Police have praised drivers throughout the Ballarat region over the new year period after only one major incident was attended at the weekend.
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The crash occurred on Saturday night when a man rolled a four-wheel-drive near Meredith.
The man lost control of the vehicle on the Midland Highway at around 9.30pm and was airlifted to Melbourne.
Another two male passengers were taken to hospital in Ballarat with minor injuries.
Acting Sergeant Craig Walker said while the danger period was not yet over, police were pleased with the small figure.
“There’s a lot of traffic on the road over the Christmas period and with that increase it’s been a fairly good result within the Ballarat region,” Acting Sergeant Walker said.
Acting Sergeant Walker also praised drivers for heeding drug and alcohol warnings over the course of the weekend.
A booze bus set up on Saturday conducted more than 600 random breath tests where no drivers were recorded exceeding the blood alcohol limit. One driver was caught driving under the influence of drugs.
“That was an average amount of breath tests to conduct and it’s quite positive to get such a low amount of offenders,” Acting Sergeant Walker said.
The positive weekend comes on the back of the region’s worst road toll in 20 years, with 21 fatalities recorded across the Ballarat, Moorabool, Hepburn and Pyrnees government areas in 2016.
The alarming figure represents a jump of more than four times the 2015 toll.
“It is alarming and disturbing,” Senior Sergeant Pat Cleary said of the spike in fatalities. The toll in this region has never been this bad, he said.
The spike in the Ballarat region coincided with what has been a disastrous year on the roads across the state, with 291 fatalities recorded. The figure is 39 more than the 2015 toll.
On Sunday Minister for Roads and Road Safety Luke Donnellan vowed to make 2017 “Victoria’s year of action against road fatalities”, pledging $1.2 billion in infrastructure spending as part of the Towards Zero Action Plan.
"There will never be an acceptable number of deaths on our roads,” Mr Donnellan said.
“Country Victorians will start to see more flexible road side barriers as we continue to make rural roads safer where nearly half Victorian road fatalities happen.”
