Wednesday's bus crash in Bacchus Marsh, which resulted in dozens of Ballarat school girls taken to hospitals across the state, has prompted a call to action from regional road safety advocates.
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This comes after a media conference where police said those involved in the crash avoided more serious injuries thanks to wearing seatbelts.
Community road safety advocate and pioneer Donald Gibb said the result on Wednesday morning, while tragic, was a great example of the value of mandatory seatbelt wearing.
"It is just wonderful to think that the owners of the bus, operators, teachers and students at the school were conscious of that requirement despite travelling at 3am in the morning - what many would consider a safe time," he said.
"It is a wonderful endorsement of the value of seatbelt wearing.
"There is not only a lesson there for day-to-day drivers, but every school trip, every bus trip, there is a massive lesson there for the public at large."
Mr Gibb also called for more safety measures along the Western Freeway to inform motorists about crashes and potential delays waiting around the bend.
"For the stretch from Ballan to Melton, it requires special attention in terms of road sign warnings, overhead electronic signs which would ... slow traffic down.
"My hope is that this will get local government, the CFA, SES and other groups to get together and have a forum as soon as possible in Bacchus Marsh. They could come up with recommendations for Road Safety Victoria."
Mr Gibb has a long history in the road safety movement - in the early 1970s he worked as a consultant with the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons' Road Trauma Committee to put pressure on the state government to introduce mandatory seatbelt wearing.
This was at a time when, in 1969, 1011 people died on Victoria's roads.
The committee would present the government with a 200-page road trauma safety report, which was crucial in the passing of mandatory seatbelts into Victorian law in late 1970.
The legislation was a world-first and saw the state's road death toll drop by 300 the following year.
He would go on to push for the introduction of blood testing of injured drivers in hospital in 1974, and random breath tests in 1976.
Continuing his work with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, Mr Gibb said he has seen a worrying trend of rural motorists not wearing seat belts.
"We have been conscious of the number of people in rural Victoria who don't wear their seat belt because it is a short trip," he said.
"This might apply to farmers coming out of their property to go into town. We constantly have to be reminding people."
He said the take home lesson for the Bacchus Marsh bus crash was to wear a seatbelt, no matter the time of day or how long the trip may take.
"I despair to think what would have been the result were they not wearing seat belts," he said.
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