Safety message re-enforced after road toll spike

CONCERNS around driver behaviours on the regions roads are running high after recent road traumas in Mansfield and Goornong resulted in fatalities.

Current data from the Transport Accident Commission or TAC, shows an increase in fatal road traumas, with seven in Greater Bendigo contributing to a statewide total of 258 this year to date.

Sergeant Geoff Annand from Bendigo Highway Patrol said a lot of the collisions he sees in the region are due to lapses in drivers’ concentration.

“If you drill down into most accidents, they may have disobeyed a sign, but what were they doing to not see the sign?” Sergeant Annand said.

“What other things were they thinking about whilst they’re supposed to be concentrating on their driving?

“It’s across the board, it’s been happening for the 20 years that I’ve been here in the highway patrol,” he said.

Poor concentration can be attributed to many factors including phones, fatigue, distracting passengers, daydreaming or thinking about other things such as work, and myriad other distractions.

Sergeant Annand said concentration is difficult to police, but there are some signs they look out for.

“We might see a car wandering in and out of its lane or across the fog line and that is a reasonable indication of lack of concentration which could be distraction or fatigue,” he said.

These behaviours, and other indicators such as driving under the speed limit, are cause for highway patrol to pull drivers over.

“We often get reports from members of the public about somebody drifting in the lanes and the like, so they’ll come through as a triple zero call and the nearest police car will look for the vehicle,” he said.

In addition to calling triple zero, Sergeant Annand said drivers can do more to help monitor dangerous driving behaviours.

“You as a driver, you might give them a quick toot or a wave, that might be enough to wake them up to what they’re doing,” he said.

As was the case in last weeks’ road trauma Sergeant Annand said drivers are sometimes caught up in incidents that aren’t their fault, and the takeaway should be for drivers to stay alert while driving.

“If drivers drive to the conditions and if drivers are alert, they may be able to avoid becoming part of the statistic,” he said.