P-platers and motorcyclists could face tougher restrictions to tackle road toll

A grieving father has fronted an emergency road safety summit convened by the state government aimed at slowing Western Australia’s soaring road toll.

Daniel Campo, whose 18-year-old son Nick died in a car crash in North Lake in July, met with the premier, police commissioner and industry leaders behind closed doors in Perth on Monday.

“It was nice to have the premier there to look him in the eye and make sure he’s going to honour his commitment that he’ll do whatever it takes, him and his government will do whatever it takes,” Campo said after the summit.

So far this year 122 people have been killed on WA roads, prompting suggestions from experts to tighten licensing restrictions on P-platers, heavy vehicle drivers and motorbike riders, reduce speed limits on regional roads at night and when it rains, as well as to introduce safety campaigns with “shock factor”.

“Is our advertising hard hitting enough to remind all West Australians, but especially young people, of the risks that can have severe consequences for themselves and for their friends and family?” Minister for Road Safety David Michael said.

“Young people are absolutely over-represented in the killed and serious injury data. But they’re not the only ones.

“We’ll look at the restrictions P-platers currently have on them, whether or not they need to be tightened up, whether we need to do more to ensure that, especially drivers who have just got their licence, drive with the least risk possible.”

The Road Safety Commissioner, RAC, WA Local Government Association and WA Centre for Road Safety were among the industry participants in the meeting.

“The state has existing targets that it’s signed up to and there’s a lot of discussion around are we on track to meeting them. At the moment we are not, so we need to think about doing things differently,” WA Local Government Association chief executive Nick Sloan said.

“The fact that you had the premier, the deputy premier, the minister for police and the minister for road safety there shows that the government is really serious … the next steps are really for the government to distil and consider all the information that was provided.”

Liberal leader Libby Mettam said the time for “talk-fests” was over.

“Roger Cook needs to focus more on addressing the road toll than other matters such as bringing [rock band] Oasis to Perth,” Mettam said.

“It starts with having more police on the road, and actually utilising the funds that are sitting there in the Road Trauma Trust Account.”

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