Serious accidents at Port Fairy and Mount Richmond have highlighted the ongoing battle facing emergency services workers leading into Tuesday's national day of road safety action.
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South West police road safety adviser Senior Sergeant Chris Asenjo said in an effort to curb the state's spiraling road toll, deputy and assistant police commissioners met and decided to focus on road trauma.
"What we are doing is shining a light on road trauma and bringing it to the forefront of the community's mind," he said.
The Victorian road toll is currently 181, that's 57 more than for the same time last year.
The south-west toll is 10 compared to eight for all of last year.
Emergency services personnel were called to accidents at Port Fairy and near Mount Richmond on Saturday.
A Mildura woman in her 30s had to be put on life support in a critical condition after suffering head and pelvic injuries in an single-vehicle accident about 3am.
Senior Sergeant Asenjo said at 7.30pm Saturday a driver with five passengers in his vehicle, including four children, swerved to avoid a kangaroo near Mount Richmond and crashed.
A woman was airlifted to a Melbourne hospital with suspected chest injuries while other people in the vehicle were taken to the Mount Gambier Hospital for observation and treatment.
"The message to all drivers is be alert, be mindful of the conditions and potential dangers and take extra care when needed," Senior Sergeant Asenjo said.
"The last thing police want to do is have to knock on a family member's door to tell them you will not be coming home."
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The road safety adviser said that from midnight Tuesday until midnight Wednesday all available police officers would be on south-west highways and arterial roads in a high visibility operation.
"A number of road blocks will be manned across the south-west using our mobile automatic number plate recognition technology," Senior Sergeant Asenjo said.
"At those road blocks officers will be engaging in conversations with with motorists as it has been shown those driver interactions can have a drastic impact on reducing road trauma."
The operation will focus on the Great Ocean Road, Princes Highway, Hamilton Highway, Glenelg Highway, Western Highway and the main arterial roads.
"We want everyone to think how their driving, bike riding, operation of a heavy vehicle or interaction with traffic as a pedestrian could be safer," he said.
"While this operation will be highly visible, we'll also be enforcing all the road rules," Senior Sergeant Asenjo said.
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