Can you do better than this cop? QLD to get creative our annual Road Safety Awareness Week
A top cop is urging Queenslanders to get creative for Road Safety Awareness Week, as frustrated police struggle to get through to drivers following yet another senseless death on our roads this weekend - taking our road toll to 161.
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This Road Safety Week, one of the state’s top cops is challenging Queenslanders to create a slogan worthy of halting 2020’s horrifically high road toll, as police voice frustrations for the senseless loss of life as the Sunshine State records 25 more deaths this year to date compared to the same time in 2019.
In a special campaign, 5 million Queenslanders are being put to good use as the Queensland Police Service, in partnership with the RACQ, invite everyone to do their part for road safety and help spruik important messaging to take care on our roads.
Police are beyond frustrated as a spike in our road toll has claimed the lives of 161 Queenslanders- a number that towers over the 136 lives lost on our roads in the same period last year.
Today, Assistant Commissioner Ben Marcus challenged the community to come up with a catchy safety slogan, as he blamed some road user’s inability to follow the law as reason for the strikingly high death toll.
“We have been standing in front of you for six years for Road Safety Week asking you to follow the rules, and unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be working as well as we thought it might, or as well as it could,” the Assistant Commissioner said.
“The really frustrating part is this: there is one set of rules (and) if every driver followed the same set of rules, vehicles cannot collide- they can’t.”
“So it’s incredibly frustrating, and ultimately it’s a momentary lapse. If you’re driving a vehicle at 100km/h in one direction and there’s another vehicle coming at 100km/h in the opposite direction, there’s literally only a small number of centimetres in it.
“A small lapse in concentration can have catastrophic consequences.”
In an attempt to engage and educate road users, this year’s campaign around road safety is encouraging Queenslanders to get online and spread important messages.
“One of the things that we’re hoping, (is that) among the 5 million Queenslanders, someone can come up with something better than we can,” Assistant Commissioner Marcus said.
“This is the type of sign that we would like people to produce. We’d like kids in schools, we’d like community groups, we’d like local governments- anybody that can come up with messages specific to their area- to try and get the message across that road safety is very serious. The impacts it has on lives is devastating.”
Assistant Commissioner Marcus said the restrictions imposed by COVID-19 were also causing a spike in the number of fatalities, as holidaying at home meant an increase in long distance road trips and visits to remote areas.
“The pattern for us now is don’t go interstate and don’t go overseas, so when people holiday now, it will be in Queensland,” Assistant Commissioner Marcus said.
“Whenever there’s a serious crash or as fatal crash, really there’s no distinction between the two. (However) if you have a serious crash right outside the doors of a hospital in Brisbane, your survivability is really very high. When you have the same crash in the outback, you’ve got some issues and struggles of getting through that.”
Frustratingly for police, some road users were disobeying very easy to follow road rules, such as wearing a seat belt and keeping off phones while driving.
Assistant Commissioner Marcus said police were at a loss as to why clear messaging was not getting through to some road users.
Of last year’s 219 lives lost on Queensland roads, 93 people died in crashes that involved drugs or alcohol, while 50 deaths involved speeding.
Even more shocking was the number of people who died as a direct result of not buckling up.
27 of the 219 lives lost in last year’s road crashes could ultimately have been saved, had the people involved been wearing a seatbelt.
“It takes two seconds to put a seatbelt on. We saw another very recent loss of life, no seatbelt- why? An otherwise survivable crash where a person has lost their life from not wearing a seatbelt,” Assistant Commissioner Marcus said.
“I don’t know why it is that people can’t put their phones down while they drive a car, or they can’t put their seatbelt on. The seatbelt does nothing other than keep you alive in an otherwise unsurvivable crash.”
Initial reports indicate that 18-year-old Tyreece Pilot, who died in this weekend’s Teewah Beach rollover, may not have been wearing a seatbelt.
The Assistant Commissioner could not comment on the open investigation, however confirmed the young Moreton Bay tradie had unfortunately been thrown outside the vehicle during the crash.
RACQ spokeswoman Lauren Ritchie said it was important to remember the road toll was not just a number, but a lifelong tragedy for the loved ones of those killed.
“We have to remind ourselves these aren’t just numbers, these are people, these are people whose families have been impacted for the rest of their lives. They’ve lost loved ones. And we all have a responsibility to play when it comes to road safety,” she said.
“The road toll is in very bad shape for 2020, especially given that COVID-19 restrictions has seen less traffic on the roads, yet we have seen more people die.
“Sign up to road safety, have a message for all the other drivers, all the other road users, about what you would like to see them do this Road Safety Week to keep us all safe.”
Assistant Commissioner Marcus said the challenge is now on for all Queenslanders to get involved and do their bit for road safety.
“If somebody else can come up with a slogan or something that gets through to people that we haven’t thought of in the last 50 years, we would really welcome that,” he said.
“Head to the StreetSmarts Queensland website and do your best. I’m sure you can do better than me.”
Head to the website and upload your sign to social media, for your chance to be featured on the Queensland Police Service and Department of Transport and Main Roads social media accounts.