The Victorian Labor Government today launched Towards Zero 2016-2020 , an aspirational plan to reduce deaths on the state’s roads to below 200 by 2020.
In 2015, 252 people died as a result of road trauma. The Towards Zero approach also seeks to reduce serious injuries by 15 per cent, which impacted 4951 people in 2014/15.
The $1 billon investment aims to save lives across the state as part of Victoria’s Road Safety Strategy and Action Plan.
Victorians are four times more likely to be killed on country roads where the speeds are higher and any mistake can have deadly consequences.
A $340 million investment will address known crash black spots on more than 2,500 kilometres of rural and regional roads across the state.
Twenty high risk rural roads with significant crash histories have already been prioritised under the package, including the Hume Freeway/Highway (between Thomastown and Wodonga), Calder Freeway (between Keilor Park and Bendigo) and Geelong-Bacchus Marsh Road (between Geelong and Bacchus Marsh).
On these three roads alone, 42 people have lost their lives and 358 people have been seriously injured in the past five years.
The installation of 330km of flexible barriers on high risk, high volume 100km/hour roads is expected to reduce run-off road and head-on crashes by up to 85 per cent on these sections.
On popular motorcycle routes, additional protection will be added to make the barriers safer for motorcyclists.
$60 million will go towards road safety improvements in metropolitan Melbourne to reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries that happen in local streets and at main intersections.
Along with the loss of life, physical trauma and the emotional and health impacts, road trauma in Victoria is estimated to cost more than $3 billion per year.
The National Transport Commission (NTC) has released the Heavy Vehicle Driver Fatigue Data Final Report.
Paul Ritter, CEO of the inter-governmental agency charged with improving the productivity and safety of Australia's road, rail and inter-modal transport systems, said the research was pointed towards developing nationally-consistent reforms and frameworks to reduce fatigue.
"The regulation of driver fatigue is a complex policy issue and more detailed research needs to be done on its causes and impacts, " he said.
The fatigue data framework will also obtain further data regarding nose-to-tail shifts, where a heavy vehicle driver works two long work periods within a 24-hour period with a major rest break in between. This work will consider factors such as insufficient sleep, long work shifts, the impact of circadian rhythms and nose-to-tail schedule frequency.
This topic is of one of many of interest to the TWU, any membersexperiencing issues regarding nose-to-tail shifts may send information to jgregory@twu.asn.au
Most people do not know where to start when sorting out their superannuation fund and are confused by its basic terminology.
One such term, anecdotally, that TWU members are asking questions about is transition to retirement – which basically means that when people turn 55 years old they have the option of applying to have a small percentage of their superannuation savings made available to them each year prior to retirement.
The federal election campaign is in full-swing and many significant policies have been placed on the table. One such topic of interest to most members would be the major parties’ intentions with superannuation. The Age this week reported on foreseeable issues with the Coalition’s superannuation policy.
Voter support for the ALP continues to gather momentum in the lead-up to the 2 June Federal Election.
A Newspoll published in The Australian newspaper shows the parties locked at 51-49 in Labor's favour.
It is the fourth consecutive Newspoll putting the ALP in front.
In the same poll, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's "preferred PM" rating dropped to its lowest level since he successfully-challenged then PM Tony Abbott in September last year while Labor leader Bill Shorten enjoys his highest rating since Mr Turnbull took over.
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