A LIMESTONE Coast road safety leader has made a plea to members of the community to get to their destination safely this long weekend following a horror start to the year on the roads.
With eight fatalities in the local service area in 2019 compared to five at the same time last year, Limestone Coast Local Government Association road safety officer Ali Auld said people must start listening to the ongoing safety messages.
“Complacency is certainly seems to be a big part of it because a lot of these accidents are on roads that people travel on all the time,” Ms Auld said.
“We need to be looking out for each other on the road, start listening to the road safety messages and take responsibility for our own actions.”
As a high volume of cars are expected to hit the region’s roads this weekend, Ms Auld said now is a good time to start thinking about your driver behaviour.
“You need to understand there is going to be more people on the roads, so plan ahead, slow down and be a bit more realistic about your travel times,” Ms Auld said.
“Do not be rushed this weekend, if it takes you a little bit longer to get where you are going that’s far better than not getting there at all.”
Police have become increasingly concerned with the state’s road toll, which now stands at 53 compared to 35 at the same time last year.
While 2018 was well-documented as a record low road toll for South Australia, Ms Auld was quick to point out that those figures are not necessarily consistent in the Limestone Coast.
She said statistics suggested poor driver behaviour had not improved at all during the past four years.
“In past years up until this point in June in the Limestone Coast we have seen one fatality in 2016, three in 2017, five in 2018 and now eight in 2019,” Ms Auld said.
“It is obviously a concerning rise and comes back to that point of making sure you take responsibility for your own actions to ensure you are not involved in a tragedy.”
Ms Auld said recent statistics released by the RAA showed over 70pc of crashes are now being attributed to distraction.
“Remain focused, concentrate on the road and put your phone away,” she said.
“Some of those messages are clearly not getting through, we just have to make that pledge to ourselves that we will not let those external distractions to creep into our driving behaviour.”
Limestone Coast Police acting officer in charge Operations Inspector Campbell Hill said the community can expect the police to be out in force this weekend.
“Leading into the long weekend, we focus a lot of our resources onto pure traffic policing,” he said.
“We will have patrols and officers tasked specifically with a road safety focus, so people can expect to see an increased presence on the road.
“People who choose to drink and drug drive, speed or exhibit poor and dangerous driving, they can expect to face the consequences of those behaviours.”
