Six meetings are scheduled for five regional centres where locals are expected to raise concerns about several serious crashes on country roads.

The meetings are also expected to hear residents' beliefs that Melbourne gets the bulk of roads funding. 

VicRoads says it wants to hear from "as many country Victorians as possible" about how it can better plan, build, manage and maintain the 19,000 kilometres of country arterial roads it manages.

The roads authority is certain to receive plenty of stern advice given the concerns about road maintenance, the need for a safe road network, and the fact public transport is limited in regional areas.

Recent meetings in south-west Victoria will be followed by "drop-in" sessions across Victoria, mainly in Gippsland and the North East. 

The listening tour comes as lobby groups such as the RACV highlight deficiencies in the state's road network. It also comes at a time when police hold serious concerns about the country road toll, with two out of three roads deaths this year having occurred in rural Victoria.

Country roads are both a financially expensive, and politically sensitive topic. The recent state budget allocated $556 million to "double road maintenance investment, upgrade more bridges and construct new bypasses", according to VicRoads literature highlighting the upcoming meetings.

VicRoads chief executive John Merritt said country Victorians had "a huge interest" in the state of their roads.

"There's just a lot of value to us in getting input from road users into how we spend the money and the work that we do," he said.

"We just get so much out of it really, hearing from for example freight operators is really powerful, hearing from tourism operators now - where the visitation economy is just such an important part of the Victorian economy. And for most of our visitors, they're travelling by road to get to these areas. And just getting some insight into some of the challenges," he said.

Mr Merritt said the meetings would give VicRoads staff a chance to listen to concerns.

"We haven't historically done enough to explain how the roads are built, what might cause them to fail, what it takes to repair them, why we do work in some seasons and not others, why we have to do temporary works," he said.

RACV roads and traffic manager Dave Jones said the motoring organisation had investigated Victoria's country highways and "found them to be in an unacceptable condition, posing a serious risk to public safety. RACV estimates that $1.2 billion is needed over four years, just to fix the worst roads".

RACV research had found that more than one third of regional Victorians were "dissatisfied with how VicRoads manages their road network. RACV believes it is clear that an improvement in the condition and safety of our roads is now critical for Victorians," he said.

Victorian Farmers Federation president David Jochinke said there was a feeling in country Victoria "that all road money gets spent in Melbourne, and that rural and regional areas get left behind".

He also said: "It's good that they're facing the music in some ways, that they're getting out there to listen. However, it does also indicate to me that they realise there are issues out there."

10 Victorian country highways in need of attention, according to the RACV:

Source: RACV