By Dongyun Kwon
On Monday 16 September, Yarra Valley Racing was crowded with people who were concerned about the road safety across the Yarra Ranges.
As Yarra Ranges is one of the high-risk police service areas associated with road trauma, Victoria Police hosted the forum to discuss road policing and road safety based on the statistics as well as to answer the questions raised by the community members.
Victoria Police Acting Senior Sergeant Laureina Everett said Yarra Ranges is one of the top three areas for serious injury and fatal collisions in the state.
“From our point of view as police, we want to speak to the community, engage with them and let them know what we’re doing in terms of road trauma, as well as getting the community to have their input about any issues that they’ve identified so that we can address them and listen to their ideas and facts,” she said.
The forum started with road trauma statistics presentation.
About 50 people attended the forum including emergency services members, police officers, representatives from Yarra Ranges Council and the Department of Transport and Planning along with local politicians.
Eildon MP Cindy McLeish said she attended the forum as roads are one of the biggest issues in her electorate.
“People are worried about the condition of the roads, the way people drive the roads and the policing on the roads,” she said.
“It’s really important to give this opportunity to community members, it’s really good to see all of the emergency services here as well because they are the first responders to accidents.”
Ms McLeish is worried about the State Government’s road policy as she claimed the government only focuses on the roads in the city and big suburbs.
“The State Government is broke, and they have so much responsibility for so many of the roads,” she said.
“My voice is to say you can’t put all your eggs in baskets in the city, in the big suburban projects, roads and rail projects, and ignore country roads.”
Yarra Ranges Council (YRC) has an internal maintenance team and contractors, who assist the council, to keep their roads up to scratch.
YRC infrastructure services manager Kim O’Connor said the council finds the community feedback in relation to the roads and conditions is important.
“Council has a large road network of approximately 1950km of sealed and unsealed roads, which we manage in line with our Road Management Plan and Asset Plan,” he said.
“Council has a maintenance budget of $22 million, and while we proactively inspect our large road network to ensure it’s efficiently maintained, we also encourage residents to report issues they come across, such as potholes, so that we can investigate and repair as soon as possible.”
Evelyn MP Bridget Vallence also attended the forum.
Ms Vallence said the forum was important because there’s been an increase in the number of road trauma incidents and an increase in the number of deaths.
“Everyone should be able to get home safely, but, unfortunately, we had a record number of deaths on our roads last year,” she said.
“I wanted to come to make sure I support our emergency first responders who all contribute and help when it comes to tackling this real challenge.
“As a local MP, many people have contacted me about dangerous roads whether that be on Warburton Highway, Maroondah Highway or Melba Highway, even some of the smaller roads like Clegg Road in Wandin, and I’ve raised them in Parliament many times and written to the roads minister urging for action and allocating funding to fix these dangerous roads because that will go some way to helping reduce trauma on our local roads in the Yarra Ranges.”
After the presentation by Victoria Police, Yarra Ranges Council and the Department of Transport and Planning, the attendees had a chance to ask their questions.
The panel, made up of the Eastern Region police officers, answered those questions.
Toolangi resident Adam Fletcher attended the forum to discuss two issues; potholes and tailgating.
Mr Fletcher said the forum covered the issues he wanted to hear about.
“I’ve just noticed, in general, drivers have become more dangerous with speeding in the last few years. There are a lot more large vehicles,” he said.
“I’ve reported four instances of serious tailgating to the police.
“I think education is key to solving these issues.”
After the forum, the attendees had time to approach any police officers to chat further.
Sgt Everett said road safety is everyone’s responsibility, not just Victoria Police’s.
“Throughout the event, we discussed all statistics in terms of serious injury and fatal collisions in the Yarra Ranges area, what local policing operations we’re doing to address this and also encouraging the community to report unethical driver behaviour, because they are our eyes and ears out on the road,” she said.
“So if they can feed that information back to us, then we can target and investigate and hold those road users accountable.
“We really encourage the community to make sure that they’re playing their part, their cars are registered and roadworthy, they have a driver’s licence, they’re driving to the conditions, and they’re not substance affected while they’re driving, they’re not being distracted by using their phones.”
