Victorians are dying on country roads on routes they are familiar with, not far from their own homes, new analysis of the state's soaring road toll reveals.
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The state is on track to record its worst road toll in at least 14 years, following four deaths in three separate crashes on Monday night.
Transport Accident Commission chief Joe Calafiore said the figure shattered the myth among regional Victorians that it was outsiders, such as Melburnians and tourists, who were most often involved in crashes on country roads.
"The vast majority of people that are getting killed in regional Victoria are on roads that are familiar," Mr Calafiore said.
He said there was an element of denial about this within regional communities.
"One of the great challenges in road safety is how you make this a 'we' issue, not a 'they' issue," he said.
"People have in their minds, 'those bloody idiots. Not us, we're good drivers'."
Roads Minister Jaala Pulford called a summit of road safety experts due to be held on Friday, to discuss this year's sharp rise in road deaths.
Minister Pulford spoke with The Courier about the threats of distraction and mobile technology earlier in the month
Unfortunately in May alone more than 25 people have died with five alone in the Ballarat area
These including the death of two foreign nationals at Carranballac and a triple fatality at Cressy.
On the current trend, the number of deaths on country roads alone could outstrip last year's statewide road toll of 214.
In three fatal crashes on Monday night, two more people were killed on country roads. It brings the number of lives lost on the roads so far this year to 138, a 57 per cent increase on the same time last year. At 85, the death toll on regional roads is two-thirds worse than Melbourne's.
Analysis of those crashes by the Transport Accident Commission reveals that in the first three months of the year, 79 per cent of those killed in regional Victoria were within 30 kilometres of home.
But the TAC would get more than 22,000 new clients this year; people injured badly enough in a crash to end up in hospital, Mr Calafiore said.
"So it's we," he said.
Ms Pulford said there was a degree of complacency among many Victorians about road safety, including disturbing attitudes about phone use.
"Evidence and research tells us that people think it's OK to look at their phones for a couple of seconds," she said.
But Ms Pulford said speed was still the biggest culprit when people died in crashes on country roads.
"When someone is in a vehicle travelling at 100 km/h, if they get into trouble the chances of survival are really quite low," Ms Pulford said.
The summit will include police, transport agencies, the RACV, motorcycling, cycling and pedestrian advocates, and will discuss ideas ahead of the creation of a new road safety strategy for Victoria next year.
"This is a journey Victoria has been on for 50 years and we will keep at this until there are no lives lost on Victoria's roads," Ms Pulford said.
"I don't accept that the price we all pay for getting around on the roads is that people die."
The opposition's rural roads spokeswoman, Roma Britnell, has been touring regional Victoria to discuss road safety this year and said the consistent message she heard was concern about the poor condition of the roads.
"People are frightened to be driving after dark, and I'm not talking elderly people," Ms Britnell said.
In 2016 the Andrews government set a target to cut the state's annual road toll to 200 by 2020 as part of its five-year, $1.4 billion Towards Zero strategy.
But Ms Britnell said this year's toll proved the strategy was failing, and that the poor condition of the roads was a major factor in this.
"Of course the other issues like distraction, alcohol, people not wearing seatbelts, drugs, they all come into it as well, but the roads are progressively deteriorating and people are really concerned," she said.
