Wednesday, 8 February 2023

Road safety

Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (17:32): (19) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Police and concerns one of the most difficult tasks Victoria Police officers face, namely dealing with serious and sometimes fatal road accidents. These incidents are not just tragic for those involved but harrowing too for the police and ambulance responders. It is therefore essential, surely, that we do everything possible to reduce their frequency, and I urge the minister to speak to his colleague the Minister for Roads and Road Safety about one way this may be done.

Victoria Police assistant commissioner, road policing command, Mr Glenn Weir recently stated on 3AW radio that his officers were ‘constantly’ alerting road authorities to the parlous condition of Victoria’s road network – no surprise there. He noted that ‘road conditions on our large road network are always something we look at’ and confirmed that serious and fatal accidents currently under investigation involved damaged road infrastructure. As I once said, potholes in our area are gone, we have now got craters to deal with. Teslas are absolutely out. You need four-wheel drive vehicles to negotiate the roads of rural Victoria. The action I seek from the minister is to provide a breakdown on the percentage of serious and fatal road accidents in Victoria where investigating officers identify road conditions as a contributing factor.