August 23, 2019
Queensland Road Safety Week is kicking off on Monday with plenty of safety slogans about to hit the media … but Kingaroy Police have a simple message: “Make safety your priority”.
Office-in-charge of Kingaroy Police, Senior Sergeant Dave Tierney, pleaded for drivers not to just think about themselves.
“Don’t be selfish. You’re not just driving for yourself. You’re driving for the other people on the road as well as the other occupants in your car,” he said.
“Be courteous. Be patient.
“It won’t matter if it takes a few more minutes to get there.”
Snr Sgt Tierney shared some sobering statistics:
- In 2018, 245 people died on Queensland roads; 65 per cent of these deaths occurred on rural roads and 75 per cent were male.
- Of the 155 deaths on rural roads, 50 per cent were single-vehicle rollovers.
- In half of the crashes, only the driver died.
- Motorcycle riders made up 17 per cent of deaths. The remaining 33 per cent were either passengers or pedestrians.
- A quarter of the road deaths occurred in the Southern Region, the police area which includes the South Burnett.
- The majority of these crashes were either drug or alcohol-related while 25 per cent were caused by fatigue; 80 per cent occurred on rural roads and 70 per cent of fatalities were men.
Snr Sgt Tierney said the number of fatal crashes across Queensland was flattening but the number of serious incidents – in which a person was seriously injured and often disabled for life – was growing exponentially.
These injury crashes were not only disastrous for the person concerned and their families, it also put enormous pressure on other services.
The State Government has launched a StreetSmarts campaign in conjunction with Road Safety Week.
Each day will have a different focus: Drivers, Pedestrians, Heavy Vehicles, Bicycles and Motorcycles.
There is more information available on the StreetSmarts website as well as information about various neuroscience experiments drivers can do to stop speeding.
