Ms Lovell said while “we all know the state of Victoria’s roads is disgraceful”, it wasn’t just the state of roads that led to the highest road toll in 15 years.
She yesterday told parliament that driver behaviour had severely declined in recent years, especially post-COVID.
Ms Lovell called on the Road Safety Minister Melissa Horne to increase campaigns in the media to educate drivers and called for increased maintenance of country roads.
“Road maintenance is the first step to ensuring that Victorians have safe roads to drive on, but as many communities who have suffered tragic losses will tell you, it isn’t enough, safer driving campaigns are essential to safety on our roads and I have called on the minister to increase both,” she said.
“Many previous TAC campaigns have been confronting but also effective and safety on the roads is not something we can tippy-toe around, the government must increase promotion of safer driving practices.”
The road toll, as of November 14, stood at 258, an increase of 45 on the same time last year.
Police said 59 per cent of those deaths happened on rural roads, with 18 deaths in four accidents in the Northern Victoria electorate.
