South west police road safety manager Senior Sergeant Chris Asenjo said it was the community’s responsibility to reduce road trauma and called for every driver to buy into road safety.

“Police can only assist, we can’t do it alone,” he said

“We can talk about the condition of the roads or other issues, but what is causing these fatal collisions is driver behaviour. 

“It’s what’s done before drivers get in their vehicles and what they do in their vehicles that is leading to these fatalities.

“These three fatal accidents could all have been avoided,” he said.

On Wednesday night, a 16-year-old girl was killed and three of her family members injured after a collision on the Princes Highway involving a truck at Mumbannar, about 140km west of Warrnambool, near the South Australian border.

Senior Sergeant Asenjo admitted he was frustrated and angry that drivers continued to ignore the road safety message.

“What we are asking for is clear and responsible thinking by every driver.  There needs to be a change in community attitude to road safety. The message is not getting through,” he said.

“Who wants to be the next person killed on our roads?

“These accidents leave local police and other emergency service workers upset and traumatised,  but that’s nothing compared to the lifelong impact on families.”

Senior Sergeant Asenjo said that Operation Amity would run from Friday to Monday over the Australia Day long weekend.

“Police resources from Melbourne will be available as well as all available local police. There will be additional police resources deployed along the Great Ocean Road,” he said.

“What all road users need to realise is that when it all goes wrong a car becomes an uncontrolled weapon and people die.

“You have several tonnes of steel travelling at 100km/h. It can be a weapon which can and does cause trauma and deaths. 

“We want people to obey the law, but most of all we want drivers to be safe, to look after their loved ones and all other road users.”

The road policing chief said the main contributing factors in fatal accidents were hoon driving, distraction, speed, fatigue and impairment. 

“Victoria Police members are doing everything we possibly can, but the community must play its role to reduce the road toll. That’s every individual driver - that’s you,” Senior Sergeant Asenjo said. 

“We want each driver to ask themselves every time they get in a car: ‘Are you in a condition to drive?’ And during their trip they need to question whether they should still be driving. 

“There needs to be a change in driver attitude if we are going to significantly reduce the road toll. One death is too many and in this region there’s been three already this year.”

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