With summer holidays almost over and families heading back home to prepare for the start of the school year later this week, Victorian roads are going to be even busier in coming days.

Let us hope that all motorists heed the road rules and make it home safe. Adherence to the laws by all road users is really the only answer if the rise in Victoria’s tragic death toll is to be capped.

Already in the first weeks of 2012, 25 people have been killed on Victorian roads, 10 more than for the same time last year.

Unless motorists take stock of their driving habits, unfortunately this carnage will continue.

The saturation among regional and rural newspapers, including The Courier, of the Talk the Toll Down campaign in recent months is highlighting the seriousness of the problem. But still the toll keeps climbing.

Some people have called for an increase in police presence on our roads. Others have called for police pursuits to be cancelled, particularly in the wake of the death of 26-year-old Miners Rest man Jason Govan, an innocent man who was killed last weekend in a head-on crash at Gippsland following a police pursuit of another vehicle.

Increasing the number of officers patrolling our roads or reviewing the policies surrounding pursuits is not the answer to lowering the road toll. The responsibility for bringing down the toll is with road users.

If speeding drivers slowed down, if drunk/drugged drivers stayed off our roads, if people stopped using hand-held mobiles while driving, if drowsy drivers stopped for a nap, if people took more care on our roads, the death toll would drop significantly.

It would be ambitious to say that no death would occur as a result of better behaviour. Sometimes, accidents are just that ... an accident.

But it many cases there is a contributing factor or factors, like speed or alcohol.

It is easy to blame a lack of police presence on our roads or the fact that an accident resulted after a police pursuit, when, in fact, the police are just doing their job.

The ones who should really be shouldering the blame are the drivers.