IT may be 20 years since Warrnambool's Melissa Lane lost her mother and baby sister in a car accident with a cattle truck on the way home from Portland but the emotions are still raw.
Ms Lane outlined her experienced during the launch of a new program in Warrnambool aimed at reducing road trauma.
From May, Warrnambool magistrates will be able to order offenders to go through a road trauma awareness seminar, in which they will come in contact with emergency service workers and those affected by road tragedies, including accident victims and offenders.
In the meantime, Road Trauma Support Service education/program manager Chris Harrison is recruiting volunteers to be part of the education programs ? both victims and past offenders.
Ms Harrison said volunteers would need to attend two training sessions so they could put their stories together for the two-hour courses.
She said the road trauma program had run for eight years in Melbourne and in recent years had expanded across the State.
"The personal relaying of stories has by far the strongest impact, These are people standing in front of a group. It's not a video, it's real life," Ms Harrison said. The service offers free counselling to anyone affected by road trauma, such as bereaved family members, friends and colleagues, injured people and their carers, drivers, passengers, witnesses and people first on the scene.
RTSS executive officer Sarah Smyth said being able to provide road safety education in regional areas like Warrnambool was an important step.
"We see some awful collisions in rural areas and a high proportion of these involve young drivers and reckless behaviour; a recipe for disaster," Ms Smyth said.
The program will be run with the support of the Warrnambool Magistrates Court and Victoria Police with financial backing from the Warrnambool-based Roy and Joyce Uebergang Foundation.
Errant drivers can be instructed to attend the road trauma awareness seminars as part of sentencing to see how their actions have a far-reaching ripple effect on individuals and the community.
"The service is committed to educating the community and raising public awareness about road trauma and how it affects people's lives. We have developed a range of education program to assist traffic offenders and community groups," Ms Smyth said.
The executive officer said a six-week youth traffic offenders program had also been developed specifically targeting trouble young people, many of whom were repeat driving offenders.
"Often these participants have a long involvement with the justice system and are referred to the program through Youth Justice case workers," she said.
"The program is delivered over six weekly sessions of two and a half hours each," she said.
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