People who live, work and travel in the Wheatbelt region are being encouraged to play a key role in Western Australia’s first highway safety review.
Road Safety Minister Liza Harvey today launched an interactive mapping website enabling people to provide valuable information about their driving experiences on selected routes with higher than average crash numbers.
“We have a range of experts who are working together to come up with a holistic approach to road safety on these notorious highways, but we really want the input from the people who know these roads best - the locals who drive them every day,” Mrs Harvey said.
“Motorists who want to participate will be able use simple drag-and-drop tools to post vital information about traffic flow, near misses and driver behaviour.”
The Minister also issued an invitation to community members to attend a community forum at Merredin attended by experts from the State’s key road safety agencies.
“The forum will explore safety concerns in more detail and allow people to share their ideas on helping to reduce road trauma in the region,” she said.
Mrs Harvey said the Wheatbelt Highway Safety Review was focusing on 370km of the Great Eastern Highway and 44km of the Great Southern Highway (between Chidlow and York).
Toodyay Road has also been identified as a crash hot spot and is already the subject of an improvement program being delivered by Main Roads.
“When we have collected as much information as possible, we will be able to develop a strategy to improve safety on the routes that includes effective road safety engineering measures and behavioural and enforcement programs,” Mrs Harvey said.
After a number of near-fatal crashes in and around the Merredin area recently, the Merredin-Wheatbelt Mercury would like to once again remind people of Fairfax Media’s #ArriveAlive campaign.
After a terribly high death toll on WA roads in 2014, a large number of which occurred in the Wheatbelt and country areas, we are encouraging motorists to practice extra caution when driving to ensure they #ArriveAlive.
Follow this link to read more about our #ArriveAlive campaign and what we have been doing to help improve the WA road toll.
