A future where no serious road injuries or fatalities occur is possible if authorities invest in developing safe, young drivers the TAC’s chief officer says.
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A yet-to-be developed Road Safety Education Complex based at the Melbourne Museum will travel to regional locations as part of the $146 million Young Driver Safety Package.
TAC chief executive Joe Calafiore said the complex would feature the latest in visual and digital technology.
This would help students and the wider community understand their own vulnerability and the choices they need to make to stay safe on the roads.
While roads minister Luke Donnellan said regional students would benefit from the initiative he said an exact plan of how and where the regional tours would be based had not yet been formulated.
“This complex is about delivering to the community safer, more rational young drivers who make better decisions,” Mr Donnellan said.
City of Ballarat road safety committee leader Councillor Des Hudson said any investment in further training and education based around road safety for young people would be extremely valuable.
The announcement comes as road authorities say infrastructure and safer are the answer to driving down the road toll.
The complex will illustrate new technology and thinking that will help Victoria achieve its Towards Zero vision, including driverless vehicle technology and cutting edge safe road infrastructure.
“(We need to) give young people a virtual experience of the dangers of a car and dangers of making wrong decision and the benefits of making the right decisions,” Mr Donnellan said.
Danish road safety expert Jesper Solund said encouraging governments to invest in road safety programs aimed at primary school aged students was challenging, primarily because it was difficult to measure the success of the programs.
He said Denmark engaged children in primary school by training young people affected by the road toll.
“We trained these victims, they are educated in road safety and go out and meet the high risk groups in schools,” Mr Solund said.
Cr Hudson said young people needed understand that gaining a driver’s license did not make them faultless drivers.
“You don’t suddenly become a great driver overnight. (All drivers) still need to build on their skills, risk assessment and ability to read traffic,” Cr Hudson said.
“There’s an opportunity for (council) and we will have discussions in coming weeks and months regarding Fit to Drive and other programs and whether we can sponsor them to ensure all year 11 and 12 students get access to (these) programs.”