Former Road Safety Advisory Board committee member Donald Gibb said the countries with the lowest road tolls in the world were far better at engaging communities with road safety messages at a local level than Victoria. 

“If we can get volunteer community groups to action (road safety ideas) at a local level this could provide a very valuable input in terms of localising the issues as they range from the regional areas to the highly populated metropolitan areas,” Mr Gibb said. 

Mr Gibb will be instrumental in bringing Danish Road Safety Council expert Jesper Solund to the state. Mr Solund will share Denmark’s success in halving its road toll with Ballarat councillors and experts in March.

Mr Solund said Denmark had learnt a great deal from Victoria’s road safety vision and had successfully replicated the confronting Wipe Off Five and Drink, Drive Bloody Idiot campaigns. 

He said a key element of the Danish success story was the involvement of community groups that helped develop relevant road safety campaigns around the issues surrounding areas.

He said 77 of the country’s 98 municipalities had a specific safety while 84 had education program in school. Municipalities are also urged to develop their own advertising campaigns. 

“The missing link is community involvement and that’s one of the strengths in my experienced of the Nordic countries and the UK,” Mr Gibb said.

Mr 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. 

Road safety campaigner John Maher’s, whose daughter Carmen was killed when she fell asleep at the wheel and struck a tree more than 20 years ago, said Victoria should take Denmark’s lead in training up victims of road trauma to share their stories.

The veteran presenter says many schools struggle to afford to hire private presenters.

He said it would beneficial for road trauma survivors to be trained by road safety messages to deliver their own stories along with appropriate and consistent safety message. 

“I really think the government has an obligation to support people who share this message – to those can deliver and will support the road safety message,” Mr Maher said.

Victoria is moving towards community-driven messages with the 2016 launch of the TAC Green Man Grants Program.

The program encourages young people to come up with the a campaign to reduce the troubling number of young road fatalities by tackling a theme related to vehicle safety, human vulnerability on the roads or the collective responsibility of motorists to ensure roads remain safe.  

Successful campaign entries will receive up to $50,000 to develop their idea further with the help of an industry mentor.

“The green man grants are a new way for us to engage with young people on road safety,” TAC road safety manager Elizabeth Waller said.

“It’s a consistent way to support road safety and Towards Zero. Young people are really receptive with messages from their peers and it’s really important for them to identify how they can make a difference.

“It’s also about speaking up, role modelling and taking the lead.”

Ballarat City Council Mayor Samantha McIntosh said council needed to play a vital role in educating and engaging young people with road safety messages. 

“It is important for us a city to continue learning,” Cr McIntosh said.

“People stories always impact. When you have somebody close that has been injured that has to live with the consequences of the accident … that is going to have impact.

“That is going to tell a big story … with their life experience you know people will take note.

“We also know that that is not enough on its own … we need to look at other mechanisms as well it is not just about telling stories.

“We need to be looking at what we can do in terms of the production of vehicles and productions of safety mechanisms.”

She listed  city’s 40 km/h CBD speed limits as a key achievement of council’s and said she hoped to share its success with Denmark.

Much of the TAC's public education program is targeted at young male road users because research shows us that this demographic is particularly vulnerable to road trauma, road safety manager Samantha Buckis said.

“This is due to their increased propensity to take risks and the fact that they are often driving older cars with limited safety features,” she said.

Mr Gibb has urged councils to be innovative and use their power to engage local people.

“It’s got to come from a local level. (In council areas) it is a close community. It is easy to assemble people,” Mr Gibb said.

“(Right now) we have become complacent.”