General News
5 January, 2023
One life lost on Central Goldfields Shire roads in 2022 as regional road toll rises
With one fatal crash recorded in the Central Goldfields Shire last year, drivers are being advised to exercise caution on regional roads — with a single incident enough to significantly impact the community, police say. After achieving zero...
With one fatal crash recorded in the Central Goldfields Shire last year, drivers are being advised to exercise caution on regional roads — with a single incident enough to significantly impact the community, police say.
After achieving zero fatalities in 2021, the road toll in the Central Goldfields went up by one after a tragic accident occurred in Talbot mid-last year, involving a head-on collision which killed 65-year-old Avoca resident Ian Hoyland.
An increase in road trauma was also noted across Victoria, according to data released by the Transport Accident Commission (TAC), stating that 240 people had lost their lives in the state in 2022, going up from 233 deaths in 2021.
While deaths on metro roads dropped, the numbers in 2022 were exacerbated due to a high percentage of incidents taking place on regional roads — with 134 people dying in country areas compared with 119 in 2021.
Despite the rise in deaths in the Central Goldfields from 2021, the total fatalities are still lower than the deaths recorded in 2019 and 2020 with two and three lives lost respectively.
Central Goldfields Highway Patrol Acting Sergeant Paul Schroeder said this sustained decrease could be attributed to changes in road conditions after many were damaged due to the recent flood events.
“A decrease in the road toll over the years is a combination of factors but this time around I think the road conditions have made an impact. Over the last several months they have certainly changed the way people drive,” he said.
“The condition of the road tends to lead people to drive a little bit slower because of potential risk to them and damage to their vehicles.
“I think that you’re seeing a lot of people actually taking a lot more care because they don’t want to hit potholes.”
The pandemic and changes in driver behaviour have also contributed to the overall decline according to Act Sgt Schroeder.
“COVID played a big part in 2021, impacting the type of travel and how much people were travelling, it naturally affected road trauma,” he said.
“I also think people are tending to stay within their local areas a lot more. People aren’t travelling as much as they used to. I also think that they are more aware of what’s going on around them.
“We’re also detecting less high-speed driving. The people are sort of in the 10 to 25 speeding bracket, but there’s not a huge amount of speeders in that 25 plus bracket.”
While a drop in numbers is encouraging, a single fatality can cause a stir in the community — leaving residents heartbroken.
“Anytime you have local people involved in these types of accidents, it, I think, brings home very clearly to people that these types of incidents have far reaching impacts,” Act Sgt Schroeder said.
“It’s something that ends up touching a lot of people within the community, not just the direct family.
“When it’s just a statistic that you see on the news, it’s something that people tend to ignore, but when it’s someone that they actually know, it probably has more of an impact. And people realise how, unfortunately, quickly these things can occur.”
Within the wider Goldfields Police Service Area (PSA), which covers Central Goldfields, Mount Alexander and Loddon shires, communities were impacted with four fatalities in total — lower by one compared to five in 2021.
These incidents include one in November when a female driver was killed after her car crashed into a tree at an intersection in Redesdale.
Another accident involved the tragic death of a teen pedestrian after she was hit by a car in Salisbury West, close to Inglewood.
In the Pyrenees Shire, sadly a second resident from Avoca lost his life in August following a collision between his car and a truck along Sunraysia Highway at Lamplough.
Act Sgt Schroeder said these incidents highlighted the need for all drivers to be careful on the road — since it could save a life.
“The main message is to drive to the conditions. If it means that you have to leave a bit earlier, so you’re going a bit slower, or you have to take a different way of getting there — do it,” he said.
“Don’t be in a rush to get to your destination and think about the conditions you need to adapt to. It can be weather or traffic, just worry about the drive and not the time you need to get to the destination.
“When people are in a rush that’s when things tend to do badly.”