Road works are necessary, but can be risky business, whether you’re the worker operating machinery or holding a stop-slow sign, or the road user interacting with a temporarily altered space with additional hazards.
No two roadwork sites are the same. Filling a pothole in a suburban street is different to road widening on a country highway, and very different to the major roadworks being conducted through the Bunbury Outer Ring Road project. Each job site is meticulously planned to ensure the roadworks can be completed to a high standard, and workers and road users are kept safe in the process.
We’re putting the challenge out to all South West schools, workplaces, sporting associations, friends, family and individuals to think about road safety through the power of song and dance for a chance to win up to $500 in the TikTok Beat Drop challenge.
The Your MaP to a Healthy Lifestyle: Fuel Your Body campaign aims to increase awareness of heavy vehicle operators of the effects of nutrition, medication and other drugs on their mental and physical safety while driving.
Both medication and food can impact a driver’s alertness, vision and concentration behind the wheel. A range of factors can influence the eating behaviours of heavy vehicle operators, including irregular mealtimes, eating while driving, excessive caffeine intake and limited access to healthy food options.
Meanwhile, medication side effects can influence cognition, including reduce mental alertness, slow the central nervous system, blur vision, cause dizziness and reduce coordination. This
combination can put drivers at risk.
MaPS on our Roads provides information, tips, and resources for both heavy vehicle operators and the companies that employ them to enable them to make healthy choices at work.
Between 2015-2019, 1912 people were killed or seriously injured on 110kmh roads.
Around 24% of crashes resulting in death or serious injuries on rural roads are caused by excessive or inappropriate speeds to the conditions.
It’s easy to think there’s not much harm in pushing the speed limit.
But did you know the crash risk increases exponentially the faster you go?
For example, in a 60kmh zone, you’re twice as likely to have a serious crash by travelling 5kmh over the speed limit. Travelling at 70kmh increases the chance of crashing by 4 times and travelling at 80kmh increases this chance by 32 times.
Vehicle travel speeds affect both the risk of crash involvement and the severity of injury.
Research into the capacity of the human body to absorb crash energy has found less than 10% of pedestrians would die when struck by a vehicle travelling at 30kmh.
Compare this with fatality rates of 26 per cent at 40kmh and over 80 per cent at 50kmh.
Regardless of the posted speed limit, the risk of serious injury or fatality is greatly increased in the event of a head-on collision at speeds over 70kmh, and 50kmh in a side-impact collision.
Slowing down gives drivers more time to react to emergencies and greatly reduces the distance required to stop.
And if a collision cannot be avoided, the risk of serious injury or fatality is greatly reduced.
It’s easy to let the speed creep up when we’re in a hurry, thinking we’ll save some time and get to our destination faster.
But increasing speed doesn’t save as much time as many people think.
Let’s think about a 100km trip.
If we travelled at 20kmh, it would take 5 hours to get to our destination…are we there yet?
At 40kmh, we’d get there in half the time.
But at higher speeds, the benefit of pushing the limits gets less and less.
The difference between 110kmh and 120kmh is less than 5 minutes over a 100km trip.
It’s just not worth it. Slow down.
We’re seeking talented young artists to help spread the road safety message in our annual Road Safety Calendar Competition.
Children and youths of all ages are encouraged to enter, with categories for entrants up to 18 years of age.
Enter now! https://industryroadsafety.com.au/artwork-comp/
But hurry! Entries close on 25 September 2020. Terms and conditions apply.
Thanks to the Road Safety Commission, the Road Trauma Trust Account and the Minister of Road Safety.
Isn’t it time to slow down?
The Industry Road Safety Alliance South West has adapted a series of cognitive brain tests that aim to help drivers break this dangerous habit.
Drivers distracted by their phone can experience difficulty staying in their lane, slower reactions and braking and less awareness of their surroundings.
Texting or talking on the phone can reduce your field of vision and impair your ability to judge distances and gaps in traffic. Drivers can fail to see up to half of the things that they would have seen had they not been talking on the phone.
The odds of getting into a crash are four times higher when using a phone while driving, which is equivalent to the risk of driving at a blood alcohol level of 0.08.
And the odds of crashing while texting are eight times higher than driving without distraction.
In a 2017 review of more than 600 serious truck crash incidents where it was the insurer, National Transport Insurance found that in collisions involving fatalities, the truck was not at fault on 93 per cent of occasions.
More than half of major crash incidents occurred during 8am and 5pm when the roads were the busiest.
The report also found there was little or no emphasis on sharing the road safely with heavy vehicles in driver education or license assessments for new drivers across Australia.
Increased stopping distances for heavy vehicles, blind spots and challenges in manoeuvrability are just some of the issues truck drivers want road users to be more aware of.
Where you’re going? What route you’ll take? If
you’ll arrive on time?
What if you thought about the people you love
most instead?
Would you make better driving decisions?
#drivesafelyfortheonesyoulove
We’re seeking talented young artists to help spread the road safety message in our annual Road Safety Calendar Competition.
Children and youths of all ages are encouraged to enter, with categories for entrants up to 18 years of age.
Enter now! https://industryroadsafety.com.au/calendar-comp/
But hurry! Entries close on 25 September 2020. Terms and conditions apply.
Thanks to the Road Safety Commission, the Road Trauma Trust Account and the Minister of Road Safety.
While the messages around rail safety are simple, there are thousands of occasions of illegal and unsafe behaviour near rail crossings reported each year, putting many people in harm’s way.
The Industry Road Safety Alliance South West is joining with TrackSAFE to celebrate Rail Safety Week to improve education and community awareness around rail safety.
Around 142 P-plates are issued every day in Western Australia, equating more than 50,000 every year.
Whether you’re a novice driver yourself, a parent of a teen in the early years of their driving career, or just sharing the road, being aware of the risks young drivers face is something we can all relate to.
Young people are overrepresented in almost every road safety statistic.
Of all hospitalisations of young Australians, almost half are drivers involved in a road traffic crash and another quarter are passengers. 20 per cent of all people killed or seriously injured on WA roads are aged 17-24.
Across Australia, the biggest killer of young drivers is speeding and around 80 per cent of those killed are male.
Compared to more experienced drivers, P-platers are three times more likely to be injured in a crash if they have been drinking.
While inexperience is considered the primary reason, intentional and unintentional risk-taking also plays a role.
Excessive speeding, driving too close, using a mobile phone while driving, violating traffic rules and driving at night are among risky behaviours that are more common among young drivers.
Knowing a behaviour was risky did not stop some young drivers from engaging in that behaviour.
A common problem for some young people is their inability to evaluate the potential risks and consequences of everyday behaviour.
Young drivers can be over-confident about their driving ability and underestimate the dangers on the road.
Just as important as encouraging safe road use, is encouraging young drivers to consider cars that are not only safe for the driver, but for other road users as well.
If buying a car, check its safety rating on the ANCAP website or app. Cars with a five-star rating provide much better protection in the event of a crash, compared to those with a lower star rating.
For more information, head to www.industryroadsafety.com.au.
Motorists are urged to proudly slow down to reduce the risks of road trauma due to speeding with the hash tag “#snailedit”.
It’s no myth that lower speeds save lives. Despite years of warnings, education campaigns and police enforcement, speeding is still the major contributing factor towards death and serious injury on Western Australian roads.
Speed contributed to more than a third of all road fatalities in 2016, killing 65 people in Western Australia. There were a further 221 serious injuries in crashes where speeding was a factor.
It’s simple – the faster you travel, the less time you have to react to emergencies or to stop. And if you do crash, the faster you are travelling, even if within the speed limit, the greater the risk of injury to you and your passengers.
It’s tragic but true that road trauma is nearly as synonymous with Easter as chocolate eggs.
The Industry Road Safety Alliance South West is calling on all road users to commit to reducing road trauma in the South West at a Christmas Road Safety Launch being held in Collie in December.
The Hon. Michelle Roberts MLA, Minister for Police and Road Safety will be on hand to unveil the annual Road Ribbons for Road Safety campaign for the Alliance’s catchment, which aims to raise awareness of the importance of road safety over the Christmas and New Year holiday period.
The Alliance hopes the road safety message will continue to be on the daily agenda with the official launch a 2018 Road Safety Calendar that features artwork and photography submitted as part of a region-wide competition.
The Christmas Road Safety Launch is being held at 12pm, Tuesday, 5 December 2017 at the Town Square, opposite the Shire of Collie offices on Throssell Street in Collie.
We are seeking landscape-shaped artwork that will help us spread important road safety messages throughout our community. We are particularly interested in artwork linked to the four cornerstones of road safety – safe roads and roadsides, safe road users, safe speeds, or safe vehicles.
Winning artwork will be paired with key road safety messaging and feature in our 2018 Road Safety Calendar, which will be distributed throughout the community. The overall winner will feature on the front of the calendar and collect $500. Other winners will feature in the body of the calendar and collect $100 each. The selected artworks will be used in other road safety campaigns.
See Terms and Conditions for more information. To enter download and complete the flyer/entry form below, which can be lodged via email or post.
Vehicle safety measures have helped reduce the road toll. Vehicles are less likely to crash and if they do crash, safety features offer more protection for people involved.
But there is still room for improvement.
We must be aware of and know how to deal with if we are to keep ourselves and others safe.
• Road and roadside conditions vary – sealed/unsealed, marked/unmarked, well maintained/needing attention, cleared roadsides/uncleared roadsides, etc.
• Weather conditions vary – rain, flooding, fog, smoke, sunstrike, etc.
• Traffic conditions vary – vehicles ranging from large trucks to farm machinery, cars and motorcycles along with differing traffic volumes.
Please, drive to condition.
RoadWise, which is heading the campaign, has joined with the South West Youth Driver Development Program and Industry Road Safety Alliance South West in calling on all motorists to support the campaign by driving with their headlights on throughout Friday 12 May.
Driving is a complex mental and physical task that requires sustained concentration.
Being a safe driver or someone who believes they don’t need much sleep is not enough to protect you and others from the very real and serious dangers of fatigue behind the wheel.
The need for sleep is more powerful than you are!
Recognise and act on FATIGUE
Arrange a skipper or lift and don’t DRINK and DRIVE
Put away your phone and manage DISTRACTIONS
Enjoy the ride and don’t SPEED